Day 19: Our lucky day to Dubrovnik

Kotor – Dubrovnik 72.01km 🚴‍♀️ 4.39.27 ⏱ 15.7km/hr ⬆️ 866m ⬇️ 812m

Another early wake up call at 5:30am. This is worse than a work week! Today would be our 7th day in a row on the bike, so we were pretty tired 😴. We were also both pretty anxious 😧 about today, because we would be facing long stretches on an extremely busy and quite dangerous highway which other cyclists had warned us about. We forgot to pay for our stay yesterday so we had to wake up the owners of the apartment as well, whoopsie 🙈.

The first ten kilometres to the ferry ⛴ that would take us to the other side of the water were great. We cycled through these neat little towns by the water 🌊 with huge mountains ⛰ all around us protecting us from the rising sun ☀️ . The ferry ⛴ just left when we arrived, but we didn’t have to wait ferry long for the next one.

On the other side luckily 🍀 we were able to cycle along the coast boulevard instead of taking the very busy main road. The boulevard at this hour was still okay, but we can imagine it will be busy with beach 🏖 public waking up for another lazy day of baking in the sun ☀️ . Lots of speed bumps to avoid which means a lot of stop and start. With our heavy bikes this costs a lot of energy, but so worth avoiding that busy road higher up the hill.

We stopped for a coffee ☕️ and some cookies 🍪 in Herceg Novi, preparing ourselves for what we thought would be a terrible couple of hours on the nr. 8 main highway leading up to the Croatian border. Just after we left the cafe Mas spotted a tourist info centre ℹ️. She went inside to ask if the other, much smaller, border control had opened already. We had been told by our Belgian cyclist friends 🚴 🚴 🚴 this one was closed down for some months. It happened to be our lucky day 🍀! The control point had just opened again a few days ago, so we were able to avoid the highway and take a smaller coastal road. It did mean we had to cover some extra kilometres and double our climbing for the day, but there was no discussion. 

So up we went! We were almost alone on the road. Can count the cars that passed us on one hand 🤚 . The road was beautiful, great tarmac, even better views. The climbing was tough and long, but we loved it. We cycled into Croatia 🇭🇷 without any trouble. There wasn’t even a line to cut. Only a huge uphill right after. 

After we crossed the border we met an English couple 👱🏻‍♀️👦🏻 who had been cycling across Montenegro 🇲🇪 for the past three weeks. We had a little chat and cycled on. A little later we saw them again. Including the dude’s man parts when he was taking a leak by the side of the road and using his free hand to wave at us 👋🏻. That would be the first one of three we would see today. Like I said, a lucky day it was 🍀.

The only downside of this road: there was no shops, no little bar or coffee place. There was nothing. Suuz was hungry for food and a cold drink 🍹 , but was disappointed again and again in every little village. There was just nothing there! Cause of all the climbing we were really slow as well and thought we wouldn’t make the 12.30 boat from Cavtat to Dubrovnik. We were nervous about taking the boat 🚣‍♀️ , because we weren’t sure the bikes 🚲 🚲 would be allowed on the boat. If they turned us down it would mean an extra 20km and 350m climbing on an extremely busy and dangerous highway running along a cliff. Something we really wanted to avoid.

Since it’s our lucky day 🍀 we could have left our worries on the pillow. A sweet downhill brought us straight into the harbor of Cavtat. There were numerous boat tour stands and they were all offering to take us and our bikes to Dubrovnik. We settled with Adriana Boat Tours. The captain 👨‍✈️ carried our bikes onto the boat and that was it. After a 45-minute relaxed boat ride, and being flashed with two more male reproductive organs, we stepped off the boat into Dubrovnik old city, oh the joy 🍀. 

We had to navigate our bikes up through the old town into the main road while avoiding the herds of tourists. Just outside the old city we went into the first restaurant we saw, Gusto Me, and ate a delicious fish burger 🍔 with fries 🍟 . After lunch we killed some time with a tonic espresso ☕️ and a cold brew ☕️ at Cortigo coffee next door before cycling the last 3km (uphill) to our apartment for the next three nights. We were so looking forward to some rest!

When we arrived at the specified address we found out we had to climb 150 stairs (Mas counted it) to our final destination. Dubrovnik is the city of stairs, so this was to be expected. Suuz called the owner Ivan 👨🏻 and he came to pick us up on his scooter 🏍 to guide us to another route that would take us to the top of the stairs, which would be easier he said. Since he was on a scooter it probably seemed easy to him. For us it meant climbing another very steep 💯 meters in about 1km. To make up for this Ivan carried all our bags down about 70 stairs 💪🏻. The apartment Mas’ twin sister had booked was amazing though 😍. It’s huge and has all the things we could wish for right now: AC, a pool, a washing machine, nice big beds and great company: Mas twin sister 👩🏻 and her husband 👨🏻would be joining us that evening to spend the weekend with us 🎉. 

Having cycled more than 1100kms since we left Athens it’s now time to chill at our private pool 🏊‍♀️ and, at some point, join the herds of tourists in Dubrovnik for some sightseeing. Last but not least, the three things we’ll miss from the third country, Montenegro 🇲🇪:

1. The immense mountains;
2. The fairytale city of Kotor;
3. The nice border police.