Slovenia says hello

Friday, 03 August
Map & pin: Venice; Trieste; (across Slovenia); Umag (Croatia); Pula; Moscenicka Draga; Postojna (Slovenia); Ljubljana.

I am writing this trapped in Bob at a campsite in Ljubljana – we are facing a morning of forced ententment due to the dreaded rain. However, this gives me a chance to catch up on everything admin so that when we get out and online I’ll hopefully be able to bring the blog up to date, etc. We have coffee, cheese, bread and a packet of crackers shaped like fish, so we should be able to survive for some time. In a tent somewhere nearby, someone is playing guitar, badly (this is a proper campsite), and if they start singing kumbaya we shall set about them with our pocket knives, rain or no rain. [Some time later: oh how we long for the bad guitar-playing dude. Now we are being assaulted by the hideous sound of some kind of family singing group that appear to have set up camp next to us. The noise is indescribably bad, and although Neil and I howl at them like dogs from the confines of our tent, they will not desist. I fear that however inclement the conditions, we cannot endure much longer and will either have to kill them (really bloody brutally and violently, really) or just go out and get wet. Discussions are currently being held on which of these options is preferable.]

There has been much excitement since my last update – we’ve had our first serious faller and I very, very much regret to report that it was me. We’ve been in and out and back into Slovenia and across Croatia, but staying with the chapter approach, I shall begin by going back to Venice.

Once the novelty wears off

There is no doubting that Venice is very beautiful – it is. And it is simply packed to the rafters with awesome art and artefacts of great cultural value, etc. But I can’t help but feel somehow a little underwhelmed by it all at the end of the day. We spent a full day looking around, taking water taxis up and down the canals and out to one of the islands in the lagoon, and we saw some awesome stuff. Architecturally, there are so many stand out buildings it’s hard to know which ones really stood out, so to speak. The basilica is breathtaking inside and out, with fabulous mosaics and an extraordinarily long queue which you can jump almost completely if you do what you are supposed to do which is take your bag to the little cloakroom across the square and then go more or less straight in – the long queue is actually where they are checking bags but most people don’t seem to realise this.

The treasures are where it was all at for me, however. The Guggenheim collection is awesome. It includes Magritte’s Empire of Light, which is one of those pictures that remind you that paintings are objects not images. It’s an image I’ve seen many a time in reproduction, but when I walked into the room where it hung it simply took my breath away. It’s huge – it’s a big canvas but its presence far exceeds its size. It has immense depth. I wanted to step into the dark and look out from the other side, and it seems at once perfectly realistic and inexplicably surreal and sinister. I could honestly have stood and looked at it for an hour. Just amazing. Aside from this, the gallery does contain a Guggenheim of gems (for surely this must now be the collective noun for such exquisite collections of modern art): Picasso (La Baignade is way better in real life than I expected and there were some amazing cartoons/drawings called The Dream and Lie of Franco of which I shall seek out further info); Kandinsky (Upward, no less); de Chirico; Chagall; Pollock; Miro. There was also an exhibition of Italian futurists including some really striking work by Umberto Boccioni, of whom ignorant me had never even heard. The Acadamie is jam packed full of Titians, Tintorettos, Veroneses and others, but then so is nearly every church and public building you fork out a good few euros to enter. Then there was the glass. Had we not been on bicis we would definitely have left town a good €200 lighter but bearing an exquisite black Murano wine glass – although to call it a wine glass is to fail miserably to convey this combination of something that compels you to use it but simultaneously demands that you appreciate it as a supreme work of art. That was the item that nearly broke me, but in truth, I could have bought a houselot of the stuff. I could even have bought a glass ornament and I know how rubbish they are.

