A Bicycle Tour of Slovenia | EPISODE 7: A RAINY RIDE INTO DIVAČA

We awake to good news: the rain was clearing! (Little did we know that this would end up as the rainiest stretch of our entire bike tour!) We left the lovely village of Branik, and up a steep climb out of the Vipava Valley and onto the Karst Plateau. Here we discovered Stanjal Castle, and its lovely gardens. Across the Karst Plateau we rode, until eventually the rain caught up with us, again. We rode through Lipica, the largest and oldest stud farm for the famed Lipizzaner horses, and finally reached our hotel in Divača as the rain finally began to clear. A very rainy end to another lovely day.

Music:

Meghmalai – Maree Docia
Epidemic Sound

Skip Stones – Franz Gordon
Epidemic Sound

Rhubarb – Esme Cruz
Epidemic Sound

Rush to Russia – Sight of Wonders
Epidemic Sound

In The Mystic Woods – Spectacles Wallet and Watch
Epidemic Sound

Materializing – Of Water
Epidemic Sound

Dreaming At Last – Joseph Alesci
Epidemic Sound

Yes a wet slog all the way but fun still [Applause] fun and we’re off on another beautiful Grand Adventure although it may look gloomy forecast calls for much better weather from here on out cool though first little Hill of the day always takes it out of me think all the hotels are at the bottom of Hills what a wonderful town this was

Castle Church cool Viaduct had a Charming stay at a guest house really great meal had a wonderful time life is good Baby this is going to be a hard day it’s aren’t getting any easier we got about 2,000 2,000 plus feet of climbing today little more than yesterday but yesterday we also had a lot of drop which was very nice unfortunately those two are going to have to be waiting for me again

Waiting for their old man the ears take their toll doesn’t matter if you keep riding or not we doesn’t matter for me but so glad to be 63 and still being able to cross a country by bike mostly cuz I can see this kind of stuff and

Drink the kind of wine we had last night and have the kind of food we had last night meet the people it’s awesome what a great way to spend spend your time keep thinking it’s flattening out up there but it never does kind of hope

It does you know it’s the first climb of the day and that first climb is always really really tough for me then it usually gets easier but it’s kind of that grind right out of the gate my body’s like I don’t want to do this

Again and then it gets used to it and then it’s all better stopping for me thank you girls CH and uh climb is going to steepen up a little bit so let’s get ready I got stung by Nettles yesterday kind of uh car kind of pushed us a little off to the side on that dragon’s path and uh could feel it right away so my daughters who are outdoor experts are

Going to show me what a nettle looks like let’s take a look here okay so we believe this is Nettles it may look a little bit different than the ones we’re used to in Colorado but you’ll notice the leaves are like serrated and pointy yeah they’re kind of yeah they almost

Have a flamy kind of to them yeah yeah flame shape I guess you can kind of see there’s it’s it’s probably you can’t see it there’s like hairs on the bottom tiny little hairs on the bottom so can we see them I found a really good example one yeah there’s hairs on the

Bottom of this one for sure can’t quite yeah I see those I feel like they kind of look like a mint plant because it seems like they grow in like quadrant and then you can see flowery bits or whatever these like seeding nuggets are cool I’ll I’ll keep an eye

Out that looks actually quite familiar so we can Google it before you put on the video make sure we don’t missing on people but all right s was like a good idea thanks girls for showing me what to what to avoid you beta if you want to

Like test it out and make sure they’re Nettles you can go back and just you know rub them on your forearm it it’s a it’s a testament to my confidence in your that you don’t have to that I don’t have to prove it with yeah okay all right that’s fair if anyone’s curious

I’m all better now so no more no more nettly irritation it was very brief lived there’s a downhill the lesson of the day lesson of every day when you’re biking is for every uphill there’s a downhill and all you got to do is just keep after it and eventually it gets easier it

Always gets better at some point and then it gets harder again then easier harder easier I don’t know if you can see that where Bailey is that’s the dip and then it’s going to climb up again so there you go the ups and downs of bicycle touring I our first order of

Business was a stiff climb out of the vava valley and up to the kst plateau wow that was a climb holy cow there we found the town of stanel home to stanel castle built in the Middle Ages fortified to defend against the Ottomans heavily damaged and Allied bombings in

World War II it’s still being renovated to its original Glory hello H they see what I say everywhere you go that’s pretty you’ll find tourists right seems like it anyway boy this is a really lovely spot though got to wonder what this is I’ll have to do a little do

A little digging on This yeah beautiful stuff yeah got some really good fruits and these are but we see these yes these are uh they they uhoh those are not for eating those are for only for Aroma in the room yeah love that oh oh smell just smell you’re not supposed to eat it you’re supposed to

