Final Days in Slovenia

 Thursday and Friday Sep 24th -25th

We had a route all planned out for today to take us towards the mountain resort town of Kranjska Gora, and expected to have quite a bit of climbing. For various reasons, one of which was to possibly reduce the amount of climbing, we modified the route a bit. However, the day proved quite challenging due to a couple of navigation issues plus several road closures due to construction and at least one impossible pathway! We were also trying to stay off some busy roads. But at least the weather was perfect, apart from a light rain shower.

One of the better route sections of the morning


They say there's one in every family 😁

Great pathway but we both pushed the bikes up this hill

Once we reached the industrial town of Jesenice, we finally joined up with the excellent pathway called the D2, which follows an old railway route all the way to the Italian border. There were lots of hills, some of which I walked.

Our afternoon was brightened with a chance encounter with an older Australian couple who were on a tour of Slovenia in a chauffeur-driven car and their personal guide. They were checking out a scenic spot by the river, and we had stopped there for a break. The guide asked us if we needed anything,  and we got chatting. The couple were great fun and we had a good chat. They told us they were on a SKI tour - "spending the kids inheritance"!! I loved that! They had a water supply in the car so we're able to help Nancy out as she was all out of water.

Encouraging sign seen in the late afternoon where we met the Aussies

Gorgeous countryside and mountains all around us

We made it  to within a few km of Kranjska Gora to a place called Spik which had a nice campground, and a terrific view of the jagged mountains in the nearby Triglavski National Park. It was a chilly evening, but not quite as cold as the previous two lake nights. I dined in the campground pizza restaurant, wrapped in my down jacket, and Nancy had her own dinner by the tent. We'd had a challenging day, but the ending was great.

My dinner which I devoured!

Later in the relative warmth of the tent

You can't beat this view!
These mountains are part of the Julian Alps and are within
 Triglavski National Park

In the sunshine the next morning





We tore ourselves away from here around 11am on Friday and completed the short ride gradually uphill to the pleasant resort town of Kranjska Gora where there was a stop for coffee. 

Kranjska Gora. It's a ski town, with biking and hiking in summer,
but was fairly quiet today being the shoulder season


I also stopped into a bike shop as I was having an issue with my brakes grabbing when I wasn't braking, that had just started yesterday afternoon. The nice guy did a minor brake adjustment and everything was fine after that.

A minor brake adjustment, and he wouldn't charge me.
Gave him a 5 euro tip which he reluctantly accepted

We continued the easy, peasy ride downhill to the Italian border (actually we didn't even see a marked border crossing at all) and then connected up with the Alpe Adria cycle trail with which I'm very familiar. We would follow this northbound, generally downhill, to the Austrian town of Villach. Here we would get a train north the next day to Salzburg. 

In Villach old town, we had a couple of very welcome beers as we began to wind down this tour.

Big beers in Villach before heading to the campground



Moonlight at Villach campground 


This little map of the northwestern corner of Slovenia shows
 some of the places we visited

Thursday's challenging ride












































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