In spite of this regrettable episode, the trip to Dubrovnik was truly worth it. We had the opportunity, as we arrived, to visit the center of the old city, at night. The following day, we visited the whole city and the imposing wall that surrounds its beautiful cathedrals, convents and monasteries, as well as a well-preserved synagogue and the oldest pharmacy in Europe (founded in 1318 by the Franciscan monks), which we also visited. Undoubtedly, Dubrovnik is, indeed the "pearl of the Adriatic", a mandatory place for those visiting Croatia

On our way back from Dubrovnik, on the afternoon of June 14th, and so we wouldn’t be "harassed" once again, we went through Bosnian territory at 25 mph (40 km/h). Even during the day, those few miles looked terrible, and the pavement was in a dreadful condition. I felt some disquiet when we went past road signs marking the way to Sarajevo and Mostar, war scenarios in recent years.

A few miler afterwards, already in Croatia, we rode past a series of beautiful and tranquil lakes, tow of which, curiously, reminded us of miniature versions of Lagoa das Sete Cidades, but with no eutrophy.

To shorten the ride back, we chose to catch a ferry at Makarska, headed for Sumartin, in the eastern end of the isle of Brac. This allowed us to arrive at dinnertime, to which followed the usual quiet evening, spent in the bar of the hotel, facing the sea, with the small harbour of Postira as a background. Every now and then, we’d hear a few nightingales, which, along with swallows and butterflies, are abundant in the pine and olive groves of Brac.

As in the previous days, we continued to stroll through the isle of Brac, either going to the beach, either bathing in the many coves of the island, which is remarkably similar to the island of Pico. Except for the whiteness of the villages, the southern part of Brac, from which you can see the neighbouring island of Hvar, very narrow and long, reminded us a lot of the Azores Pico – São Jorge channel.

It was with sorrow that, at 06:30 in the morning, we again boarded the ferry to Split, thus ending our memorable stay at the isle, where we made about 497 mi (800 Km), many of them with no helmet, the use of which was optional on the island, plus the 229 mi (368 Km) of our visit to Dubrovnik.

In the ferry, a tourism billboard caught my attention. Over a beautiful photo, you could read: "Croatia: Natural stress relief". I couldn’t have found a better definition for this country that is now awakening to tourism and will be, I’m sure, a very sought-out destiny in a few years. Let us hope that, there too, the hand of Man doesn’t destroy the beauty Nature has created.

The route back to Slovenia and Italy was made inland, allowing us to see the wide development of Croatia, namely in terms of road infrastructures, with excellent motorways and long tunnels, recently constructed.

We arrived at the Slovene border around 13:00, crossing, a short time later, the Italian border, near Trieste.

Since the temperature was high (100º F – 38º C), we stopped for lunch and some rest at an “Auto-Grill” restaurant, on our way to Venice. We returned to the road, meaning to reach Menton, in the south of France. After crossing the whole of northern Italy, at a good speed, we reached the French Riviera around 21:00. On this day we made 755 mi (1.215 Km) across four countries (Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and France), driving for a total of 10 hours, being the last 93 mi (150 Km), between Genoa and Menton, extremely demanding through a mountain route full of bend and counter-curves and tunnels, which we crossed at a considerable speed in between a lot of traffic, forcing us to drive with special care and attention.

When we arrived, tired, at Menton, we didn’t manage to fins a single hotel room available, certainly because it was Saturday. We went, desperately, from hotel to hotel, always getting the same answer: "complet". We were saved by a nice receptionist from one of the Menton hotels that managed to book us two rooms at another hotel, but in San-Remo. Therefore, and after having dinner at Menton, we were back on the road to make the short but painfully 14 mi (22 Km) to San Remo, and back the way we had come earlier, to top it up. We finally arrived at the Grand-Hotel di Londra, that seemed to have stopped in time, more precisely in the 60´s, when it was already 01:00 in the morning, very tired but pleased. After all it had been a day full of emotions, as we so enjoy. We had breakfast in Croatia, lunch in Italy, dinner in France and were back in Italy to sleep. Nothing could be more international !

After a well-earned rest, we left the beautiful bay of San-Remo, at around 10:00 in the morning, not without stopping to check up the motorcycle; namely, the oil level, the cooling fluid, the brakes and the tires pressure, taking the opportunity to refuel, for gasoline was slightly cheaper in Italy.

