Day 15 - Split to Šibenik - Oh The Places You'll Go - 2025

April 25, 2025

Day 15 - Split to Šibenik

A real mixed bag of mostly good stuff

Today was a reminder that we are on a BIKE trip. No more leisurely ferry rides, 30 km cruises along flat beaches lined with Aperol and Espresso bars.

Nope, we’re in Dalmatia, land of hills and beaches, and after we got into the groove, it was good to be here.

So all my gushing about Split yesterday (including my favourite pic of all time … the Split Ducks! … there we at least three dedicated Duck shops … I guess tourists buy ducks) really was about ‘Old Split’, the fairly tiny part by the sea.

Leaving today entailed travelling through ‘new Split’ which was just like any other city, kind of drab, grey apartment blocks, multi lane streets full of cars, trucks and mortocycles, all rushing around doing their ‘stuff’ that needs to be done. Not fun but it was the only way out.

After about 7 km’s of this (some tolerable, some actually quite bad) we pulled off onto a very narrow dirt track that headed up into some hills and what looked like farm fields (we were preceded by a full size Dodge Ram truck - an everyday occurrence in Alberta where we come from, and surprisingly, not as rare as we thought they would be in Croatia, this truck literally had inches on either side of it to clear the stone fences and bushes!).

After a few hundred yards we realized that we were now in ‘Really Old Split’, the ruins of the Roman city of Salona, the capital of Roman Dalmatia. This was so cool, and so typical of our mode of travel - very little research before hand and almost total reliance on stumbling upon things. It also caused even more delay and by the time we were finished here we were about an hour and a half into the ride, with a grand total of 10 km behind us.

Time to get moving. The next 10 km’s or so were pretty non descriptive - light industrial, nice views if you looked up and to the horizons, the type of stuff that should have let us keep up the pace and get some distance done.

That’s when we met up with Andy, our first other cycle tourer. We had a good long chat with Andy, who’s originally from Newcastle but has been living on the road for a while (he’s been everywhere, I think he started this current leg of his travels in South America) and was on his way to Albania. Nice chat and we wish him well on his travels.

Ok, now we’re going to make some time …. We were soon riding along small roads and walkways along the water line (all of this so far has been on the official EV8 route - about 90% of our day was). Very nice and more or less traffic free but slow going with lots of towns and turns and pedestrians. This was going to be a long day in the saddle.

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Scott AndersonRats. I didn't know where you were going next and didn't think to point out that there's a short ferry ride from the Split waterfront to Slatine, from which you can bike the quiet road to Trogir and avoid all the madness of Split's suburbs (which we rode in 2001 and hated also).
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1 week ago

Lyle McLeodTo Scott AndersonWe needed a few penance miles as payback for slacking last week!
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1 week ago

Pics

So long Split! A big thank you to Karla who provided so much help for us.

K’s preferred breakfast seat was occupied.

A better shot of the delivery carts that make the huge restaurant scene in Split possible

Off we go into ‘really old Split’ … but we didn’t know this yet. K’s just passed the Dodge RAM.

We were soon into this, with no signage (yet) letting us know what we were seeing, but it was a pretty strong clue that there was something Roman going on

What looks at first like boulders are millennia old parts of columns! So cool

Feeling triumphant as I pass through what’s left of Caesar’s Gate

Unfortunately the next one was beyond our riding skills

It’s not a real tour unless you’re pushing your bike at some point!

Through the last gates in the wall and we thought we were done ….

Great shot of the surrounding countryside. We’ve got a lot of climbing ahead of us!

… for another 150 m when we come across this. Fairly recently discovered sarcophagi.

and then there was more. This appears to be privately owned as there was a lone guy sitting by a sign that said you needed to by a ticket to enter. We didn’t . I stood on the road and got the pic. We needed to get moving anyway.

Made about 3 km’s of progress when we ran into Andy Dodd. Great guy and we wish him well on the rest of his travels.

It was then on to the ‘beach riding’. Pretty nice.

All of this got us to Trogir where we grabbed some lunch. This is another beautiful old town that’s been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but unfortunately we just had time to see a small piece of it otherwise we’d be riding in the dark. After Trogir we had a bit more coast riding, with a few ‘interesting sections’ - a few stairs, some narrow rough stone paths, just to add some spice - and then we headed inland, and up.

