Nadine's Bike-About: From Verona to Ljubljana.

I am a really bad blogger. I can't beleive it's been a week since I last wrote! I really will try to make this short and sweet.

Juliets Balcony

The day after I last wrote, I went to Verona. The city of Romeo and Juliet. I fell in love with that city! It was fantastic. I did a walking tour, but as I was the only one, it was a private tour. Fantastic. The city itself is so interesting, I decided that I would come back and spend a couple of weeks there. Maybe even do a 2 week learn Italian language course. Who knows...

Venice from S. Giorgio Church

I unfortunately only spent a few hours there before I left for Venice. I was so excited about it. I camped on a spit of the mainland, but i then had to bus to the end, and then the ferry took you over to S. Marco Square. The whole process was 1.5 hours! I didn't bargain for that! Unfortunately on the first day, Venice didn't live up to my expectations. I came back to camp quite deflated. And there was a thunderstorm roaring overhead. I hadn't thought of the implications of that. Is it safe? There were trees above me, but still. Is that safe? Well I survived. I wasn't going to stay another day, but decided to give it another chance. I went back, determined to get away from the tourist traps. And I succeeded. Mostly. Though I did get sucked into spending alot of money on Murano, the glass-works island. Ah well. Venice does suck the money right out of your pockets, but I can say I have been there, and I don't really need to go back.

The star from the roof of the train station.

From there I went to Slovenia. Which evidently is a quite recent EU state. In a border town that originally Slovenian, then became Italian at the end of WWI, the Slovenian's built a town over the border to compensate. There is a square that covers both countries. In the train station on the square, there was a museum on the hostory of the Italy/Slovene border. Quite interesting. It covered WWI, the fall of Yugoslavia, and the independence of Slovenia and becoming EU. They even had the red star that used to be on top of the train station. It was so small, that the lady opened it especially for me. She was very nice, but could only speak German. At least that has come in handy!

My breakfast spot in the Soca Valley. All the rivers look like this in the area.

I spent the next couple of days travelling up the Soca valley, which was the front of WWI. (I have learnt alot about WWI in recent days) Then over the Vrsic pass, which was 1600m up in the Julian Alps, above the snow line I might add, then to the lakes of Bled and Bohinj, and finally to the capital of Ljubljana. All this done in 4 days, with only a couple of hours riding each day, if that. It really is a beautiful, if pocket sized country. it has certainly challenged me in my riding, with the amount of hair-pins I've done, some on cobbles. Had me freaking out at times, and going at less than walking pace! Still having a great time though. Got another day in Ljubljana, before I head for the coast.