Well, the littlest hobo can’t stay in town forever. I had to leave the little paradise of Slano and head south toward Montenegro. I had considered stopping in Dubrovnik, but the closer I got, the traffic sucked, I got honked at more by impatient drivers, and when I turned the corner and saw Dubrovnik city and several ridiculously humongous unnaturally large cruise ships, I figured I didn’t need to go there at all. So just kept going on the main road. Yes it’s a beautiful old European walled city, one that I missed. But I’ve seen similar ones before…

As I had started out about 7 AM, I didn’t have any breakfast this morning because I figured I would just stop somewhere along the way after a couple of hours. Well that turned out to be after Dubrovnik, close to noon and I had a lovely plate of tagliatelle with bits of chicken and prosciutto and wonderful super tasty stewed tomatoes. Very enjoyable lunch!

Yeah you can probably tell I do include a lot of photos of the food because I guess when you’re biking, food is a pretty significant thing, I’ve had some great food so far and some not great food, but nothing really horrible yet. Well except that hamburger in Slano with Jonny that I put all the salt on when I was cramping that turned out I couldn’t even eat it!

The couple I had met yesterday at the restaurant who were on a sailboat, they had mentioned I should check out this area called Gruda. So that was sort of my target for the day, about 40 miles.

Sidenote, Google maps are/is pretty cool. In the US, there is usually the option of biking routes, not so here or most other places I’ve been outside the USA. But what I have been doing is following the walking routes, and so far they’ve been fantastic! It may not always be perfect in the sense that sometimes you end up on ridiculously steep hills you have to walk up, remember I have 100 pound bike??? But it does get you off the main highways whenever possible and that’s really a delight.

So the last 15 km of my route today was off the highway and suddenly I’m in the middle of a wine region, just so beautiful and lovely. And virtually no traffic.

What is it about being in wine country that evokes the sense of peacefulness and makes you feel like you’re part of a historical tale when you cycle through the Vineyards and glance at the small wineries as you ride by. You know exactly what I’m talking about, whether in California or the Willamette Valley in Oregon, or up in Washington. Of course some of the Alaskans may remember the Milk Winery? Remember that place was out there past Willow somewhere? I remember it… But I digress!

So I made it to Gruda on this peaceful road through vineyards with the mountains in the background. Once I got into this very small town that has maybe three or four restaurants, I started looking for lodging.

I guess I didn’t mention I got here about 130PM and by then it was about 86’ and I felt like I had plenty of riding for the day. So I found this place, that is both a restaurant and a place that has a few rooms. It’s this beautiful old restored stone building from long ago, what a treat to have found and checked into the room with no air-conditioning, but plenty of windows open to get some airflow. Link:

koraceva-kuca.business.site

The guy I rented from, when I asked him about a restaurant nearby, he recited pretty much his whole menu at this place and it sounds so fantastically delicious! So I’m excited about just staying right here and eating right here and sleeping right here. It’s a peaceful place, and being away from the ocean is just fine for now.

I’m just sidenote, while I was out hanging my laundry, some swallows who were building nests nearby must’ve flew into my room as there are bits of mud on top of the perfectly white sheets now, I’ll have to let them know in the morning I didn’t do that! Ha ha!

Today might’ve been the first day that I sort of felt ok in my own cycling skin, no cramps, I was hot but I was never toast, legs did fine, basically had a really enjoyable day cycling and especially landing at this fantastic little place is pretty cool.

And while the restaurant doesn’t open til 4, they were kind enough to get me a cold dark Tomislav 7.2% beer! It’s rare to see one over 5% here, unlike most US breweries these days.

Will head downstairs to din around 6pm and update after…

Funny after I noticed the mud on the bed, now I’ve been in the room a while and the swallows have come in at least a dozen times and I have to shoo them out. Cool!

Route update: so because I’m moving (pleasantly) slower than I had originally planned, I don’t think there’s any point in heading further south all the way to Tirana, Albania; which was going to be my southernmost point. I’ve enjoyed all these beautiful days along the ocean, but all along I knew had had to turn east at some point. Looks like I’ll just do it a little sooner than planned. I do definitely want to get to Skopje, North Macedonia. Boro‘s dad lives there and it’s always nice to connect with someone you know even if you really can’t speak with them much. So that means I need to turn left tomorrow or the next day for sure, heading southeast toward Macedonia through Montenegro. That means I will pretty much skip Albania, but you can’t go everywhere on the same trip!

So this is my route so far and my likely direction.

The dinner report: I ordered beef soup, mixed salad, and gnocchi with pancetta. All very good although the soup was so damn hot I burned my tongue on the first taste, I hate that when that happens! More remarkable was the green mixed salad which was mostly leaf salad, but there is no doubt those leaves were picked out of somebody’s garden today. One of the freshest salads I’ve ever had. (Except for yours on Ak years ago, Bridg!) And the gnocchi, well that is just basically a big dumpling bits, is it not? But it was bits and pieces with tasty pancetta and some kind of a sauce so that was really good. Of course because I’m in the wine region, all the food is nearly double the price of what I had previously been paying so I guess that’s what you gotta put up with when you’re here/there.

Overall a good (Hot!) day and a nice place to stay, with very few customers for dinner. No air-con in the room is a little bit of a downside as I really appreciate being able to kill all the mosquitoes in the room and then turn on the air con. Yeah, mosquitoes here for sure!

I realize I haven’t taken many photos today as I look through them, bypassing Dubrovnik was brilliant I think, but I regret not having some photos of it; but in reality, anybody can just go look on the Internet and find Dubrovnik photos. So I guess I don’t regret it! One less regret is a good thing!

So as of this moment, I plan to skip Budva which is a place I wanted to see, but I imagine it’s a smaller version of split or Dubrovnik. I will continue inland southeast to Kotor tomorrow enroute to Skopje.

Thanks everyone for the comments, it’s very much appreciated and enjoyable to read! I hope all of you take good care…

PS: wifi here problematic for photos so will add more tomorrow…