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Veliki Alan pass road

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Narrow Veliki Alan pass road takes you from 0 to 1400m in some 22km with spectacular views towards the sea.

Photo: Aleksandar Gospic

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desainme

Vivid fall colours!

Voted 10/10

My folks always said that a European fall(France and England) was a drab affair. Leaf peepers in the Eastern U.S. would be interested in these colours.

You need to view the Appalachians in the fall.

Posted Sep 24, 2003 10:06 pm


	Velebit	Re: Vivid fall colours!
	Hasn't voted	Maybe your folks are right about France & England but that is certainly not the case here. We have beautiful autumn, especially in the mountains where there is lot of beech & maple. Take a look at these 2 pics: 1 & 2. We have many different trees here so colors are very diverse. For me maple has the most beautiful autumn color of all trees I know. Yes, North American autumns are fantastic desainme. When I see reports on TV from Washington DC at the end of October I’m always stunned and I think I saw some shots of Appalachians in some documentary, it is fantastic. What about Rockies? Forests are mostly conifer there.
		Posted Sep 25, 2003 5:17 am


	Grant	Re: Vivid fall colours!
	Hasn't voted	WOW, Velebit I see you have your own season of leaves changing color. Much more colorfull than here in Colorado where all we really have are Aspen and there yellow leaves blending in with the evergreens. BTW how dose traffic get by on that skinny road.
		Posted Sep 28, 2003 7:51 pm


	Velebit	Re: Vivid fall colours!
	Hasn't voted	Here we have very vivid autumn colors because of various types of trees. Especially beautiful are mixed beech and maple forests because both have warm autumn tones from bright yellow to dark red (maple) or brown (beech). What is red on this photo is mix of hornbeam and some other tree (don't know english word, Acer campestre in latin, type of maple but very different from common one). These types of trees grow on lower elevations, bellow beech and spruce, where is much warmer. It is amazing how rapidly vegetation changes with altitude on Velebit, from Mediterranean, by the sea, to sub alpine on the peaks. I'm talking (writing) tooooo much :-) This part of the road which cuts very steep lower slopes is really skinny but traffic is fortunately very light. Only mountaineers use it to access mountain. If you meet someone, one has to drive back to wider spot where you can pass. It was built 150 years ago and then they didn't bother to dig any more of hard rock, this was enough then. Cheers jgsman
		Posted Sep 29, 2003 9:28 am

Rick B

Beautiful

Hasn't voted

I'd love to cycle this road some day!

Posted Oct 22, 2003 1:08 pm


	Velebit	Re: Beautiful
	Hasn't voted	It is same distance as to Pyrenees from Netherlands. I hope you'll visit some day.
		Posted Oct 22, 2003 3:23 pm


	Rick B	Re: Beautiful
	Hasn't voted	Are there more roads like this? And how about other cyclists, are there any? Looks like autumn is a great time to visit Velebit, with all those colors!
		Posted Oct 22, 2003 4:06 pm


	Velebit	Re: cycling
	Hasn't voted	Yes rbi, autumn (Sept-Oct) would be best if you like color. Also June is very nice when everything is fresh green. I noticed that you like cycling because of cycling shirt and photo from the Tourmalet pass, which is together with Galibier most legendary Tour de France pass. There are many roads on Velebit, check Velebit page, roads section. 5 passes are asphalted, Alan is highest. 4 offer fantastic views towards sea. There is huge network (500km) of macadam roads, some climb to 1600m. Those roads are fantastic for mountain bikes but I guess you use road bike. But there is quite enough for the road bike too. There are quite a lot of tourists with bikes during summer season but out of season almost none because here it still is not mass popular recreation.
		Posted Oct 22, 2003 4:31 pm