cycling in croatia

[rigormortis]

did a very enjoyable, though sadly pretty wet, cycle trip last year from glasgow to inverness via mull.

We are thinking of doing a trip this summer of doing maybe a ten day trip in croatia. Initial thoughts are to fly into one of split or dubrovnik and maybe island hope.

I used this site last year and found the responses useful. I wonder if anybody had done a cycle trip to croatia and what they did.

One thing that springs to mind is how to get the bike bags to our final destination for the flight home.

we have road bikes, so would be looking to stay on road, aim is to camp, wild or in campsites.

many thanks for any suggestions.

 

[elduderino]

I did part's of Croatia (Island hopping down to Zardar) in the summer of this year. Beautiful country, but man it was hot, it hit 43 degrees one day with a night time temperature of 34(in my tent anyway). Every day was at least 40 degrees.

The main coastal road was pretty busy (mostly tour buses and campervans) to the point that it wasn't very enjoyable and also very hilly, constantly up and down. Once away from the main roads though the cycling was bliss, traffic free and the roads were of good quality too.

The islands were a true highlight, especially Pag. Campsites were plentiful and wild camping looked quite easy. On the island of Krk there was an excellent cycle path that followed the main road.

I'd loved to have spent a bit more time in Croatia. I've a few photo's on my blog (starting here http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=RrzKj&page_id=125032&v=1P ), but I still haven't done a write up yet.

 

[rigormortis]

great thank you

 

[psmiffy]

In late august 2005 I did a circular tour from Venice down to Ancona (fairly quickly by my standards as coast apart from Venice is not that interesting) and across to Split then Zadar - Pag through islands and back to Venice - fairly easy 2 weeks

I left my bike bag in the left luggage at Marco Polo - not cheap but it was something I had budgeted for

Traffic on Croatian roads was not that bad - scenery was barren but beautiful - Reasonable number of campsites - as elduderino said it was pretty warm

Do not know what the laws about wild camping were in Croatia but I got grilled for about an hour at the northern border by an officious border guard ??? vagrant - so keeping a few accomadation receipts might be a good idea

 

[Bodhbh]

Last May I came down from Hungary thru Zagreb, then over the mountains, ferry over to Pag and down to Zadar. Trafficwise, the short bit of the coast road I did wasn't that bad, but I guess I was out of peak season. What did give me a fright was the inland road between Karlovac and Split, which was mental and I had to bail out (military trucks, convoys, coaches, A-road, not enough room to overtake you). With the exception of Zagreb I didn't see a single other tourist the whole time until I got within 10miles of the coast then was a fair few campervans. So if worth looking inland if you want to get away from that, but depends what you want. So really nice scenery in the hills NW-ish of Zagreb and coming over to the coast. Would really have liked to go down furtehr to the area you're talking about, but oh well not the time. Temp was in the mid/high 20s in the day.

 

[planik]

Camping Croatia Planik Zadar Dalmatia

if you pass near Zadar in the direction of Pag visit Camping Planik
There you can rent a tent for best price, use internet caffe and more...

 

[planik]

Camping Croatia Planik Zadar Dalmatia

if you pass near Zadar in the direction of Pag visit Camping Planik
There you can rent a tent for best price, use internet caffe and more...

 

[BalkanExpress]

Sorry, coming to this a bit late.

Concerning the bike bag there are a few threads on here about the ground effect tardis which may be the answer, or not as the case may be.

Given the choice I'd go for island hopping, less traffic even in high summer and some of teh islands are stunning. the downside is that prices are higher (in general) on the Islands than the mainland (plus the Croatian Kuna has not devalued against the Euro so is relatively more expensive than it was 2-3 years ago if you convert into pounds).l

The coast road can be very busy high season and is best avoided at weekends. As pointed out the Karlovac Split road can also be very bad. sometimes this is because people do not want to pay the motorway toll, sometimes because bits of the motorway are shut due to high winds. As a rule national roads are busy and relatively narrow and are best avoided however, by and large though regional and local roads will be very quiet and will make for good riding.