June 24 2014 Muggia - Trieste - Nova Gorica

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Woke to check the previous nights comments and rolled around laughing at some of both the published and unpublished messages.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 until Monfalcone trize when we turned right and headed into the mountains towards Nova Gorica. We'd had a long slow climb for a number of kilometres and this continued until we stopped for a bite to eat at Miljo, Osteria Con Cucina. The owners Robert and Domenique gladly fed and filled us with beer. Robert spoke excellent English and had lived in the pub as the third generation of his family. He had some local maps and advice about where to go and what to see. We left there confident of our route and ready to cycle the final 10 kms. Sadly a navigation error led us once again in the wrong direction over a very steep 4 km climb. The one litre of beer was now weighing an easy 20 kgs as opposed to the 1 kg it should have weighed. Lol After having cycled nearly 13 kms and not seen a sign for Nova Gorica we stopped a local runner for directions. Under normal conditions it would have been nice to flap the beak with the fit looking Slovenian but as the sweat was stinging my eyes and I was struggling for breath the thought of trying to gasp a few extra words was far from my mind. With our tails between our legs we turned the bikes around for the ride of shame back down the hill we had so boldly climbed. Lol. 17 kms later we arrived at Nova Gorica. A quick trip to the Tourist information centre and we were able to get booked in to a local hotel. It ended up been a long day in the saddle but we are definitely in the hills now. However, everywhere we look is uphill from here.

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