30th July

Island of KRK, Croatia to Treviso, Italy

I woke up with a small headache about 9.30am – late for the first time.  This was because we spent a lovely evening at cable KRK bar talking with Varna, the lady who had kindly organised free accommodation, wake boarding and breakfast for us. She’s a lovely lady and is fully supportive of our challenge, (having had cancer in her own family).  It was one of those evenings where you just don’t notice the time and when you finally think to do a time check, you’re surprised to see it’s 3.30am.   Great company and good memories.  I shall definitely return to Croatia – it’s beautiful, relaxed and the people are just great.

Tris had got up early to take photos of Lovro Klepac wake boarding in the bay with his friend Daniel.  Lovro is ranked 4th in junior mens.  I had a swim later and tried to get a sun tan, (I think the sun is actually bleaching me), before we left for the next leg of our journey.  We’d prebooked a room in Treviso instead of Vicenza on our way to Milan and we set off late afternoon in the baking sun.  We had to stop more often than usual to take fluids on board. 

Riding conditions were good, (apart from the heat), the landscape was a lush green again but the roads were very busy.  Basically, the Italian drivers like to use bully tactics in order to advance – there may be 3 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic but they will sit on your tail in the fast lane until you squeeze yourself into the middle lane and let them pass.  If you refuse to budge, they will flash you until you get the message.  It’s a bit hairy but entertaining too.  We crossed a border and thinking we were in Italy, Tris said ‘Grazie’ to the border guards who looked a little amused and try to tell us something.  Later we realised we’d actually crossed the border into Slovenia and still had the Italian border to cross.  There were no guards at the Italian border, I think they’d gone for lunch.

Tris got annoyed with me; having headsets with voice activation is ideal for effortless communication between bikes but it can be distracting too.  I admit to being a bit of a stress head and my natural reaction to mad drivers involves one or a combination of the following expressions: “OOOoooooh you b###gger!! (and worse)/  ooooooerrrr!/ Arggggggggghhhh!  Each of these is accompanied by a sharp intake of breath and it activates blue tooth communication every time which makes Tris jumpy and drives him crazy.  He’s taken to switching me off to get some peace.  I’ve tried biting my lip instead of speaking but this tactic only works for so long before I forget and let go with the next expletive. 

We were driving until 10pm and the number of expletives increased the later it got because I could see drivers nearly nudging Tris’s bike and trying to overtake in inappropriate places.  Naturally, I couldn’t not warn him about the dangerous drivers on his back.  We lost it a bit with each other after Sat Nav failed to find our destination for us and we had to stop at an ice cream parlour for directions.  I very nearly asked a butch looking prostitute at a closed petrol station for directions but Tris wasn’t keen.  Finally, we drew up outside a dodgy looking bar and were just trying to sum up the energy to get off the bikes and take off some gear before asking the way when Tris looked across the road and said “There it is!! – we’re looking at it!”. 

We were very relieved to arrive.  The decor was very ‘interesting‘.  “If you have many desires, your life will be very interesting.” was written in big lettering on a wall inside.  The halls smelt of cheap aftershave and perfume because there were giant perfume dispensers outside the rooms.  It was clean, spacious and there was air con which was most welcome because the temperature had been rising since Ljubljana.  The proprietor was a very helpful Italian man and the mini bar was full of reasonably priced cold drinks.  We tucked in and I ate some peanuts for tea.  We decided to head off early the next morning before the heat of the day set in and fell asleep just before 1am.