Overall though, I came away feeling that once the novelty of Venice – you know, canals instead of streets, boats instead of cars – wears off, it’s another very significant Italian city but possibly a little over-rated. It’s gob-smackingly expensive and really crowded. I feel like I’m probably being a little harsh because it is very beautiful and has amazing things to see. I’m certainly glad I’ve been there, but I’m not in a massive hurry to go back (well, except to pick up that glass…). Very good campsite once again – a 30-40 minute, €1 bus ride from the city, reasonable price (for the region) good camp shop (sells ice) and nice helpful people.

The tests of Trieste, including following the way of the tram/funicular

Longest single cycle yet, from Venice to Trieste: just over 164km. More or less deliberate, as we decided about 30km in that we’d push on and do the whole thing in a single day. And, as the story usually goes, it was all pretty great until the last 20km. Spot of motorway negotiation to get around Venice then miles of plain sailing with flat country and a slight headwind developing around the 80km mark. Then, as we neared Trieste, hills loomed. Not big nasty fuck-off hills, quite benign pretty earth lumps, really. Anywhere from 0 to 60km, they were the kind of hills you love; the kind you’re thankful for from 60-120km even. But at over 150km, they are just unnecessary and cruel. We followed the signs to avoid the motorway and find our campsite (Lonely Planet-listed, I might add), ran out of water and were forced to buy some (I HATE buying water) and after around 10km of constant climbing in near dark we finally found our campsite. Shut. Fucking shut. Much swearing ensued. However, in a clever but also kind piece of marketing there was a sign just over the road indicating the presence of another campsite only 3km away. Okay, it was up a ridiculously steep hill, but it was a brilliant campsite. We arrived and started pitching our tent just as the mother of all storms broke, pounding us with freezing cold rain and threatening us with lightning as we managed to nail Bob to the ground and get inside, cold and wet with all our things.

From then on, however, Trieste was quite a delight. From the foot of our own personal campsite hill, was our own personal tram/funicular railway stop. Best public transport ever. For €1.10 return, you get on a tram that snakes it’s way back and forth across the top third of the hill from Opicina down towards Trieste. Then it attaches itself to a little funicular railway car that tows it up/down the steep part of the hill, detaches itself at the bottom and trundles on its tramlines right into the heart of town. Over a hundred years old and truly cool – I’d recommend going to Trieste just to ride on it. But wait – there’s more! The whole city is really lovely, with lots of open spaces, wide streets and a very laid-back feel to the bars and restaurants. There’s nothing to rival the big treasures of many Italian cities, but the cathedral has wonderful mosaics and old, old frescoes and the amphitheatre is quite round and intact-ish.

On our last night in Italy, we treated ourselves to an extravagant dinner. Three courses and wine – the whole nine yards. I had delicious local seafood, it was all beautiful, we dined outside near the water and the service was great. Sadly, we missed the last bus home and as we had only come into the town via the tram/funicular we had no idea of any other way home. So we were forced to walk the tracks, roughly 5km and some of it near vertical, in the dark, which nearly killed us, but afforded us spectacular views of the city and harbour lights. And my dinner made me violently ill! (Which, coincidentally, is no mean feat because I have a damn strong constitution – it takes a hell of a lot to make me sick.) But at the end of the day I’d really enjoyed the dinner, so on balance it was all worth it. The camping was the cheapest in Italy by a mile and a brilliantly located, peaceful, basic but well-equipped site. Our only disappointment was that we failed to find the biggest cave in Europe (note the use of the ‘est’ there – gotta love an est!) which was supposedly quite near to us but obviously very well-concealed (entirely reasonable as it is a cave after all) because we rode around for half a day and couldn’t find it. We did have a nice cycle through the hills between Trieste and Slovenia, though, and came across a very isolated and strange memorial which I shall investigate and enlighten all about at some future time. Double thumbs up for Trieste!

You want to go to Yugoslav?

