- Good roads, with not much traffic.
- Friendly, well mannered car drivers.
- Beautiful mountains and rivers.
- Helpful friendly people.
- Lots of bike shops and bike paths.
- Campsites are generally reasonably priced and good quality.
- There's a supermarket in most towns (which provide fresh bread.)
- The train system is good for bikes (at least in May.)
Cons:
- Some big climbs.
- A lot of rain.
- Campsites aren't everywhere.
Slovenia is an excellent country for cycling. A lot of locals cycle, even in the mountainous areas, so the infrastructure is there and the car drivers have a "share the road" attitude. It is a mountainous country, but when we weren't going over the top of a mountain range it was usually a nice steady incline or decline along a river. I would highly recommend everywhere we went. You may wish to skip the two big climbs (Vršič and the Kamnic Alps), but then you would miss out on the best views.
Food was easy to come by except occasionally on Sundays, when the Mercator supermarkets were closed.
The biggest negative was the unpleasant weather. It was raining most days and if not the threat was always there. I only ran into one other cycle tourist, and they were about to cut their trip short because of the rain. There were a few times we caught trains because cycling just wasn't very pleasant. However locals told us that it was unusually wet for May and when it wasn't raining it was a great temperature for cycling.
Later in summer it would almost certainly be better weather, but there will also be more tourists. Except in Bled there weren't all that many tourists at the time we were there.
The highlights were probably from Logarska Dolina down the upper Savinja Valley, and over the Vršič pass in the Julian Alps and down the Soča Valley. However everywhere was good and there were areas that come highly recommended that we didn't go near (particularly the Krka river.)
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Distance: 20km
Cycled Fernetti to Divača
Train Divača to Rijeka (Croatia)
26th May 2008
We rode to Škocjan Caves in time for the first tour of the morning. The caves are nothing less than terrific. You walk through a series of large caverns to a section with a river running through it. It reminded me a little of the mines of Moria. The walkway goes along the sides of the cave with the river raging 100m below. There's a bridge about 70m above the river, which ends as a waterfall disappearing into the depths. It's completely awesome. Sadly we weren't allowed to take photos inside the caves.
Audio update for the morning
Afterwards we caught the train to Rijeka in Croatia, ending our Slovenian experience. Rijeka was a very busy city, but there's not much else to say about it. We stayed at a hostel and looked forward to getting out of it.
Audio update for the afternoon
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Camping in Slovenia isn't as easy as we had hoped because there are so few campgrounds. Camping is only legal in the official campgrounds, which are all commercial. There are about 45 of them, and they are more concentrated in the tourist areas. So although in some areas they are easy to find, sometimes they are few and far between. This had quite an influence on the distances we did during a day, and of course sometimes meant we had to stay in more expensive accommodation.
On the plus side, every campground we stayed in was of a pretty good standard. For the two of us we were usually paying around €15, and the pitches were all grassed.
At Maribor tourist info we picked up a brochure Camping in Slovenia, which listed all the campsites and which we referred to quite often.
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Distance: 50km
Cycled Volarje to Gorizia (Italy)
Train Gorizia to Trieste
Cycled Trieste to Fernetti
25th May 2008
In the morning we passed through a few more nice small towns before reaching Nova Gorica. Kanal in particular was memorable as it was Sunday and it seemed the whole town was walking the streets on their way home from church. Just before Nova Gorica was the largest stone arch train bridge in the world, which was very impressive.
We planned to finish up our trip in Slovenia quickly and move on to Croatia, so the plan was to take a train to Divača to see the Škocjan caves. However there was only one train from Nova Gorica and it was in the evening. About 10 metres from the train station was the Italian border, and a couple of kilometres from there was Gorizia train station, so instead we caught the train from Gorizia to Trieste.
This was easy enough, but getting out of Trieste proved quite difficult. We had no maps and people we asked were of little help. When we did find the general direction it was a huge climb out on a narrow but very busy road with impatient drivers. I stacked it at one point and got a few cuts and bruises, but nothing major.
We ended up reaching the border a little out of our way but heading in the right direction. By then it was time to pack it in so we found a campground on the Italian side. The hard gravel pitch was a disappointment after all the nice Slovenian campsites.
Our side trip to Italy was shortlived and not so fun, but eventful.
May 25th audio update
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Distance: 78km
Cycled Kranjska Gora to Volarje
24th May 2008
This was the big day - over the Julian Alps through the Vršič pass. It was a sunny morning which was great for the views. It's about a 13km ride to the top of the pass (1611m). It's a steep road made a little harder by the hairpin bends being cobblestone. Each one has a numbered blue sign with the altitude. There are something like 24 to the top. Along the way there are huts, hikers, and some of the best views around.
The way down was very fast and fun, and with even better views. At the foot of the mountains we met up with the Soča river which we followed most of the day. At it's best the Soča is supposed to be a bright emerald green. It was quite cloudy for us, but still a beautiful green. In fact the whole day there was very little that couldn't be described as beautiful, including the place where we had lunch by a footbridge over the river.
We stayed the night in Camping Vili, which was a highlight in itself. It was right beside the river and Vili himself was a very talkative and energetic character. He also cooked a good dinner of trout and allowed us to dry our shoes in their house. Basically it was a very homely and welcoming camp ground.
I had been looking forward to this part of the trip and it exceeded my expecations.
May 24th audio update
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