From the European luxuries to the Balkan fields

Monday August 19, Crossing Slovenia (409 kms)
Another tough day awaits us today and because of yesterday’s fatigue we depart a bit late. Our first attraction today is just a few km from our hotel and it is the unique Vrsic pass (1611m).

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It is known as “Russian road” in honor of the Russian prisoners who built it during the World War I. The specificity is that almost all the hairpins of the northern side, are stone paved!

On the way down to the pass, we find the monument in honor of the author and explorer Julius Kugy, who was among the first who experienced the magic of the Julian Alps and praised them in his books.

We continue till we meet the beautiful crystal water river Soca and follow it until we reach the namesake lake.

From there, we follow the river Idrijca in a spectacular route that goes up and down on small hills and without any straight road at all.

In the same pattern, but with no river to accompany us, and through continuous forests we reach, after some time, the borders with Croatia.

The check is only typical and in short time we are in Croatian territory. We head towards the national park Plitvice through a rather forgotten road. Sometimes, I wonder what the hell I see on the maps when I draw our routes. The road is really narrow, with bad tarmac and winds through a dense forest…

Speed Triple needs gasoline but in this road there is no chance to find a gas station. The navi says that there’s a gas station in front of us in about 20 km… but it’s wrong… Meanwhile, we are already moving on the main road but, in which -again- there is no sign of a gas station. Finally, we manage to find one in a small village (outside of the main road) just before the engine of Speed Triple stops running…

We fill up and continue in a lush green landscape through the national park on a really narrow road again. If we came across something bigger than a Yugo, we could only cross our fingers…

Finally we reach at the apartment that we have booked (Katica Bicanic) which is on the 2nd floor of the nice house owned by a couple.

We settled and ask the friendly owners where we can go for dinner. They recommend us a nearby restaurant in which there was a huge line outside waiting for a table! WTH… We continue searching and in the following two there were also big queues waiting outside. Finally I open the GPS which leads me to a side street, at a restaurant Sedra. Luckily it had a free table…

The pizzas turned out to be huge, tasty and cheap, but later we learned from the owners of the guesthouse that the specific restaurant is not so good. But as they also said, pizzas are always good 😉

After the dinner, we return back to our apartment to rest, because we are really tired from the last two difficult days. And tomorrow lots of walking in the park is waiting for us.

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