If you happen to have listened to the new episode of The Cycling Europe Podcast which was published yesterday (episode 082), you may have heard Joanna Chmara refer in passing to something called the Trans Dinarica Cycle Route which has been officially launched this week. The Dinaric Alps are the mountains that extend through the Balkans from Italy to Greece and a little online digging reveals a few more details about the new cycle route, including a map…
It’s a 95-stage route that extends to 5,500 km through eight countries that can be found to the east of the Adriatic Sea; Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia. If you were to cycle the entire route, you would climb a sweltering 94,500 metres (or ten Everests).
Here is a link to the official website where you can find the following official description:
“The Trans Dinarica is the first and only cycle route to connect all eight countries of the Western Balkans. The route — which links Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia — makes a priority of visiting national parks, UNESCO sites, often-overlooked villages, and diverse points of interest. In other words, the Trans Dinarica takes travelers deep into one of the most interesting and under-valued European regions, where adventure and culture are always connected.
Designed for touring cyclists of all abilities (the route is best ridden with gravel-style bicycles, which are able to handle both asphalt and forest roads with equal ease and is also great for e-bikes), the Trans Dinarica is as much a cultural corridor as it is a bicycle itinerary. This corridor provides adventurers, who tend toward authentic experiences, a method to imbibe the region at human-powered speed while discovering traditions — culinary, musical, and historical — with slow-travel intention.
The Trans Dinarica — which combines quiet asphalt roads, macadam, and forest paths — is perfect for active travelers who want to engage with new places on two wheels during the day … and enjoy local cuisine, wine, and unique heritage every night. As well, the route, which creates a main backbone bicycle trail for the entire Western Balkans region, encourages local travel operators to develop tours/ideas around this cultural corridor, thus utilizing the Trans Dinarica as a region-wide tourism engine and providing travelers with a real, responsible, and sustainable way to embrace the Western Balkans.”
There are also a series of country-themed videos available on YouTube as well as this ‘teaser’:
Another route for the ever-expanding list…
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