Biking sLOVEnia - 2009!

Long hours of sitting in the office produce crazy ideas in my head, which are impossible to get rid of and I simply have to carry them out. This time it was a three-day biking trip starting in Jesenice and ending all the way at my grandmother's place in Postojna - which meant almost 300 kilometers and a 3000 meter climb. (Un)lucky Ana was joining me all the way and after a few days of rest we can say that it was a trip full of laughs, adventure, history, sweat and sites that we will never forget!

 
Together with "iron" Damjan, we took a very early train to Jesenice - hoping to escape the summer heat. The beautiful cycling path towards Kranjska gora was a great warm-up, and after a quick snack we started pushing towards the mountain pass Vršič (1611m), where the road gets so steep that cycling sometimes resembles a hard training in fitness. After a short stop at the Russian chapel (built by the Russian prisoners in WW1), we made a final push and reached the top at around 11 o'clock. The pass was full of tourists, that climbed it with all kinds of machines, while all three of us were proud of the sweat that was slowly drying on our foreheads. The sun started to get stronger by the minute and we simply couldn't resist the crystal-white Soča on the other side of the mountain. Ana and I felt reborn, while Damjan was determined not to set foot in the 8-degree glacier spring. This was the end of the trip for Damjan, however, the old rascal decided that he simply didn't have enough and planed to drive back to Ljubljana by bike. His stubbornness has no limits and after about 200km of tenacious pounding, he was denied by the darkness around 40km before reaching Ljubljana - still this is a serous accomplishment with a mountain bike: respect!

 








Ana and I took it a little more easy and slept in the idyllic atmosphere of Bovec. Ok the second day was probably the hardest, but putting biking aside... we saw lots of waterfalls and other natural beauties, visited the WWI museum in Kobarid and really felt the dark history of this place in the Italian WWI trenches scattered across the Kolovrat mountain. We also stopped in Melinki, a remote village in the mountains, which was the birth place of my grandfather. For the first time in my life, I saw the house he was born in and talked to some of his relatives that told us great stories.. ok, but that's another story. I also saw the image of my grand-grand father cut in the stone of the house. A kind neighbor also showed us his private ethnologic museum, full of equipment that was used in the old times and hundreds of his wooden sculptures he has carved in the last 50 years:) Time was running out and we quickly jumped back to the valley of Soca and down towards Nova Gorica. There we crossed the "border" and drove on the Italian side - just for the fun of it. We arrived in Šempetter quite beaten, but were well nourished by my twin cousins.

 
The final day was a little shorter; however we still had to make a huge climb from Ajdovščina across Podkraj and down to Postojna. There, my grandmother welcomed us with open hands and we ate, showered, rested and then ate again! It was a great trip full of everything.. however; you can see on the picture below, that Ana was more than happy to go home:)