During breakfast the owner, Igor and his wife had written a set of instructions on how to get to Bled. It was an easy cycle and described as one that his wife does with a child's seat on the back of the bike. The first few kilometres were downhill and then came the mountain goat section. She was obviously another person that trained with the Slovenian cycling team. The hill was less than four kilometres long so relatively short by Slovenian standards. Once at the top we had panoramic views of the Triglav range. At 9.30 am we stopped for a coffee. A group of road workers pulled up at the cafe to start work and had what we believed to be a planning and safety meeting. All had a beer and then conducted what ( ... read more

Today's fiasco started: Gus had bought some shiny new Castelli shorts which he hoped would make him go faster. but when he put them on today there was a twist in one of the shoulder straps. We tried for 45 minutes turning the shorts inside out, backwards, one leg in, one leg out and still the twist remained. Hunger got the better of us so we set off to the cafe with the plan to call in at the sports shop on route. The lady at the shop took one look and said that the error was in manufacturing and exchanged them immediately. There was 45 minutes of my life that was I was never going to get back. Croissants for breakfast and then we set off with a view to cross another set of alps ... read more

The day started as usual with a game of hunt the spoon. However, I'm on to them now and soon discovered the stash. Bikes were loaded and we posed for the "before" photo. Today was going to be a tough one as it involved crossing the Vrsic Pass which is the highest road in Slovenia at 1611m or bloody high in imperial measurements (5285 feet and 5 inch). The route started ok but after just a short distance it became undulating. The ups were steep and the downs heartbreaking as it meant we were giving up valuable height gain. We reached the turn off to the Vrsic Psss which looked innocent enough but we reckon should have some sort of warning on it like "caution do not proceed if your thighs are not made of steel" ... read more

Following a good breakfast at the hostel Gus oiled his chain with oil taken from the bilge of the Titanic whilst I dealt with a broken spoke in the rear wheel. When I say dealt with I used the term loosely as all I did was tape it to its neighbour so that it wouldn't be lonely and start talking to the others whist I was riding. Whilst I was following the oil slick travelling up the road I saw a really old car called a Zastava in a nearby driveway. Looked like it had come from a Mr Bean movie. Fairly straight forward ride following the river which was a lot bluer than we had previously seen. The ride was fairly flat with a few smaller climbs. Saw a few beehives along the way which ... read more

Woke to check the previous nights comments and rolled around laughing at some of both the published and unpublished messages. Light breakfast in Muggia at about 8 o'clock. Believe it or not some guys were already in to the beers. Flat cycle along the D8 rail route. We lost the path just before Trieste but made our way to the beach and followed the coast road. Temperature was 32c and relative humidity was 52% according to a sign on the road. First point of interest was a castle built in1856 and used by Ferdinand Maximilian of Hapsburg and his wife Charlotte of Belgium. Nice location on the end of a peninsular. (Photos attached). On leaving we met Dieter, a German guy who was cycling around Italy for two months. From there we continued along the coast ... read more