June 4th and 5th 2019
When you follow the Adriatic coast, in Croatia, you must go through a small enclave of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the town of Neum. Despite the fact that Neum has the same coatline as Croatia, it does not manage to attract as many tourists as the major destinations in Croatia and the facilities are run down except for one four star hotel. I stayed at the Zenit Hotel which is a three star hotel according to Booking.com but I give it only two stars. It may have been the cool place to be at the beginning of the century but the maintenance has been deficient and the restaurant is a disaster They open only at 19h00 and serve a buffet for which prompted me to go out to eat a good fish at the Laguna restaurant. The only good thing about the hotel was the view.
Here is the map of the ride from Neum to Makasrka.
Here are some photos of Neum.
The trip from Neum to Makarska had a lot of hills and rain towards the end. The nice thing about this step was that it allowed me to view a magnificent valley created by the Neretva river. Here are a few photos of that valley.
Having made a few stops to hide from the rain, I almost stopped at a village called Igrane but a very impolite bar owner who objected to me leaving my bike against the wall of his establishment and the return of the sun convinced me to continue on. When I arrived at Makarska, as I was trying to find the center of town to look for hotels, a man on a scooter asked me if I was looking for an accommodation. He convinced me that his establishment was my best option being within 100 meters of the old town and several restaurants. So I followed him to Guesthouse Damir (by the name of the man on the scooter) where I got a nice room with my own balcony and a free beer. We settled for 35 Euros which was one of my cheapest nights and 10 Euros less that his advertised price on Booking.com. This allowed me time to visit the old town and have a good steak with a mixed salad and the traditional mashed potatoes with something between spinach and kale. Sorry for the large number of photos but I have no time for filtering. Note that I found the famous yellow submarine!
The next morning, I took a ferry to Brac island and rode to the town of Bol where I hoped to take another ferry to Split. This should avoid me having to follow the natinal road with the traffic and the hills, or so I thought. I found that there was still a considerable hill to get to Bol (a little more than 450 meters) with a spectacular descent into Bol which you can experience in part by the following video. Before the video is the map of the ride between Sumartin to Bol.
And here are a couple of photos of Bol.
