Progress Update and Video: Biking the Balkans

Video of Biking the Balkans

(Watch on YouTube)

Progress Update

We are now over 10 weeks into our trip and those early days - Hampton Court, France, the Alps - already seem like distant memories.

In short, the Balkans were good to us. Croatia's coast was a never ending series of ups and downs, and we had a fair share of rain, but this was easily compensated by the relaxed itinerary and stunning scenery. Indulging in an afternoon off cycling, on a tiny, quiet beach one day, we asked the local bar owner if it was OK to camp on the sand. "No", he replied, "you should use the spare room", and we promptly devoured his DVD collection.

We had a few days' rest on the island of Hvar before pedalling through Dubrovnik and up some huge hills to the eccentric Marko's house (a wonderful gentleman who lived in a converted caravan and claimed to have been drinking buddies with Fidel Castro).

Montenegro passed in a blur of rain and concrete but whose memory will always be fond owing to the fact that, out of the blue at our campsite one evening, the 1992 Serbian Road Cycling Champion ("Vlad") walked up to us and offered to service our bikes.

Then came Albania... our unexpected favourite.

Donkeys, chickens, horses, dogs, cats, snakes, sheep, goats and, on one memorable occasion, a small pig, all joined us on the Albanian roads. The place was chaotic and utterly unlike anywhere else we'd been in Europe but everybody smiled and everybody waved and it felt positively welcoming.

The highlight of the trip so far came during a thunderstorm halfway up a mountain when a man let us shelter in his shop. We ended up spending the night in his house, meeting his entire extended family who travelled to see the strange foreign cyclists, were fed like kings and had a week's worth of fruit stuffed into our panniers (full story here).

And then we reached Greece where the hospitality was no worse. Most memorably, Laura went to shake hands with a monk and emerged with a Cornetto (see Spork #30). He let us camp in the church grounds then fed us bread, soup, salad and shots as we spent an evening communicating slowly through a limited vocabulary and wide range of hand gestures.

Now we're in Turkey and have Istanbul in our sights...

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