Osijek to Ilok

First a quick update on dinner last night. We followed the suggestion of our host and headed out to a Slavonian resturant (Slavonia being the region of Croatia we are travelling through). The meal was excellent. James decided on the venison stew, Kieran on the fried frog bits (in honour of all the frogs we ran over or ran into on the days ride) and Gillian had the most enormous plate of meat (true to the description on the menu). Our waiter was very entertaining and very thoughtfully provided us with a pre-dinner drink of rakija - plum for the boys and cherry for Gillian. Whilst welcome we seemed to have overdone our daily limit of alcohol which luckily didn't interfere with our ride today. If we hadn't been so organised with the blog yesterday, this would have featured. By the time we got home though, bed was the only thing on our minds.

Now to today's ride to Ilok. The riding was really enjoyable today for the most part and this is the most distance Gillian and Kieran have done on the road. Most drivers gave us heaps of room, there were lots of appreciative waves from us. The route today was mainly flat except for the last 12 km which was gently uphill, interspersed with 4 steep drops, all followed by equally steep climbs. There was some walking of bikes as a result - we are blaming the weight of the panniers and our very tired legs.

By the end of the ride we were all covered in little insects which had gotten stuck to the sunscreen on our skin. Gillian and Kieran weren't covered in as many as James - he looked like he had been rolled in poppy seeds by the end. Gillian thinks this another benefit of drafting!

This region of Croatia is famous for the vineyards and the spectacular views of the Danube. This is most certainly justified. It is hard, however, to not be reminded when passing the ruins of buildings (or water towers, picture below) that this part of Croatia suffered greatly during the Yugoslavian wars. The main street of Ilok has many damaged buildings from this time.

We were all starving after our ride today and upon arriving at our accommodation didn't feel like walking the 1 km back up the hill to the main street of town. We did however partake of the apples and plums in the garden, which is stunning. Our rooms are housed in a building that was made by the owners from rammed earth. As we were on our way down to our accommodation ( a hill comparable to the others we had already climbed earlier) we did wonder if we had made a really bad logistical error. But not so, the hosts are lovely and the accommodation peaceful and very rural Croatian.

After a bit of a regroup this afternoon, we walked into town and found a lively little winery to have dinner - we were worried we had ordered too much because we were ravenous by this stage. Two drinks each and some lovely local cuisine and we were feeling much more relaxed and ready to face another day of riding tomorrow.

A note on pictures today - as most of the day was spent on the rode we decided that we didn't really want to stop and take pictures with cars whizzing by us. Anyway, we don't think our phone cameras could really capture what we were seeing!

Relive 'Danube day 28'