You-Go-Slavia (Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia)

Fifteen nights through Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia, with the ride out and back across the Alps included rather than flown over. Own bike or a hired BMW.

The outward leg is a tour in itself: a night in the Ardennes, the Vosges, then the Grimsel, the Furka and the St Gotthard, across northern Italy to Ancona and an overnight ferry to Split.

Split gets a free day, and Diocletian’s Palace is the reason: a Roman emperor’s retirement complex from around 300 AD that the medieval town was later built inside, so the old quarter still follows its walls and corridors. The route then heads inland through the Dinaric Alps, taking in Plitvice Lakes, where sixteen terraced lakes drain into one another over travertine barriers, and Durmitor National Park, and the operator is explicit about staying off the new motorways in favour of the twisty roads.

Bosnia follows over the Kupres Pass to Bihac on the Una, then Slovenia and Lake Bled in the Julian Alps, with its island church and a castle on a cliff above the water. The return runs through the southern Alps and Tyrol, with an optional detour over the Grossglockner, the highest paved road in Austria, and finishes with a beer hall night in Bavaria. Hotels, breakfasts, dinners as listed, the ferry and crossings, maps and GPS routes are included, with fuel and other meals separate. The price is quoted per person. The Balkans still ride the way much of Europe did thirty years ago, which is most of the appeal.