Day-6 May 21

Dubrovnik(Croatia) to Split(Croatia)

With a bright & sunny day ahead, we have an improvised breakfast in our room from the supplies we picked from the bakery & supermarket the previous night.

We kit up and hit the road for another long ride almost entirely sticking  on the E65 highway along the beautiful Adriatic coast line, with the turquoise blue water on our left and the rugged mountains on our right.

We pass the towns of Zaton, Orasac, Slano and then reach the international border at Neum which strangely on this route is the tiny Bosnian border outpost located on a small stretch of few kms of Bosnia & Herzegovina that runs in between Croatia and hence we again had to make a border crossing & stamp our passports in & out at one go!

We continue and a little further along the route our stomachs started signaling its midday and hence we stopped for a lunch break at a place in Opuzen which was a hotel, restaurant and surprisingly a convention center on a isolated part of the highway with hardly any civilization in sight nearby.

The route itself with its unending twisty roads for more than 250kms was a bikers playground with spectacular scenery best captured in the mind in 3D vision……a camera just cant do justice to nature’s offerings here in 2D!! This route happily reinforces the fact that riding a motorcycle is a great way to see the Adriatic coast in all its glamour & glory.

We continue our cruise on the E65 passing Gradac, Drvenik, Podgora, Makarska, Dugi Rat again thru some spectacular twisty & curvy roads enjoying every single mile we are crunching.

Some more kms of riding and we slowly make our way into the concrete jungle called Split, our final destination for the day. It’s a warm day and although we had to go thru a lot of congested streets, lady GPS obediently deposits us to our pre-booked B&B Apartment Dryad.

From the outside the building looked a little underwhelming and I knew my travel manager behind me may be a little tense inside her helmet thinking she made a wrong choice of accommodation. But when we walked into the place, it was the largest room we stayed on our trip. It was clean, spacious and the pantry was well stocked and the caretaker was a gem of a guy.

We soon had a wash and changed into regular ‘camera around neck & backpack tourists’ and headed into downtown which was a 10 minute walk, where we visited the Unesco heritage site Diocletian Palace, Green market etc. Again pet dogs (without a leash which terrifies Mrs Adventure!) seem to be a big part of life here as we see plenty in all shapes & sizes taking a stroll with their masters, but mostly well trained & well behaved. So finally finished another brilliant riding day on the Adriatic.

We strolled around the local bazaar and also picked up a kebab dinner at a small kiosk and enjoyed it in the open and then head back to the B&B for bedtime.