June 22-24, 2015

The are a lot of islands off the coast of Croatia. I am sure at some point we were told how many but I forget…Our guides picked us up in Split and took us to the ferry that was taking us over to our first stop – the island of Hvar.  It was at this point that we were told, as if we should have known, that the biking was not going to be easy. In fact, it was going to be much harder than Austria.  I went into this trip foolishly thinking that because we were only biking 30 km a day and 3 of the 5 days of the trip that it would be fairly easy.  I’m pretty sure we were sold on the trip with that expectation too.   Climbing hills at a 10-12% grade for a good hour is NOT easy.  But as the story goes, I did it, never got into the van and was proud to have done it. Except for some passionate expletives, every ounce gained in the last year, only training once a week and declaring “I hate Croatia!” at the top of a particularly tough hill (with a cold coming on) – I don’t regret any of it.  Hvar was my favorite part of the tour with the group, the hotel, views and best tasting meal of the whole trip!

Giants on the ferry with us..and they didn’t think me weird at all for standing very casually between them.

Lavender fields everywhere..

Melanie led the group with Brandon stopping in all the best spots for photo ops

I truly thought this hill would never end and B was very kind to stay with me, trying to be helpful telling me it was going to flatten out around every single corner – and it didn’t. But oh my – look at those views!

We had lunch at a place that truly lives off the land. They grow everything and it’s all organic. And they had these somewhat charming, nicer than most outhouses

 

The views and the weather couldn’t have been better

B was a little tempted to make a little detour..(fun Croatia fact: they have more nudist beaches than any other country in the world. Oh yeah and they do have a Croatian language but almost everyone speaks English and almost every sign and menu is in both languages.)

These were our guides Marco and Vanja – pronounced Vanya – Vanja was definitely my favorite and when I mentioned my observation of giants he told us that Croatia is the 2nd tallest country in the world – next to Holland.  He and B had some really good conversations as they were bringing up the rear on the bikes waiting for me.

After making it to the top of that killer hill, we got to ride downhill into the town where we were staying. About 5 minutes into the downhill, a bee decided to fly down my shirt and sting me on my stomach. I was going pretty fast but I managed to smash it and pull it out of my shirt but it stung like a mother the whole way down. When we got to the bottom I lifted up my shirt and the stinger was still stuck. hold on…let me recall my pity party for a sec…ok …then we walked through the harbor town to our beautiful lavender decorated hotel Adriana and I was good.

After my sea bass incident the night before – I thought lobster linguine would be a safe bet not having figured out that everything is cooked straight from the sea – however, after I removed the meat and rid the linguine of the exoskeleton, it was the most delicious meal of the trip!

The view from our hotel of Hvar town at night.

The next day we took a break from biking and went kayaking. We paddled past the 29th largest yacht in the world (I googled it) just to keep with the giant theme Brandon snapped B and I going by. I was supposed to steer from the back and B was supposed to be the power from the front – but I sadly remembered from youth conference a few years back that my ability to steer a kayak is about as good as my skill with a frisbee once we were too far past shore to switch. Needless to say, it was a bit of a fiasco until we switched after lunch and then he both powered it and steered and I pretended to actually be helpful paddling.

Way up on the hillside of Hvar town that you have to climb many many steps to get to is another restaurant where they grow almost every thing. He had everyone picking stuff for our dinner from his garden. This chef even collects his own salt and makes these delicious juices out of sour cherry, sage and mint.

This is the sour cherry, but I was surprised that I liked the sage the best. All the restaurants were a little thrown by our being teetotalers so we were made these sort of teas instead.

Cherie, as the good friend that she is, was always on the lookout for something good for me to eat