I traveled from May 1 to June 14. I arrived on May 2 and flew out on June 14; 43 days of cycling, and 43 nights.
Italy: 24 nights
Slovenia: 5 nights
Croatia: 4 nights
Bosnia: 7 nights
Montenegro: 3 nights
(San Marino: 1 day)
I spent eight days not cycling. 2630 km – an average of 61 km /day total, or 75 km / day for days I rode. I rode 139 km on my longest day, and while only a couple of other days were ~100+ km, ~10 days were in the 95-99 km range.
I spent 16 nights camping, 21 nights in hostels, 5 nights in hotels/B&Bs and 1 night on a ferry. That works out to be 37 % of my nights camping, 49% of my nights in hostels, and 14% of my nights in “other.” Not that far off from my usual 40/40/20 split, with more non-camping in Croatia and Bosnia (land mines!). When stressed I prefer hostels, and hotels/B&Bs simply because of fewer opportunities to camp. Near the end of the trip I sought out campgrounds, both to economize and because I felt better.
At a simple level, I spent $2015, or $46 / day. An increase over my usual average $42, driven almost entirely by increased strength of the euro. I also visited multiple attractions that cost > $20.
I had planned to spend less time in Italy, cycling instead into Albania. However, by the time I reached Montenegro, I was tired of the Baltic. Narrow roads with high traffic. Crawling up steep mountains. Land mines. Tunnels. At that three-week point if someone had offered me an easy way home I would have taken it. I realized I only cycled towards Albania to say I’d been to Albania, and then for so little time it wouldn’t feel like I’d been in Albania anyway! Arriving in Italy, at least one iteration of my plan had been to cycle across the mountains to Rome. Instead I decided I was done with mountains, and cycled up the flat Italian coast with ready camping and beaches, a respite I desperately needed.
I had the worst cycling accident I’ve had in decades (even on tour, once being hit by a car in France did no damage). In the short term I sewed up the pannier and a bicycle shop substituted an alternate shifter. I didn’t do much damage to myself except for my pride, and the bandages weren’t that expensive (although it took a few tries to convey “Band-Aid” to the pharmacy). Longer-term, I’ll have to replace that broken shifter, and likely the panniers, for about $300.
Working back through the photos and blog has been good, reminding me of good things that were just washed out from my Baltic struggles. I’m not quite certain what’s next, but I’ll come up with something!
