With all the beaches and boat parties one hears about, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that Croatia is still a relatively poor country with an economy that is something like 80% made up of tourism, which is concentrated along the coasts. In the northeast, where the EuroVelo 6 runs, the towns were decimated by the civil wars 28 years ago and many of them look as if the bombs went off this week.
A water tower that was badly damaged during the war 
After a great big descent into Ilok, there is a nice pension hidden in plain site up there on your left. I only found it because I stopped to take a look at my map when a man from two stories up in a voice that sounded at once German and Eastern European said, “D’yew need a rhooom?”
“Yes, for how much,” I shouted back while straddling my bike.
“Vierzehn euro.”
“I’ll think about it.”
A quick perusal of the Booking app returned nottamuch so being the great negotiator that I am, I called back up to the window and without offering a lower price said, “I’ll take it.”
Feeling peckish after the day’s ride and with no good-looking restaurant’s in town, I hiked back up the hill to a grocery store. On the way I found a bike touring couple in search of a cash machine. They seemed either high, uninterested in talking, or perhaps both so I moved on.
Tonight’s dinner consisted of a block of sheep cheese, tomatoes, a bell pepper, a loaf of bread, two cheap Croatian beers, and a roll of mentos.
The ride from Osijek to Ilok was tough. It consisted of 8% inclines, hot unshaded hell roads, and plenty of missed turns.
One such missed turn spit me out onto a freeway like a truck driver would a sunflower seed hull. I stopped to see whether the freeway took me in the right direction and according to the map, it did. So I soldiered on quite pleased with myself.
About an hour into the freeway ride the shoulder disappeared and the lanes narrowed. Semi-trucks whirred within six inches of my cheekbone, each sending a gust of wind that did its best to throw me off the road. Still, I soldiered on. Then I noticed a small roadside memorial. A cycling tourist who must have taken the same wrong turn I did was struck by a four-wheeled (or maybe 16) death machine. The memorial included a photo of the young man with his fully-loaded touring bike. My stomach lurched and I felt nauseous. I pulled off the road to reassess my route as soon as I could.
I found a detour and thereby managed to avoid becoming the subject of a roadside memorial too. It added 10km to my ride but I did not give a good god damn so long as it avoided the freeway.
The roads in Eastern Europe are dangerous for cyclists despite what my maps say. “Quiet country roads” don’t kill cyclists but semi-trucks sure do.
Today’s Miscellany
Two Pullup Challenges today