In fact the next morning it seemed we might never leave Trieste, so it’s lucky I liked it so much. The day’s cycle started the way every day’s cycle would start in Angela’s cycle touring utopia – a 10km sail down a cool, mostly empty, windy mountain road into Trieste and along the harbour. How soon the dream was over. In a word, motorways. Millions of ‘em. At the end of every road. We spent ages trying to get out of the city and none of our maps were any help. We backtracked and sidetracked, we even went on the forbidden road at one point, despite all the Italian driver finger waving and honking, and even when we got back onto the permitted roads, they inevitably ended, every time, in motorway. We were teetering on the edge of the cliff of despair, staring at a roundabout that indicated the border with Slovenia was just ahead – down the motorway – when a little old woman tottered up to us on the road. ‘You want to go to Yugoslav?’ she asked. ‘Please,’ we begged. ‘You go back that way, down that road,’ and she pointed, helpfully, at the motorway. We thanked her through the tears and continued to sit dejectedly on our cycles. But then a miracle – the little old lady came weaving back up the middle of the road, heedless of the traffic veering around her, and pointed to the roundabout ahead. ‘But on bicycles, you can go that way,’ she added, turned and walked away before we could even thank her again. So we did – we went that way and around the corner, 200m down the road was the Slovenian border. It was over, and once again, we had escaped.

Once over the border, Slovenia began what has been an unending and successful quest to impress. The border crossing dude pointed us to a DEDICATED CYCLE PATH, the D-8 in case you’re interested, which more or less took us the whole way across Slovenia to the Croatian border. It had effective sign-posting, only occasional forays onto the road, and even had its own cycle-dedicated tunnels through hills. It, in a word, rocked. Go Slovenia, you fine, fine country. If I were to make a constructive criticism it would concern the lack of water – maybe you could go all Italian and throw a drinking fountain/tap or two in along the way. So soon enough we were into Croatia, with which I am so far less enamoured. Border crossing was again a piece of cake. The Istria region, through which we were riding, has some of the most rubbish roads we have encountered. They are narrow, they have no shoulder – absolutely none at all. The white line is the side of the road and beyond that is anything from sheer drop to dead hedghog, giant rocks to thorny bushes. The drivers give you no space and do not even contemplate slowing down to let oncoming traffic pass if there is not enough space. The traffic is horrendous. From when we crossed the border and were forced to share the road once again with vile, evil cars, it was endlessly heavy – at times bumper to bumper – unless we were being inexplicably stopped in the middle of nowhere by traffic police and made to wait in the sweltering sun for an unspecified period of time before being ushered off on our way again. The scenery was dull and drab, the road being off the coast and winding through low scrub only occasionally interrupted by a pig turning on a spit over a fire by the roadside (I shit you not). Eventually, we arrived at Umag, which seemed a pretty enough town, but we’d had enough. We had a couple of beers in the town centre and then headed for the ‘cheaper’ campsite (the quote marks give it away, don’t they) another 5km or so from the town.

It was a rubbish campsite. It is called Camping Finida – remember that name, for you shall avoid it like Milton Keynes. We arrived at reception, checked the prices (a little expensive, but not exhorbitant, according to the published price list) and picked one of the 4 pitches that we were told remained (apart from some vague reference to ‘or this bit over here’). We asked to pay up front as we were leaving early in the morning, but were told that wasn’t allowed and we could check out from 7.30am. Our pitch was rubbish – about a Bob and a foot long, between two trees, next to the bins and the toilets. The site had shit facilities. For example, the site had a total of 13 showers for about 2,000 people – and I am once again not exaggerating. There was a small market/shop, which was quite good, and a very average bar that didn’t even have a television despite the semi-finals of the Croatia Open being played *that very day* just up the road in Umag – they had rather pathetically flung a few tennis balls around a table as some feeble attempt at a themed display, no doubt. So we had a beer, made ourselves dinner and went to bed.

