A very easy day today which consisted of a 25km ride to Preko, a ferry to the mainland and a few kms into Zadar. From there I got the catamaran to Pula.
I had intended going to some other islands on the way, but it was too complicated and I would have spent two days sitting on ferries. This way, I spend athe afternoon on a ferry, then I can ride around the Istrian Peninsula at a very leisurely pace and be in Trieste by June 22.
Pasman remained the same as yesterday – so laid back and sleepy with few tourists. It’s not as spectacular as some places but it looks really relaxing.
At Preko, I had an hour to wait, so I ate too much Burek and had a terrible coffee. It didn’t matter. It was still a great day.
Getting onto the ferry, I met Brian and Claire from north of Toronto. They’re heading to Paris to see the Olympics. It turns out that they met while competing in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal – both are rowers. We rode into Zadar together and found the ferry ticket office.
That’s where I found out it was an all day trip to get part of the way to Krk whi thought was a smart place to go – it has a bridge to the mainland and I thought that made it quite flexible for me. But spending all day – 9am to 4pm to get to Losinj, then the next day to Krk just didn’t make sense. So I decided on the ferry to Pula, went to the other ticket office and it was closed, then went to the boat and there was nobody there. All of this decision making and going through my options had taken an hour.
That’s when Greg rode up. He’s a 75 year old from San Francisco and is a wealth of information. He told me I could by a ticket on board as he had done it in the other direction a few days ago.
When I returned later, Greg, Brian and Claire were taking the same boat. Bikes aren’t normally allowed but if you pay double, they’ll let you on. Brian and Claire got a better deal somehow. Croatia is the only country I’ve been to, that treats bikes in such a haphazard and corrupt way. From Dubrovnik, the extra (cash only) that I paid went went straight into one guys pocket.
We arrived in Pula at about 8 or 9pm, and Greg knew a good hostel, so we went there, dumped our gear and quickly found a restaurant. We were both starving.
