Pag – Barbat 52.09km 🚴🏼♀️ 3.26.11 ⏱15.2 km/hr ⬆️ 785m ⬇️ 760m 🌡29C
Today was the day we were a little anxious about. We had to take two ferries ⛴and cycle on ‘the 8’ road again on the mainland for 20 kilometres. Also, from Pag we planned on taking a secondary road and you just never know how that works out. We asked the guy at the apartment, since he rents out bikes, and he told us they may not have finished repairing the road yet. We asked the lady at the tourist info ℹ️ in Pag and she told us it is open and all paved. Otherwise she would have known it. She didn’t really seem like she knew what she was talking about, so we expected a few unpaved stretches, which is not a huge problem as long as it’s no sand or loose gravel, so we took the risk.
Since it was Sunday morning and Pag is this crazy party island, and us party 🎉poopers 💩stayed home and went to bed 🛌early on a Saturday night, we were probably the only ones up. We were happy cyclists this morning. The view was amazing, the road was great, fresh tarmac under our tires. But not for long. The road got gravely and sandy and went up and down and up and down for a long time. At some point the road was blocked, we got around it on something that looked like a track and got back on the road after a bit. There was this block on the other side, but we were able to push our bikes across it. After some more climbing we were back on the paved road and which soon merged with the main road. Still hardly any traffic 👌🏻.
A few kilometres before the boat we got a little nervous about missing it because the incline was much more than Google Maps had told us. But as always, after an incline, there’s a decline. A really cool one this time. Going down, descending the moon 🌙, all the way into the open mouth 👄 of the ferry ⛴.
We ordered a quick machine-made espresso to drink on the boat and it didn’t even taste that bad. It was our first one of the day, so we were probably craving our caffeine ☕️ fix. It was only a fifteen minute ride to the mainland so we stayed below deck with the bikes. Most of the time we are allowed to go on the boat before all the other traffic and we get off the boat first as well. This time we decided we would let all the cars 🚗🚙 exit first before cycling all the way up to the main D8 coastal road. We knew it would be a great climb with hair pin turns and we would have the road for ourselves if all the cars left before us. It was a pretty intense climb, 200m incline in 2.5km, but the view of moon 🌙island on our right side every other turn was pretty cool.
When we were all the way up we took a left turn onto the coastal road, the one we feared, crazy number 8…. and it was absolutely empty. It was Sunday and still a little early, but this was not what we expected. A few cars passed us in the 20 kilometres we had to cycle on this road but that was about it. The view was amazing again and the road was just perfect. The only traffic on the road seemed to come from the ferry we were heading towards.
It took us about an hour and a half to cycle to the exit to the next ferry ⛴from where we had an awesome downhill that led us to the second, and last, boat of the day. We had gotten hungry, Suuz especially, and ordered a cheese tosti and a hamburger at the food stall by the ferry. We devoured it.
After a 15 minute boat ride we got to Rab island 🌴 where we only had to cycle about eight kilometres to the apartment for the night in a small coastal town called Barbat. It was a little tough and the sun 🌞 was burning on our body again.
Just before noon we knocked on the door of this elderly couple 👴🏼👵🏻 who offered us a cold glass of juice before we unpacked the bikes. The lady did our stinky laundry and after we got back from the beach 🏖 she hang everything out to dry 👌🏻. We specifically told her not to, but she did it anyway. Thanks Marija!
We really love ❤️ Barbat. Our apartment was great and clean, the ocean 🌊was clear and refreshing, we had some good espressos ☕️and chilled at a restaurant after our swim for an hour or so.
For tomorrow we have a real early morning planned so we went for dinner pretty early as well. It was by far our best dinner in Croatia until now. The place is called ‘Leut’, a little bit expensive but definitely worth every kuna 💵. Suuz ordered a seafood spaghetti 🦐🦑🐙 and Mas a grilled fish with orzo, accompanied by a delicious Chardonnay from Istria, Croatia’s best known wine region. We finished by sharing a slice of homemade chocolate cake 🍰 hot from the oven. It was a great evening.
The next morning we wanted to catch the six o’clock ferry ⛴ about 18km from our apartment with a few uphills bits, so the alarm was set at 3.45am. On the joy. You will read tomorrow how that worked out!
Lekker dagje 😀