Hi Brian:

I agree very much with Liam's suggestions above, this because I have just done almost the exact same route that he set out during the past 6 weeks.

I left Zurich, rode east across the Dolomites in Northern Italy (very pleasant riding, and a remarkably civilized section of the country, considering it is Italy), entered into Slovenia, then went down the coast road through Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Albania into Greece, with diversions inland (Sarajevo, Mostar, Srebrenica, etc) along the way. After riding around the Peloponnese, I went back north via Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro (the east side this time), Bosnia (again, the east side this time), Croatia, Slovenia, then Austria.

I enjoyed all the countries. The road quality degrades in a linear fashion as you go south, with Slovenia having roads equal to Switzerland, and Greece having roads equal to Africa (worse than Albania). From a safety point of view, you should consider all the countries south of Croatia to be "daylight riding only" due to variable road conditions.

The cost of living also decreases as you go south, with Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia being remarkably inexpensive. Greece is very expensive for what it offers, and in my opinion, Greece is poor value for the money. Hence, be sure to enter Greece with a full fuel tank, and all the cigarettes and alcohol you plan to consume until you are once again out of Greece.

As for Liam's comment that "The coast road down is nice but busy", I believe that is true in the summertime, but it was not the case for me during early September. The only traffic congestion I encountered on the coast road was from about 50 miles north of Dubrovnik into Dubrovnik. Other than that, I pretty much had the road to myself... all the summer vacationers had returned (to the Netherlands, I suspect) by the end of August.

Hope that information helps.

Michael

Thanks Michael... just the sort of route I enjoy ... hopefully I can fit a trip like that next year sometime (want to do a US coast-to-coast in 2015 first!)
In the meantime I'll have to be satisfied with hiring a bike in Crete next month and only for a week :-(
Brian