Day 121
I’m up reasonably early to cross the border to Croatia. I plot a route to Trieste and I want to make a decent distance towards there today but there’s no obvious route and it’s not clear what the climbing is like on any of them. I don’t want to go to Zagreb or Ljubljana, maybe on the way back. Komoot helps me trace the back lanes, rolling and windy, but in the right direction. One big difference on crossing the border is that everything has doubled in price.
Croatia is very green and rolling. It could almost be Wales, apart from the fact that it’s not raining and the roads are perfect for cycling on. And the dogs. Oh my god, there are dogs everywhere, big vicious snarling bastards. At one point I think I’m going to get bitten and dismount, putting my bike between me and them. I shout to the owner to call them off and he just laughs.
When I cross the river border into Slovenia I can see the storm clouds building ahead. The weather app says there might be light rain around 19:00 but that’s clearly rubbish, and yes, the thunder and lightning starts and I shelter at a café with a couple of German e-cyclists. I’m clearly not going to make any decent distance today so I book room 10 km up the road (there’s a hotel in the border town but it’s over €500 a night) and after a while there’s a break in the rain to get there.
The hotel advertises that it has a restaurant and bar and all sorts of stuff but when I get there it’s all locked up. Luckily I’m here just before the supermarket closes at 16:00 and the owner phones someone to come and check me in. This is a large hotel, 2 September is not exactly low season, I’m not at all sure what’s going on. I nip in to the supermarket before it shuts, there’s not even any bread left, it looks like dinner is beer and crisps (again).
Day 122
I’m up at seven ready for the off, but amazingly the hotel has got its arse in gear, there’s fresh coffee and a cooked breakfast, all included. It’s quite misty after the rain and I set off with lights on, thinking I might actually need waterproofs. But today is climbing and more climbing so it’s not long before I’m above the cloud line.
Most of the day is a meandering route through the villages, each with a big church but very few with anything else. I end the day just shy of the Italian border in a place catering mainly to German bikers and serving home-brewed lager (light, dark and mixed).
