Riding north: Fruili Venezia Giulia and SLO

We rode the excellent and beautiful Paranzana rail-trail across Slovenia and back towards Italy. We would spend the next week straddling the border between north-eastern Italy (Friuli Venezia Giulia province) and Slovenia.  The Italian foothills host acres of vineyards and are sprinkled with quaint villages, giving way to less developed, and welcomingly more wild terrain in Slovenia. We were struck by the wildflowers and lush spring growth and saw our first glimpses of the big snow capped peaks (the Julian Alps).  From Trieste we made our way to Nova Gorica, Slovenia to stay with Roman and Marija (Warm Showers hosts). Their hospitality was excellent and we really enjoyed visiting with them and the wonderful home cooked meal! Both of them grew up in the same general area they now live and Roman's route suggestions proved to be excellent - comprised of high quality roads with little traffic and ample views of beautiful scenery.

We found ourselves feeling excited and inspired by the glimpses of the high peaks, and to be sure a bit intimidated too - soon we would be trying to pedal our bicycles through these and other similar high peaks. When we reached Kobarind, Slovenia we felt we had arrived back to the familiarity of the mountains, our sense of having passed back into a favorite realm was palpable.  The mighty Soča river (Slovenia's "Emerald River") with its glacial blue waters led the way up to the ski village of Bovec, and our home for the next couple of days.

Slovenia's Julian Alps and the Soča River valley are far more impressive than we were aware.  The villages of Kobarind and Bovec are both situated in amazing settings, and provide all the services touring cyclists might require.  We planned to use Bovec as a launching pad to ride over Predil Pass to see the end of stage 10 of the 2013 Giro d'Italia, and then on our departure up and over Vrsič Pass to Kranjska Gora on the border with Austria to the north.  

The Paranzana rail-trail runs from Trieste Italy all the way to Porec, Croatia.  We only rode the paved segment between the Croatian - Slovenian border around to Koper, Slovenia.  As a rail - trail it was great, but I guess in its time it was also a great light rail transit resource for the region too, decommissioned by Mousalini in the 1930's and sold at auction it robbed the region of a much beloved and useful mode of transit and connection with larger markets in Italy to the nort-east.

Although at times piecemeal, Slovenia has some impressive cycling infrastructure.  I was particularly impressed with this bicycle round-a-bout in e town of Koper.

We are riding lots of small roads like this; no shoulders, but who cares, there's no traffic!

Warm showers hosts Roman and Marija provided us a great stay and sent us off to discover some of the beauty and excellent cycling that Slovenia has to offer.

The mighty Soča River is a mesmerizing color of aquamarine blue, although we didn't even try to swim in it, we saw many excellent swimming holes that must provide refreshing cool - downs come the warmer temperatures of summer.

The view from the bar just below apartment Jo Jo was an awesome place to enjoy a beer.

A week cycling Istria: part 2

Here are a few photos from the second half of our Istrian Tour.  The new Blogger App that we are using now allows us to comment on the photos, so scroll down to see some comments on what you are actually looking at.

The smokestack on this coal fired power plant near Plomin, Croatia must have been at least 750' tall.  The juxtaposition within the otherwise verdant valley at the head of this inlet made for an interesting sight.

From the ferry terminal on Cres it was a single, 11-kilometer traversing climb to a saddle where we caught a glimpse of the endemic Griffon Condor.

Cres is very arid and covered in rocks.  These same rocks have been stacked up into walls everywhere, we guessed for livestock, but we only saw a handful of goats and some sheep?

Oh yeah, and this Dung Beattle rolling his prize home to show his friends.

The campsite in Cres had a nice bar and Pizzeria, so instead of riding more we took a day off to relax.

The marina in the town of Cres.

View out to the south from the high point along the road on the way back to the ferry terminal on Cres.

Beautiful but very hot ride from Brestova to Pazin.  We sought out this bus stop for some shade.  After this stop Susan only made it another ~2km before having to take a nap on a rock that had a small patch of shade of its own.

Draguc, Croatia.  We rode an awesome road that wound rough the countryside culminated with 15km descent past this and other picturesque villages.

Susan riding towards Motovun, perhaps Istria's most famous hill town with a rampart walk along the old city walls encircling the small village.

View from Motovun's rampart.

Back to Momjan and the view from Michael and Marijan's balcony.  We have come to love the vilage bell towers that mark the days passing and provide a nice wake-up each morning.

A week cycling Istrian: part 1

A week of exploring Istria!  Our plan was to ride south visiting the coastal towns of Porec, Rovinj and Pula and then take the ferry out to the island of Cres in the Kvarner Gulf.

Leaving Momjan we headed out and had an awesome ride!  We saw many other riders in this region which is usually a good indicator for good riding, and it was indeed beautiful road riding terrain.  We arrived in Rovinj at dusk just in time to find our campground and settle in.  We decided to stay an extra day to be able to check out town which we did the next morning, by riding a bike path along the coast for 8 km.  We did the usual church and castle visits and explored the cool winding pathways, which so far we have not grown tired of.  Back to camp and to the beach for Susan for a little R&R in the sun!  

The next day we headed to Pula the big port town of Istria.  We checked out the big amphitheater which is impressive, and as nice as the one in Rome, just not Rome. We also found out that the Ferry we intended to take to Cres was not running... So we would have to ride another day up to Brestova to a ferry that reaches the Island of Cres from the north. The ride north to catch the ferry, although a bit rainy, turned out to be very nice.

We had hoped to ride the whole length of Cres from the south to the north but as that Ferry was not running we had to do an out-and-back from the north.  We ended up at a nice campground and stayed two days for a break from riding and some beach time. The water is an amazing shade of blue, (just like in the pictures) the swimming was a bit cold but nice after a little sunning.      

 

We rode back to the ferry and rode to Pazin in the center of the Istrian peninsula. Oh and along the way Susan had a little heat exhaustion experience and had to take a little roadside nap! The next day we returned back to Momjon via an awesome ride that brought us past Cerovlje, Draguc, Buzet, and Motovun, our tour of Istria was almost complete!  Our return to Michael and Marijan's felt familiar and welcoming. Such great host and wonderful people!

Divigrad castle

Riding along the water in Porec.

Rovinj, very touristy, but for good reason, it was beautiful.

       

This communist era monument stood out like a sore thumb in this otherwise historic village.

We almost had o backtrack 6km uphill due to a wrong turn, but were able to ride this dirt road Long the sa cliffs,to make a connection back to pavement on the way to Pula.

Pula's Coliseum or Aphitheatre is amazingly intact and the 6th largest one known.

It rained pretty good while sight seeing in Pula, but Susan's rain jacket matched the street pretty well.

Italian energy drink for those times when your dragging...

See next post for the rest of our Istrian Photos.