{"id":1809,"date":"2018-10-25T16:16:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T16:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2018-10-26T12:08:59","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T12:08:59","slug":"day-6-peljesac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/?p=1809","title":{"rendered":"Day 6 – Peljesac"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ben enjoys our early morning climb out of Orebic.<\/p><\/div>\n

Could this really be the final day?\u00a0 <\/span>Do we want this to be the final day?\u00a0 <\/span>Can we do this for one more day? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lots of questions hung out there with varied answers as we readied for an 8:45 AM departure to ride up the Peljesac peninsula toward Dubrovnik.\u00a0 <\/span>Tonight we would be in Dubrovnik and the bikes would be cinched atop the Andiamo van on a ferry back to Italy.\u00a0 <\/span>We would be afoot in a very different milieu. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Spirits were high\u2014hurrah!\u2014for the last day, and Jeff T., Ken, Pat, Ben, Laura (Andiamo guides) and I left early so as to ride 11 km up the mountain above Orebic before the others would van up and join us at the top.\u00a0 <\/span>We were sweaty wet after 2 late kms of 9-10% slopes and pulled off on a side road to wait for the others to arrive.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

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Did we mention “views to the Adriatic?”<\/p><\/div>\n

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An olive picker spreads a drop cloth under a tree before harvesting olives.<\/p><\/div>\n

Then we all headed off down the busy main road for a few kms until we could turn off through a tunnel to a coastal road where few cars interfered with kodachrome coastal views.\u00a0 <\/span>We gradually descended until we reached the Grgich winery\u2014famous for its founder, Mike Grgich, a native Croat who first put California wines on the international map before returning to build this winery on the Adriatic Ocean. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ingrid and Jeff fitted in a hike while we biked. Yes, the new rental van had an “incident” pulling out of our hotel that morning.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Grgich Winery, Mike Grgich’s tribute to his native Croatia.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Betsy introduces herself to Mike.<\/p><\/div>\n

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We sampled, purchased and took advantage of the photo op, then returned to our day\u2019s work\u2014a 4 km climb back up to the main road down the Peljesac\u2019s spine.\u00a0 <\/span>That earned us a light picnic at an overlook, which we followed with a long slow rolling descent toward the mainland and the historic town of Ston.\u00a0 <\/span>Ston has lots of rock, of course, like all of Croatia, but is actually best known for its salt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mike and Laura discuss which way to go upon leaving the winery. While we always knew the general direction we wanted to head, our guides were’t afraid to improvise.<\/p><\/div>\n

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A resting place above the sea.<\/p><\/div>\n

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It was the end of the road for us.\u00a0 <\/span>Ben and Laura loaded up\u00a0the bikes while we savored pizza and beer at a local cafe.\u00a0 <\/span>Then we piled into the vans and headed to Dubrovnik\u2014but not without a stop at a local oyster shack to sample the region\u2019s famous fresh oysters.<\/p>\n

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The old fortress of Ston, with walls built in the 1300’s to protect its valuable salt ponds. It was the end of the road for us.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Lots of smiles for the Croatia, 2018, Bike Gang<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could this really be the final day?\u00a0 Do we want this to be the final day?\u00a0 Can we do this for one more day? \u00a0 Lots of questions hung out there with varied answers as we readied for an 8:45 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycling","tag-croatia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/GroupPhoto.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3QqGi-tb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sayjack.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}