Porec Tours and Trips

This week-long self-guided cycling trip was excellent. Cycling through olive groves, along rocky shores and sampling tasty local food. Typical distances were 30K a day suggested, but there is great scope for extending (or shortening) routes to suit yourself. Directions were generally good, and accommodation was excellent along the way in very friendly hotels in Fazana (especially!) Rovinj and Porec.

Although the weather was not so kind and one day it rained heavy for the 70km ride, we still enjoyed our trip. Our trip started 12 April and so some of the tourist areas were only opening up for the summer season. The beach areas lacked some atmosphere because of this however at least we did not have to dodge so many tourists. The scenery was not as good as we expected because it was often hidden by trees however once in the towns it was nice to experience the lifestyle. Ending in Porec is problematic because the best option for continuing travel is to return to Venice which adds an extra expense.

Loved Italy and Slovenia, lots of bike paths! Beautiful scenery, there was only one patch of really rough gravel for quite awhile! The other off road paths were fine. Croatia was the last day and it was very hilly, unfortunately it was also on main roads for most of the day, and the roads did not have shoulders. Traffic was really fast and it was a bit scary. Accommodations were awesome except one that was only okay. The GPS worked like a charm and the bikes were really good. The luggage transfer was great, even when we were late one morning, they came back which we really appreciated! The staff was very helpful and kept in touch when we needed them to!!

The orientation when we received our bikes was too quick. The man doing the orientation seemed like he just wanted to drop off the bikes and go. While he did answer our questions, it seemed to be bothersome for him. It would have been nice to have a meet and greet with the other participants on the tour prior to the tour beginning whether the night before or the morning of. There were some glitches with the app. On the leg to Porec, the blue line for our route disappeared. Thankfully the voice prompts continued to guide us to our hotel. We really appreciated being provided with dinner on our last night. We opted for the higher standard of accommodation and were pleased with most of our rooms especially the Hotel Victoria in Trieste. Loved biking through small towns and rural areas. Was nervous on some of the busy roads.

Although the 35-degree temperatures experienced in early July, this self-guided ride still had many highlights. Each day's ride was pretty close to UTracks description. Mainly very good accommodation provided every day. The bikes supplied were exceptionally good. Although there was more riding on main/busy roads than expected, the provided GPS app was pretty accurate and very helpful (locating the hotel in the bigger towns let the app down somewhat as the app seldom finished at the actual hotel!) Luggage transfer was faultless every day. Easy pickup and drop off of bikes. Found that the transfers to/from the start and finish (in particular) was quite difficult and expensive. Overall - a well-organized self-guided bike ride.

The accommodation on the trip was first class, small family run hotels with excellent staff in very good locations. The bikes were very good and well equipped. Istria is a lovely place. The food was very good, particularly the seafood, as you'd expect. The wine was also very good too. I was a little disappointed by the cycling, I think if you are a regular cyclist on British roads it won't faze you, but I'm used to quiet road and cycle path cycling. About 1/2 the trip is on roads, some of which are quiet, but others have fast traffic and are quite busy. I managed it, but it did mean some of it wasn't as relaxing as I thought it would be. Others doing the same trip, who were more used to road cycling, thought the traffic was fine, so don't let that put you off. The scenery around Porec , and the final day's cycling was lovely, and on paths and quiet roads. Other days were more mixed, with the towns rather than the cycling being the highlight.