Both K and I had the same great feeling as soon as we started this leg of the day. Although the coast riding was nice, we were not alone and it required concentration and route finding (i.e. paying attention), as soon as we turned onto the small roads leading to the hills, we were more or less on our own as we travelled the next 20 km’s through olive groves, small vineyards and even smaller towns an a variety of roads, some paved, some with rough broken up pavement and some gravel. This was wonderful.

We were constantly but gradually gaining elevation and topped out at about 320 m. Shortly after this we connected with the main road (still not very busy) that would take us into Šibnek. That gradual 320 m of elevation gain was lost in 3 km’s with a fun high speed scream back down to sea level and our final stretch into Šibneck, another incredibly beautiful old city.

Nice lunch, Greek Salad for K (applying pepper for those who are wondering) and Salmon and Avocado salad for me.

And then we started climbing into the arid hills and olive groves. This was the spot that both K and I started to feel the ride (in a very good way)

Classic Adriatic coast, rock, scrubby trees and bushes, and climbing!

Interspersed with a few nice downhills too!

Nice ~ 5km gravel section. Perfect weather for riding but we could hear thunder rolling around to the east. No time to dawdle

Pretty good signage on this section of the bike route (Croatian national bike routes and also the EV8 route)

I won’t catch her again for several km’s

First sight of our objective. That’s Šibnek on the horizon. Great downhill coming up!

A little close up of the same thing - beautiful country!

We arrived at our very central and very nice Hotel a couple of minutes before 6, K’s ‘fail safe’ time, phew! All is good.

This didn’t give us much time to see much of Šibneck, we’ll save that for tomorrow, but we did get cleaned up and found a great place for dinner.

We were looking for something a little simpler and local and Konoba Nostalgija fit the bill.

What a fun time and great food. It’s a small family run affair that specializes in traditional Dalmatian cuisine. Surprisingly (to us) it was a slow night and we had lots of time to chat with Adrian, our server and son of the Chef / Owner. He took great care in explaining the dishes, and their history, and with food as a classic intro, the conversations veered off in many good directions.

Anne M made a recent comment about how the menu description of a dish we had a few nights ago would never prepare her for what appeared on the plate. This was taken to an even higher level here. We had ‘Fish Pâté ’, ‘Tomato and Anchovies’, ‘Sea Bass with Chard’, ‘Bruet - Fish Stew in English’ and the ever so plain ‘Pork and Potatoes’.

All of this was true, and all of it was delicious, beautiful and prepared to a very very high level. Fantastic place that is far more than it appears!

After this we went home and crashed.

Off to dinner at Konoba Nostalgija … the is the ‘Fish Paté’

the ‘Tomato and Anchovies “ - poached peeled tomato stuffed with anchovies. Delicious

’Sea Bass with Chard’ - and so much more. Tasted better than it looks (and it looks great!) The red is beet purée, the white is the creamiest potatoes you’ve every had

As per the menu - ‘Pork and Potatoes’ The potatoes were the most expertly prepared pavé I’ve ever had, the pork tenderloin cooked to perfection and a great chili oil to add a kick.

Thanks for a sensational evening Adrian!

SOTD

The Girl From Impanema, Frank Sinatra version

Whoa, where did this come from? As always there’s a story, and this one’s really good.

At breakfast a couple of days ago K and I heard yet again, another version of TGFI (hey not a bad mix up of the more common anagram!). The day before we saw a few buskers doing Hallelujah (even after Leonard asked to give it a rest, it was almost his last wish!!).

The conversation then turned to the possibility of doing a whole tour with SOTD being versions of these, either TGFI or Hallelujah or maybe a mixture of both. Endless covers of classics would give us a bottomless pool (or pit? With vipers? Or those nasty pointed sticks the Viet Cong used? You get the drift) of material.

Cut to the dinner tonight. It was a slow night at Konoba Nostalgija so we were able to strike up a long and great conversation with Adrian and it eventually wandered into SOTD territory. We brought up the potential TGFI theme, after hearing Frank’s rendition over dinner (Adrian said it was his dad’s pick. His dad’s the cook - that’s how he referred to him, we’ll call him Chef - he deserves it)

I said I’d use TGFI as SOTD, but an off the wall mixed up version, sort of like our cycling today, but Adrian said we should just use what we heard tonight. And he’s right, so here it is. Enjoy!

Good night (and good local beer!) from Šibenik

Today's ride: 84 km (52 miles)
Total: 763 km (474 miles)

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