Friday 6th May Buje to Montovun.

Set off at about 8.30 after very good breakfast to cycle through the hills northwest Istria. We soon find out that grocery shops are thin on the ground and Ian and I are obliged to take a relatively short but testing climb up to Oprtalj, a very impressive hilltop town, where we stock up on provisions while the ladies wait for us along the main road. At Ian’s suggestion we buy ice-creams as a surprise and these are well received by the girls.

Have a picnic lunch under vine groves on a wooden bench in a quaint village.

Noticeable that there seems to be less wealth in the farming community in these parts with quite a lot of manual work carried.

Mid-afternoon we come across the ruins of a medieval castle at Opatija and stop at a konoba ( local restaurant ) where we are served with drinks and some delicious pancakes. The food takes far longer than expected to arrive but proves to be well worth the wait.

The owner tries to fiddle me out of some change and pays the price as I Ieave him a far smaller tip than I would normally ( as Gail will attest I am usually fairly generous in that regard )

Descend again to the Mrna River valley and make the long steep ascent to the beautiful hill-top town of Montovun.

Hotel Kastel was formally a Venetian palace and makes for a very welcoming site after a fairly taxing day of cycling.

Day ends with a superb meal in the restaurant.

Another Smithy moment of the day- During a discussion on the importance of wearing bright coloured clothes for safety reasons Smithy  points out that he doesn’t need to as he has such a colourful personality compared with the rest of us! When we explained that this would not be immediately clear to a driver heading his way at 100 kms per hour he said we had overlooked his natural ‘aura’ which was visible from some distance. Hopefully we won’t need to put this theory to the test.

Ian and Cathy have been put into a ‘special’ room in some sort of attic on the third floor and the only special thing about is that the shower doesn’t work properly, the promised top floor view was obscured by a huge tree and Ian had to use bandaids to cover up a blue light on their air conditioning unit which was flashing above their bed.

Turn in early to prepare for next day’s heavy bout of cycling.