It turns out I had bid Former Yugoslavia goodbye too early a few days before, as I adjusted my route so that I could take in a bit of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia – which is perhaps the country that indicates most clearly which nation it used to belong to. As mentioned earlier…

Will and I arrived at the Montenegrin/ Albanian border and waited our turn to pass through. As we approached the head of the queue a border guard came over and took our passports to get them stamped, or so we thought. This wasn’t the case, as when he returned them there were no new stamps…

I left Knin feeling slightly nervous about my stomach, I didn’t want a repeat of the last time I’d ridden.  Thankfully it seemed to hold up and I rode off through the slightly hilly lands on the way to Imotski. Knin it transpired had been a royal town and had a gigantic fort overlooking it…

Entering Slovenia it became clear very quickly that we’d left behind Italy, for one thing every restaurant we passed seemed to have one or two whole pigs roasting on spits outside. Also everything felt more rural and quieter, we’d climbed about five hundred metres up onto a plateau and there were mountains and forests to…

In Milan I was well looked after by Lara and Laurent who made sure I was well fed.  I got a bit carried away with the gelato having it for every lunch and dinner while I was there.  In between all the eating I managed to get some culture in and went and saw Da…

With a heavy heart I bid more friends farewell and set out from Geneva for what I hoped would be a nice relaxing day. Indeed it started well as I rode around the south side of Lac Leman along gentle roads with little gradient. I stopped in at a couple of lovely spa towns: Thonon…