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In Croatia, the climb of Sveti Jure translates as 'Saint George'. Cyclist mounts up and prepares to do battle with a monster
Croatia is a country of contrasts. The cities have the lively hustle of Turkey, but the people have the relaxed attitude of the Italians. The modern infrastructure feels like western Europe, but the food and culture are of the Middle East. Look in one direction and you could be on the beaches of the French Riviera; look in the other and it's like you've been transported to the barren mountains of the Pyrenees.
According to my ride partner for the day, a strapping gentleman by the name of Ivo Piljic who runs bespoke holiday business More Hvar, even Croatia's bike riders are a contradiction in terms.
'We look like bouncers but climb like Colombians,' he tells me with a wink as we review today's route over breakfast in our start town of Imotski. It's a route that, if his claims are to be believed, will suithimwell. Ahead of us is 135km of riding and more than 3,400m of vertical ascent, with well over a third of that coming courtesy of the Sveti Jure climb that begins at around the 80km mark.
The mountain dwarfs anything else on the route profile. In real life, the peak dominates its surroundings in the same way Mont Ventoux looms over the Provence region in France. The two mountains' similarities are extended by the fact that, like Ventoux, Sveti Jure also sports a red-and-white structure atop its summit. It may be a radio antenna instead of a weather station but, viewed from sea level, its impossibly distant stripes are just as intimidating and impressive.
Geography and history
The mountain and the Biokovo Nature Park that surrounds it form part of the Dinaric Alps. Thanks to some hefty geological activity between 50 to 100 million years ago, ridgelines of limestone rock were thrown up in parallel ripples that sit like stacked necklaces. As the second highest peak in Croatia, Sveti Jure is a significantjewel in the first 'necklace' of the Dinaric Alps.
Croatia's history is just as turbulent as its landscape. It has been trampled over by Ottoman armies, passed back and forth between the Austro-Hungarian empire and...