The Route

Approximatly 3 500 miles through 13 countries and over 2 mountain ranges, 1 of them twice. I aim to raise £3 500 for cancer research. Thats £1 for every mile I plan on covering. Please support me by following the link to my just giving web site.

Blog Archive

Hello Slovenia

OK people I have now covered 2637 miles and have crossed what used to be the Iron Curtain. I am in Slovenia.

Monday 7th May (Day 43)

Ok so I had one last morning in Venice. One point I forgot to mention in the last post is that I had always wanted to visit since I saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when I was about 12. An interesting fact about Venice, there are no grave on the island. There is a seperate island called cemetery island where they put every one. This so some reason reminds me of Egypt with their land of the living and their land of the dead on the opposite side of the Nile where the sun sets.
Anyway the morning in Venice, I went up the tallest building to get some good views.



The one thing I find funny about this bell tower is that if you look at the Venice skyline from the distance across the water, this the tallest building is dwarfed by the visiting cruse ships which are higher.
After a bit of sightseeing I went to get some food from this cool market I found,

And I was extremely happy when I found something that looks like this,

And I just thought of home. Only down side is that when I started to eat it I found that it was just a pizza slice folded over and not infact a cornish pasty.
After that i got on the bike and started to head east along the coast. I had to cycle though this really touristy bit that reminded me of Minehead or Paington.

Only thing is this highstreet went on for over 6 miles. I finially got out of this area and into some nice countryside,

And found a good camp site at the end of the day.

Tuesday 8th May (Day 44)

Aim of the day was to get to Slovenia. The last bit of Italy was quite nice. There were some some tree lined roads which were cool.


But as i said before the bit of Italy I am cycling through has not really inspired me. Venice was great, but that is about it. There have been too many cars and the roads are too flat and straight.
Anyway I got to the boarder town at 5pm and I was trying to find somewhere where I could change some Eurro's into Slovenian. After about an hour of searching I find out that Slovenia has changed to Eurro's. So that was a waste of an hour. Thank you mr out of date guide book. So I crosed the boarder,

And this time I had to show my pass port which I felt nervious of because every other crossing I have just been waved through. So I thought something was wrong, but it was fine. First impressions of Slovenia, I love it. Quite roads and rolling hills going through green country side with lots of trees. Much better than the Italian roads which are flat and you can see for 5 miles ahead which can be kind of depressing in a way. I like bends so you do not know what is around the next corner. Also I soon climbed to over 100m. This made me alot safer because for the last 4 days I had been at less than 10m high. I was concerned about this because I kept thinking that an earthquake generated Tsunami somewhere out in the Med could wipe out most of the coastline I was based in (I think I had to much time thinking to my self)
Any way I found a good camp site with a goos view,

And a cool sun set.

Downer of the day though, my filp flops broke.

Wednesday 9th May (Day 45)

The misson, get to Ljubljana. Started cycling out on some nice undulating roads.

Then after 20km I started to go up,

I eventually climbed to 870m and the landscape was beautiful. I was cycling along a road with very little traffic which passed through a magical woodland,

So I had a little stop and listen to the sounds of nature. I then had a cool descent off the hills following the racing line using all the road. But I was starting to get a lttle annoyed at my right pedal. Truth be told it has not been fully funtional for over a year, but for 20 mile trips it does not bother me. But after 2600 miles and it clicking every time it turns around. I thought now is the time to change it. I just happened to pass a bike shop on route so I went in to find out about pedals and they offered to replace them then and there. Did I mention that I love Slovenia, the people are so nice and helpfull and friendly. You would have to ring up and book a week in advance back in the UK. I also asked about the back wheel since one of the spokes broke and the dude said that is no problem he can also do that for me. I was in there for 30 minutes and came out with a fully funtional bike again, FANTASTIC. When I came to pay they only charged me for the cost of the pedals and said the spoke fixing was on the house and they wished me good luck for the ride, how cool is that. This is the dude that fixed her for me.

I got to Ljubljana and found this sweet hostel only a 5 min walk from the city centre along the river. I'm in a 6 bed room and it has its own bathroom and kicthenet, all for 17 eurro's a night. There is a cool Kiwi couple and Finish couple in the room,

and we all went out for a few beers last night (W'handles of course). It is then that I came to the conclusion that this trip is a really good trip and I am really enjoying it but it is not an extreme trip. It is more mildly tame. Here I am in part of the former Yogoslavia and I crossed what used to be the Iron Curtain to get here. That sounds so cool. But then if I say that last night on my way out I passed Mc Donalds and H & M. When we went in the bar, before we even got a chance to speak any Slovenian the barmaid talked to us in English. They were also playing English music and had the Man United vs Chelsea match on the plasma screen. That does not sound very Eastern block to me.
I think that one day I will have to cycle through Tibet or Mongolia to do what I feel is an extreme ride, I am still loving the sights and the people I am meeting on this one though. The one cool thing is that in 8 weeks I have only met 3 english people, if I was in aomewhere like Australia, I would of met 20 in the first 2 days.

Thursday 10th May (Rest day)

Anyway people I am going to do a bit of sightseeing around the town then tomorrow I will head to the north east to the national park after a bit of a walk round the city again in the morning. Here is some of what I have een already.





And I am also really happy because I found another pair of cheap flip flops, and they are orange.




Ljubljana is a lovely little city.

Cheers

I will keep you posted.