Another hill to climb

If Monday’s cycle was hard, Tuesday’s was gruelling. Almost 60 km with about 3500 feet of elevation gain on the island of Korčula. For lunch we stopped at a local residence for a typical Croatian Meal - of course lots of grilled meat. Accompanied by the local, homemade wine posit. 

Lamb, chicken, pork, yummy sausages. 

(For a country with so much coastline fish is almost an exception.) We ended the day with a 15 percent grade - downhill fortunately. 

Each little port we moor in is jammed with yachts, catamarans, sailboats, fishing vessels. In fact we often have to double, triple park so that one night, in order to get to shore we had to go through 3 other boats we were alongside. There have been up to 6 boats tethered together. 

This boat is loaded with fish traps:

Each of these villages is full of ancient history but honestly it’s all starting to blur together. This morning we also had a lesson describing more recent Croatian history. To say the last 100 years has been turbulent might be an understatement. Even the democratic government of today is thought to be quite  corrupt. 

This is one of the few non coastal villages we visited and is typical of the stone buildings and red roofs perched on a hillside. 

There are about 30 in our cycling group - a group of 12 Swiss (including 4 sisters!), a British couple, a German couple, 2 sisters from Australia and New Zealand, a group of 9 Australians (which actually includes a couple from Ottawa), and Karin from Germany who is quite comfortable changing into her bathing suit on the beach.  In fact, George (the Scotsman from England) thinks she’s only got the bathing suit on to keep US comfortable. 

The view riding into Korcula:

A well deserved beverage to end the day.