Thursday 17 June 2010 Pivka (Slovenia) to Kostrena (Croatia)

Thursday 17 June 2010 Pivka (Slovenia) to Kostrena (Croatia) 70km
The day dawned sunny, welcome but not expected given the forecast we had received.  We ate our breakfast and as a bit of a shock the landlord offered us ham and eggs which we accepted with some delight.  Pivka sits at 570m elevation and today we expect to reach the Croatian coast so theoretically we'd drop 570m elevation so we didn't expect too much climbing and we were not disappointed.  We were however disappointed about leaving Slovenia so soon after arriving, the people were friendly, the villages had character and the landscape was beautiful lush forests.  It just had a welcoming atmosphere and we could have really spent more time there.  Nevermind!


The ride out of Pivka was through some of the lushest, greenest forest and all downhill.  Apart from the traffic which was a bit 'scary-pants' at times it was an amazing first 20km where we averaged 28kph.  At the Croatian border finally got a stamp in our passports, the first since the UK (they stamped us in but not out).  Border crossing have been non-existant until today ie a real crossing with guys with guns and a neutral zone in between.  Slovenia stamped us out (they didnt stamp us in) but Croatia, seeing our Aussie passport just waved us through.  Very cool all this EU stuff.


We got back on the road and we just couldn't believe how the countryside changed, we had left Alpine forest and were in drier, almost Mediterranean hills.

The houses were different and we immediately felt great.  We were still at about 400m so we still had some downhill to go and as we approached the coast the fun sort of left the ride as the traffic increased and the drivers did not have some much of the courtesy we had grown accustomed to.  No shoulder and countless trucks and buses as we wound our way into Rijeka which is a major city in the north of Croatia.  It was very rustic (read beat up) and very charming but the traffic did a lot to prevent us really admiring it.

On the map there were three campsites marked and we were headed for the first one except when we got to where we thought it should be it was not.  No problem the next one is only just down the road.  More buses, more trucks and again a missing campsite.  After asking a couple of locals who didnt speak much English we saw a nice Restaurant/B&B and called it a day.  We were hot and our nerves a bit fried from riding in the traffic.

What a shock, the restaurant is so cool and the room amazing and pretty cheap.  We then walked down to the beach and had our first swim in the ocean since leaving Australia.

The 'sand' is a bit hard on your feet!!

It was devine, although the pebble beach is a bit rough on one's feet.  Later that night we had a beer on the terrace looking across the Adriatic and made a toast that we were still alive and survived the day.

Our room

Our hotel