Italy, Slovenia & Croatia (then Slovenia & Italy again...)

[Giacomo]

Hi all,

I've been meaning to share my summer bikepacking trip with everyone on here but not sure the best way to do it. I don't have a blog or anything and not a lot of time to do a full write up of a 5 week trip.

Anyway, brief outline is as follows:

My wife and I bikepacked from Rome to Orvieto, went to a friends wedding and then picked up the Tuscany Trail in Radicofani. We followed it in reverse until Florence where we spent a few days. Then we took a train to Milan (skipping the flat boring bit between Bologna and Milan). We then cycled up into the Alps, Bormio, Passo Stelvio and picked up the South Tyrol Trail into the heart of the Dolomites. When we got to the end of the South Tyrol Trail we headed east to Slovenia and did a nice section of a loop from bikepacking.com around Triglav National Park. We spent a few days sitting out a storm in Ljubliana and spent ages with the guys from the LBS 'Pici Bici' being shown some sights and a good way to get into Croatia. From Ljubliana we then cycled south through Postojna and to the Croatian border near Opatija. From Opatija we cycled south along the coast for a few days and then across the Istrian peninsula and back North on the other side from Rovinj back through Slovenia and to Venice airport.

It took us about 5 weeks and we spent a good chunk of that eating and sleeping on beaches in Croatia near the end of our trip.

We worked out that we drank around 70 cups of coffee each.

I don't know how to upload pics or which ones I'd choose but if anyone is interested in having a look I have made my albums on Facebook 'public' so feel free to take a look. There are 5 in total, I hope you enjoy...

Section 1: https://www.facebook.com/giacomo.maltma ... 592&type=3
Section 2: https://www.facebook.com/giacomo.maltma ... 592&type=3
Section 3: https://www.facebook.com/giacomo.maltma ... 592&type=3
Section 4: https://www.facebook.com/giacomo.maltma ... 592&type=3
Section 5: https://www.facebook.com/giacomo.maltma ... 592&type=3

[Bearbonesnorm]

That looks lovely and certainly a lot of eating going on there Giacomo

[ton]

that looks amazing. proper amazing.

[Sarah]

Looks brilliant, particularly interested in the Slovenia/Croatia part, where did you find routes maps etc ?

[Giacomo]

Sarah, we crossed into Slovenia near Udine/Kobarid and then followed the Alpe Adria trail from Kobarid to Bovec (beautiful section along the Soca river). From Bovec we picked up this route and followed it all the way to postojna:

http://www.bikepacking.com/routes/bikepacking-slovenia/

From Postojna we left the route and freestyled it with some advice and suggestions from the guys in the bike shop in Ljubliana. It worked out great using a big map to give an overview of the area and OpenMTBmaps on my garmin for finding the trails etc to link it all up. We crossed the border into Croatia and immediately were off road on an vaguely exciting centuries old trail down to the coast.

In Croatia we had a rough idea of the places we wanted to visit, we bought a topographical map of Istria and again used OpenMTBmaps to find the good trails. We were very surprised at the number of cycle routes that cross Istria. All gravel tracks. All beautiful. All very very quiet. We then jumped on the Parenzana which is an old railway route that got turned into a long distance hiking/biking trail. Then we followed a bit of the Eurovelo route around the adriatic coast.

Sorry rambling on a bit now, but just reminiscing...

[Wotsits]

Fab fab fab! Looks like you had an amazing adventure!
Thanks for sharing..

[adjustablewench]

Looks amazing, 'plenty of quiet gravel tracks' sounds perfect for my list of possible trips in the future! :)

[99percentchimp]

Wow - fantastic! Vistas and food