Dubrovnik

We reached the campsite near Dubrovnik before noon. Temperatures again were that high that we kept low until about 16.00 hrs before taking a bus into the old centre. It was worth while again. A fantastic monument of history, architecture, balanced good taste and atmosphere. It's got her Unesco World Heritage status for good reasons. It was crowded, like it always seems to be in summer. There were two cruiseships lying in the port and a third one was coming in when we were approaching the place. Huge vessels, with undoubtedly a couple of thousand passengers on each one. Eveline and I don't quite understand why people want to be on such huge cruiseships. With some thousands of other persons in a limited space. We found ourselves lucky when we could have a ferry during the night, so that we could sleep the time at sea.

All these cruise people and other tourists and us and a couple of other cyclists were wandering through the beautiful street and alleys of old Dubrovnik, almost shoulder to shoulder. But it's amazing how easy things go, how gallantly people behave among each other. A nice and happy atmoshere as a consequence. Who is telling us all the time that people don't know how to behave? They do!

As we want to continue further south and east we needed information on the countries that we may cross during the next few weeks. We still have not decided which route to take. We wish to go via Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. This cannot be done without having to cross some high passes again. And since it is so hot, we have our doubts. The heat is overwhelming, today on my bike I registered 37C again, in the morning! So it might be better to go more south into Greece and avoid such high mountain ranges. If possible there, because there are not many flat places in the world, we know by now. In any case, to make a decision, we needed more information. And it so nice to see that in the main street of old Dubrovnik, between the monastries, churches, souvenirshops and restaurants/bars, the only other shops are two well sorted bookshops. Clever town! We found a good map of the region including Montenegro, Albania and part of Macedonia and a Lonely Planet of the Western Balkans. So we have all we need now and tomorrow (aug 27) we'll depart for Montenegro. They say the Bay of Kotor is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We'll check it out.