After our daily continental breakfast (included free in our 75 Euro per night room) at Gasthof Zum Schupfen, we said goodbye to our host, Evelyn, and set off on a long day of riding to get from Austria to Slovenia ( around 423km and 8 hours on the bike).
We had uneventful border crossings from Austria into Italy, Italy back into Austria, Austria into Italy again and finally Italy into Slovenia. Borders were either unmanned or we were simply waved through.
We took the A13 South from Innsbruck to Bressanone in Italy, then left the motorway to pick up the E66 heading East. We stopped at Sillian back in Austria for lunch and shortly afterwards headed South East picking up the beautiful B111 – a magical road in Austria. We passed so many SPARS (supermarket) we’ve seen more in this little corner of Austria than anywhere else. We stopped again in Arnoldstein, refused and then headed South to briefly reenter Italy before crossing over into Slovenia. The road we followed passed through Triglavski Narodni Park, we followed the D206 North through the Park with the road weaving alongside the Soca River……its magnificent turquoise coloured water was so inviting….we had never seen water so translucent and clean….amazing. It even rivalled the glacial lakes we have seen in other parts of the world.
A wonderful and unexpected surprise was the climb to Kranjska Gora taking in 24 hairpins up and 24 back down, with a nay twist and turns in between…..truly spectacular! After dropping down on the Northern side of the pass we made our way out to the E61 motorway and blasted down to Ljubljana.
We had a short wait at the studio appartment we had booked online for 40 Euro. Nina was most helpful in showing us the features including how to lock the front door which required a violent shove to close…..Vince had to do this! We had picked up some provisions in one of the early SPARS and Vince made his Thai Green Chicken Curry….but this time we had the luxury of a stovetop and sink! It was around 7.00pm when we arrived and by the time we had freshened up and cooked dinner it was past 9.00pm …so our hopes of visiting the old town had to wait until tomorrow…..we are both exhausted!