Imagine my surprise, on reaching reception at 7.30 the next morning, to be presented with a bill for €34.30. Apparently, Neil discovered upon reading the insanely small, tiny ant writing (by which I refer to the ancient art of writing on the head of ant grains of rice, as practiced by tiny ants, not writing the size of tiny ants, in case there was some confusion) that there is a 20% surcharge for a stay of less than 5 days. Further, we had been charged for the most expensive plot – that for a car with caravan, or campervan, with electricity, water and satellite tv (they actually had little sockets under the electricity plugs where you could plug your tv in, which, I begrudgingly admit, is quite cool) despite the fact that a)we were but two cyclists with a tiny tent and b) you couldn’t possibly have fitted anything but us on the fucking piece of ground we had. This was the most expensive campsite we have stayed at. Anywhere. More expensive than Milan. More expensive than the Italian lakes. And it was rubbish.

The day’s riding was much like yesterday, only worse. Hotter, more tedious, no coastline, not even any little villages to break the monotony. Oh, on referring to my diary, I note that we saw a donkey, which was apparently the highlight. Istria sucks, frankly. We arrived in Pula which looked more promising. The campsite was at least honest enough to tell us that they had a two night minimum stay and at €26 it was expensive but not life-threateningly so. We stayed two nights, and to be fair, it was a very nice campsite. Right on the headland southwest of the town, with direct access to the coast. The campsite surrounds the site of an old fort and is in pleasant woodland (that’s standard campsite description language, right there). The facilities were really good, as was the bar, shop and restaurant. We rode into the town and had a look at the sights – a very impressive amphitheatre and some roman ruins. Bought a dress and some socks to supplement my meagre wardrobe (very cheap clothes in Croatia). We returned to the campsite just in time for the psycho windstorm from hell! It was great (right up until the next day, when we had to ride into it and I wanted to cry) and was later accompanied by rain. We cowered in Bob for the rest of the day, fearing that a giant pine cone might dash out our brains at any second.

Finally, on the run from Pula to Moscenicka Draga, Croatia got nice. All right, it got very nice. The first part of the day’s ride was so horrible that I did not think we would make it. Endless hills, endless bloody hills (I will draw you a picture of the shape of Istria when I have some time and you will see) and gale force winds coming straight at us. And tedious, tedious landscape with nothing to look at, nothing to distract from the unutterable boredom of the road and the wind and the hills. Then, we climbed a mountain, turned a corner and it was all lovely. We hit the coast and the scenery was spectacular – glittering blue ocean, dense green forests running down mountains right to the coast, occasional villages with proper Croatian-style spires and other picturesque architecture. Much of the riding was still hard, but at least you felt like there was some reward. It may not be coincidental that at this point, we were nearing the edge of the Istrian region, and indeed passing into the next region (the name of which escapes me, I’m afraid). The campsite that night was cheap (under €20) and ideally located. We met some nice German tourers who tried to help Neil with his bike (another broken spoke) and gave us a tip on a good road to take in Slovenia. I do not wish to be down on Croatia, for I have seen but a tiny portion of it. I could not, however, in all good faith recommend Istria. It was really, really expensive, which is certainly not what I expected of Croatia, the riding conditions were awful and there was little to see along the way. I am sure that the rest of the country has much more to offer, and I am still very excited about Zagreb, to which we will be nipping over from Slovenia in a few days time!

After the fall

This is a hastily added entry to explain the fall, which would otherwise leave you all up in the air. Basically, on the way into Postojna, my rear wheel got stuck in a groove in the road and it all went horribly wrong. I lost control and went face down on the road. I hasten to add, for parental concern reasons that I largely do wear my helmet but was not at this point. So, in a word, large head lump and a few grazes, nothing else. I was a bit bemused, shall we say, but Neil was there, speaking constantly of the field of penguins that he could only see (note to all - don't put Neil on concussion watch for your loved ones or yourself). However I am all tixkety boo. now. howentsily, I'm hokYH. help....

Having shaken off the effects of the crash, I am particularly galled to have no visible, photographable effects. My head lump was ace, but really needed to be felt rather than seen and my graze was frankly abysmal on world injury standards. Still. I'd like to quote here to show the seriousness of the fall. Neil, what was it like? "I didn't see a thing, but I dragged your bike off the road." Thanks mate.