Smell it it good yeah smells good yeah nice Kelsey found us this really nice Garden just strolling through the garden eating fresh Figs got to love these little chestnuts unless you happen to be riding over one in which case they can be a little bit dangerous actually beautiful we skipped the Castle tour with the busload of tourists in favor of a quiet walk through Pleasant Gardens for reasons unknown we can just never

Get enough of these European sanctuaries with their Mossy walls and Middle Earth Vibes at the end of our walk we were graced with a magnificent view of the vava valley below well I don’t know any of these places it sure is a nice view mountains maybe I guess so they’re labeled with

The height they must be then so is that possibly our old town this morning I think we’ve got further than that but I have no idea you see a castle it would be on that hill to our lower right facing the Valley Does anyone check the weather no we probably should have checked the weather since there’s nobody here we might as well ride on the trails right have to we got our fill of the castle grounds we returned to the road that would take us on our way today a ride

Across this carst Plateau known locally as cross this is the region where we got the term kst and indeed like most K regions this area is well known for Caverns as evidenced by all the caves we’ve passed on this trip and haven’t spent any time in sorry spelunkers for

The emissions yeah we got blue sky ahead but that’s really not where we’re going where we’re going is over there it’s kind of rainy over there it’s actually raining here too we thought we were done with the rain but that is not the case I think it’s going to rain

Lightly and that’s okay we don’t mind That yes I couldn’t agree More such interesting uh Forest here reminds me a little of mayorca and places our ultimate goal in this tour was always the Adriatic that finger of the Mediterranean that makes up the eastern shore of the Italian boot all the way up to Venice into triest we

Won’t make it that far today and our climb earlier means we’ll have a good steep descent tomorrow but for now we follow the flat roads across the plateau kind of a blustery day it’s very cool like maybe in the 50s coolest day we’ve had and breey spitting rain pretty

Much off and on a lot of Hills a lot of ups and downs constantly struggling to keep up it’s fair remember having wait for them when they were little now their Tides have [Applause] Changed getting a weird sound out of my breaks yeah your break I went off sorry that was my bad took her on long turn yeah oh yeah we’ll just take the next turn all right can I just say once again how great it is having someone else in

Charge of navigating it’s an overlooked skill and even with today’s incredible mapping apps one wrong turn can meet a lot of extra pedal Strokes on a bike so constant attention to the route is essential thank you girls a there’s some grapes on these guys I think we’re

Catching it just at about Harvest Time a lot of them have already been picked clean oh it’s a wet one it’s a real wet ride at some point the rain caught up with us again in fact the entire afternoon was spent negotiating the wet Road and trying to Blink the raindrops

Out of our eyes we’re just sitting here enjoying our sandwiches from this morning grabbed some stuff from The Breakfast Table this morning which we paid for lovely little town but it is chilly it’s in the 50s rainy wet kind of breezy um 14° C everybody’s kind of

Wishing that we had brought a little bit more layers I think I have more layers I well kelse is doing fine most mostly this guy yeah it’s me that I’m worried about hi I’m the problem it’s [Laughter] me rain’s letting up so I think to get going there’s a little thing on here Yeah because the forecast this morning called for clearing skies I had packed my more waterproof camera in with a sag wagon and I was not able to film much of the later part of the day oh my goodness how’s the writing y’all I’m wearing a shower cap yeah on top of my

Helmet I’m wearing a hood what are you wearing Kelsey just a rain jacket just a rain jacket this is where the LI lipiner horses lipiner lier it’s pronounced Lipitor and in better weather tourists are welcome to check out Li lippits onor horses famed for their white coats and

Their athletic abilities um very pretty though look at all that beautiful white fences today we just rode through eager to reach our destination and it is raining constantly it is a constant wet slog But fun still fun all right Sun’s starting to come out wind is blowing drying us off a little bit still really chilly we’re only a few miles away but I could have filmed more during that rain it was really pretty really pretty Countryside really pretty lighting and

Everything but it was just too wet a little too sketchy on the road too we’re very close to Italy right now but I don’t think we drop into Italy until tomorrow I think kind of right on the border another beautiful day here in slan it’s feeling very Italian

Here we arrived in dbaa under clearing skies and with a breeze that only partly dried us off once again our luggage hadn’t arrived yet we had a glass of wine in our wet clothes while we waited but once we got our bags we had a nice

Meal at the restaurant next door and the rooms were cozy and dry tomorrow we say goodbye to all the rain and hello to the sunny Adriatic