Ride Summary

Distance: 47 mi
Climbing: 2690 feet
Descending: similar
Difficulty: hard
Link to workout in Strava

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Link to photo gallery from this trip

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Detail of a historic panel showing an ancient building, on an older, but not ancient, building

I was hoping to beat the heat and the traffic today, but we've not been great at setting out very early. This is supposed to be a fun vacation as much as a bike tour, so playing it super businesslike and getting up early and hurrying are not usually happening on this trip. Thus, we found ourselves moving by 9 and called it good enough.

We'd fully abandoned our plan to ride the trail we'd started out on since the gravel roads we did try at the beginning of the route were just too chunky and climb-y and unpredictable for our bikes. So, we'd routed as much as possible on pavement near sea level for this day. While there were no climbs over a few hundred feet planned, you know what they say about the best laid plans!

Soon after we set out, we found that the road from Sv. Duh to Bosana - our planned escape route from the highway and also avoiding crossing the main ridgeline of the island we were on - was closed, so instead we rode the highway nearly the whole long hot way into Zadar (pronounced ZAH dar).

The reroute had taken us further and higher (up, down, and then back up) than intended, and so we stopped for a cooling beverage at mile 18 or so in the town of Pag (which is located on the island of Pag). It helped a bit, but the heat wasn't any less by the time we started rolling again around 11am. Non-weekend traffic was mostly kind, but a couple of close passes and the relentless heat had us down a little by lunchtime. As we ate at mile 34 in the 90+ degree heat, we saw 2 other touring cyclists ride past on the road, whom we later passed back, and exchanged jubilant thumbs up with then. We had stopped for lunch around 12:30 at one of the few restaurants in this stretch of travel, and the food and service were lackluster and we were both ready to be at our destination but we still had miles of moderately busy road riding in the hottest part of the day to contend with.

The way we did end up going turned out to be part of the "Cheese Route" - kinda like a wine country route here in the states. We did not end up trying much of the local cheese while en route, but we did get to do some cheese tasting later, in town. For now, enjoy the cheese route / Sir Cheese pictures!

Nonetheless, we made reasonably quick time for that 15 (save for rush hour shenanigans in the last bit) into the oldest town I've ever been to - continuously populated since 9th century BCE! We're staying right on a historic square inside the old castle walls, in the ancient part of the city.

This bar was atop the historic walls within which we were staying

There is history all around - Roman ruins, medieval ruins, Venician ruins, etc - and we took a fun walking tour of the area with a native on a rest day and learned and saw and learned even more. Funny enough, our apartment is in a building with one of the largest still-standing pieces of Roman architecture...a piece of the building's side wall. (There have been earthquakes and many wars that have basically leveled the town a few times since the Romans so most of what remains is very short, or reconstructed).

This was taken in the old Roman Forum ruins - approx 2 feet tall - but the big building in the back is The Church of St. Donatus, which is Zadar's most famous old building.

We've eaten well here and tomorrow we have a couple of ferries and some good miles towards Split to make up. Yeehaw!