Croatia Trogir and Split - Coastal Ride and Step Back in Time

Back on the bike today!!  The Croatian motorcycle community is so supportive and keeps growing! Which greatly humbles me.  Now we can trace Nikola, who took care of me in Krk and put me on to Croatian Vanja who lives in France.  Vanja who put me onto Hari, and his Mother and Brother  in Zadar.. and has NOW hooked me up with riders at my next destination - Split! (Well, actually Trogir just outside of Split).  They don't worry about who you are, or your story.. If you ride a motorcycle, that's good enough.. you can stay at our house!  Super country, super people..

As mentioned before, there is no shortage of rocks in this country.  I pass borders and fencelines of piled up rocks ever since I entered Slovenia actually. But this one extra caught my attention and made me stop.. I've not seen them as such a close grid of rocks before.. I don't understand.

I zoomed in with the camera and there are grape vines inside the squares. All I can think of is that in order for them to find the tinyest patch of growable dirt, they just dug out little pockets as it would have been insane to try to move that many rocks from the property??  Don't Know.. they have their olive trees along the border, grapes on the vine, boats to catch the fish, and plenty of rocks!  Land of abundance!!

Moving on to Trogir... more evidence of what a fun place to be in the summer...

Trogir

Here I meet a wonderful couple, Anton and Marija.  They are keen adventure riders, with Anton arriving back from exploring America just last night!  He owns a Yamaha Tenere, as well as the Yamaha dealership in town!

They have a summer apartment attached to their house, as nearly all houses do along the coast, and instead of renting it out, they keep it for motorcycle friends to use only. How cool is that? And they offered me to stay in it for as long as I want!!  The trip through America was with his good friend Ivan, where they rode a KTM 990 Adventure and BMW 800GS.  Being that they both have heaps of experience, it was interesting to hear their feedback about these other bikes as serious off-road riders!  ;-)

My conclusion is this: NOTE: I'm not the best person to conclude anything about motorcycles really, but here's my two cents worth at this stage of my journey.

To get the perfect motorcycle is impossible.. even though I researched the hell out of trying to pick the absolute best bike I could for this trip. I quite often don't feel I succeeded.  And then other times I do!  Every bike out there has a huge list of positives and negatives!  For instance, you wouldn't run a marathon in a great pair of high heel shoes!  But nice to wear if you want to look good! It really confirmed to me as I hear about the KTM and BMW experience, and then comparing those things they learned with my 690 and their Yamahas.

Sorry, I digress as usual..   Anyway, much needed rest for jet-lagged Anton while Marija sets off to show me around town before she goes to work. Speaking of shoes, she owns a great shoe store in town, carrying the Australian favorite - Ugg Boots! I love shoes.. Thank goodness I do love the one and only pair of shoes I have for this journey.

Again, no cars can fit in the old town.. which is really nice!  How many families have lived inside those buildings since they were built. Nobody has run them out for heritage purposes, they are still part of daily life today!

Where the lemon tree grows!

 And the spice boat arrives from Madagascar!!

Just kidding, it's a tourist boat... but I would love to step back in time and see what those boats would find in a far away land to trade with the people of Trogir... ;-) Of which we are walking the same streets and living inside the SAME walls they did back then... I just think that is amazing. I am loving this experience.

The streets in town are confusing and it took a while to be able to find my way out, but I eventually mastered it.

Marija was an excellent guide showing me everything I might need to know to enjoy my stay here.  She's gone to work, it's going to rain big time again, so I'll make my way to their house and settle in.

It rains and rains and rains for days.  They keep telling me "this is not normal"!!  Normal or not, I've had about enough.  Anton is ancy to go ride the bikes, he really wants to show me around the mountain roads along with Ivan..  Every day we think we can make a run for it, looks promising early morning.. Then it's raining hard before we can get the bikes ready.

So in between, I can't help to explore anyway.. enjoying bits of Trogir.. Remember, my computer is still gone to Austria for repairs, and I am no good at sitting around.  I don't mind riding around in the rain, especially if you know when you've had enough of it and you can simply go home.. that is really nice!!

And to walk around town at night is amazing..  I wish my pictures could do it justice, but if you think this place is like stepping back in time, the night around here steps it up another level...

Through the city doors and back onto the waterfront.

The skies are clearing and fingers crossed we get to ride tomorrow... But the good thing about being stuck by the rain is that I am living amongst the Croatian people. Not just on a holiday but it is daily life for me.  I hang out with my Croatian family, manage banking, internet, normal stuff!  In the apartment I have my own kitchen, which I would use more if they would stop calling me into their side of the house and feeding me so well!!! Marija is an awesome cook.  So lucky to be here... and I repeat, the way I am looked after by the people of Croatia.. the amount of care and support I get from each of them is very very humbling... ;-)