Unlike we had initially planned, we decided to head towards Biarritz instead of Irun, not only because it was somewhat closer, but also because we had stayed in this French city, in 2003, when we journeyed to Norway, and we had rather enjoyed this well-known seaside and surfing resort of south-western France.

We crossed the border once more, again going past Menton, Monaco, Nice, Marseille and, finally, Montpellier, where we stopped, at around 14:00, to have lunch at a service area restaurant, again under a bright sun and intense heat (99º F – 37º C).

We restarted our journey, towards Toulouse and then Biarritz, where we arrived at around 19:00, after having crossed another 583 mi (938 Km), on the final stage of our adventure.

Near Biarritz, and a little like it had happened on our trip to Norway, we witnessed a turbo exploding, this time one belonging to a car and, fortunately out in the open, on a motorway. Anyway, it was strange to suddenly come upon a huge ball of smoke, circulating at high speed ahead of us, without quite realizing what it was. We turned on our four blinkers and pulled to the left side of the road and, only after we had overtaken the vehicle (an old Renault Laguna model) did we understand what had happened.

Certainly because it was Sunday and the weather was magnificent, we crossed paths with many fellow bikers and even chatted a bit with some "fellow adventurers" on the service areas along the motorway.

After an usual invigorating shower and a good meal, we walked for a bit through the centre of town, along the seaside, up until around 23:00.

Since the weather was dark and cold in Biarritz, I checked the Internet for the weather forecast for the Biscay Gulf area, to see if, on the following day we could head to La Coruña and Santiago de Compostela, the last destinations of this trip, or if we should return directly to Lisbon. Having confirmed that bad weather was expected also in the north of Spain, we decided to return to Lisbon, much to the pleasure of our children, that thus had us back a day earlier.

At around 08:30 in the morning, we left the Biarritz Ibis hotel (our favourite roadside hotels in terms of price/quality), heading straight for Lisbon. The weather was dark and a bit chilly (64º F – 18º C). There was even some light rain as we went past San Sebastian, in the north of Spain. We crossed the Spanish border around 09:00. As if the foul weather wasn’t enough, the intense traffic in the roads of northern Spain, made our long way back to Lisbon even harder, even causing us to take the wrong road at. We lost some 30 minutes before the GPS got us back on track once again.

From Burgos onward, the sun started coming out and the temperature rose quickly to over 86º F (30ºC), and continued rising all the way to Portugal, where we faced 104º F (40º C) near Castelo Branco.

Since we greatly missed the Portuguese gastronomy, we chose to speed up, crossing our country’s border, at Vilar Formoso, around 13:00 local time (14:00 in Spain) and stopping at Almeida, a beautiful town, surrounded by an imposing castle, through which I had gone a few weeks back, while participating in the "7º Portugal de Lés-a-Lés" moto-rally. After a tasty, typically northern lunch, we went on our way, with an unbearable heat, which our biker security did nothing to relieve, forcing us to stop more frequently to drink a lot of water, thus preventing dehydration to some level.

Near Castelo de Branco, we came upon a huge forest fire, the smoke of which covered the A23 motorway in which we were following. The smoke was so intense that, for moments, the sun disappeared and the motorway turned a brownish colour. It was a Dantesque scenario, with fire-fighting helicopters twirling over us.

We stopped for a final refuelling (gasoline and lots of water) near Portalegre, around 17:00, finally arriving at our children’s apartments, in Olaias, at Lisbon, around 18:30.

As always, they were very pleased to see us and were unable to hide their usual relief to see us return from one of these long two-wheeled adventures.

So were spent the last 625 mi (1.006 Km) of our unforgettable trip to Croatia, in a total of 4646 mi (7.477 Km) made in only 14 days.

With this adventure, enjoyed in the always pleasant company of our good friends the Paz Ferreira couple (it was a pity my sister, Ani, and my brother-in-law, Manuel Carreiro, weren’t able to accompany us this time) we now add up more than 31069 mi (50.000 Km) travelled through the whole of Europe, even if our goal is, our health allowing, of course, to reach 62137 mi (100.000 Km) !

Both Carlos’s Honda Pan-European ST 1300 and my Yamaha FJR 1300/A registered no technical problems, thus confirming their quality, comfort and road aptitude. There are no doubts left that they are true "mile-eaters".

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