Sunday August 17, after a last dive in the lake, we left Bled. We crossed Jecenice, and then discovered a cycle track along the main road; it guided us through fields with such a mastery that the whirring of cars became soon nothing more than a memory. Only torrents sometimes broke the peace of the ride. Exhaust gaz, almost undetectable on European roads, were this time remarkably absent: the air was so pure that each fragrance took the force of a perfume. And among these perfumes, there was pine. The headiest of all. Which was flooding our nostrils and purifying our neurons each time we passed a wood stock… Only a few hundred meters away from the main road, we were however swimming in a sovereign countryside.

The cycle track, very quiet around Jecenice, becomes little by little a real cycle motorway as we approached Kranjska Gora. The village seemed to be the focal point for all cyclists in the neighbourhoods. Many families… but also daredevil cyclists who had come here to enjoy the many ski slopes converted into mountain biking slopes.

We crossed the city and, a few km further, forked on the right towards our last Slovenian uphill.

18% during 3km: short but violent!

We had to dismount and push our bikes several times, but the slope gave up before us: we arrived at the top… and entered Austria!

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Marine and Marina flew back to France on August 10, and a few hours after the take-off they were already touching the Parisian tarmac… When on our side, at this hour, the day had hardly come to start: we were still in Zagreb and most probably having breakfast in a park. The advantage when you travel by bicycle is that you never have your time of departure printed on a ticket! We then walked in downtown Zagreb, which left us completely indifferent. Zagreb is not the most charming capital of the World, and even less when it is anaesthetized by the typically European Sunday sleepiness.

So on August 10, we also started our journey back to France. Obviously, we were not going to find our native land within a few hours. But within a few hours, we found Slovenia !

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Incontestably, Split will have been the meeting point of this trip. Damien’s family had hardly taken off when Marine’s plane touched the tarmac. The next morning it was Marina’s turn to land, and in the evening Léo got off the train and realized with relief that his legs had survived the 26h-trip!

On Saturday August 2, after a nice reunion evening in Diocletian Palace the day before and a breakfast in front of the Adriatic in the morning, we were ready. A short parade on the paving stones along the esplanade, and our bicycles touched the asphalt: we had 8 days and 500km in front of us. Zagreb here we come!

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ENORMOUS GOOD NEWS N°1 : Léo has come back in the adventure !

ENORMOUS GOOD NEWS N°2 : Marine and Marina have joined us for 10 days between Split and Zagreb, in Croatia !

ENORMOUS GOOD NEWS N°3 : Léo has brought the batteries with him, we are back on functional ELECTRIC bikes !

As promised, here are in pictures these 300km in Bosnia-Herzegovina and 100km in Croatia which carried me from Tuzla to Split!

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A mosque, lost in the middle of the countryside.
Whereas Orthodox church towers reign supreme on the Serb spiritual landscape (90% of the population is Orthodox), the dominant religion in Bosnia-Herzegovina is Islam (45% of the population is Muslim) and minarets rise even in the most remote villages.

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