Day 6 - Ljubljana, Slovenia

297 K - 184 Miles

This is really amazing.  I can't make miles at all on this trip.  I'm either enjoying lazing around in the morning, or something comes up that eats up a lot of time and keeps me off the road.  This morning it was a combination of the two.

My hotel served scrambled eggs and ham for breakfast.  It wasn't fat back, and there were no biscuits, but it was a very valiant attempt at a real breakfast.  Perhaps I'm moving toward the "ends" of that continent thingy.  They also served coffee (not café), you know, that stuff that fills a cup because it's so watered down, and the cup has a handle you can't put your bloody finger through so your little finger doesn't stick out like a drag queen at a KKK convention.  It was pretty special.  I lazed around in the breakfast much longer than usual, enjoying the ambiance...not to mention the eggs.

Then I had another one of my so-favored moments of serendipity.  I was packing up Betsy in front of the hotel when this nice well-dressed local gentleman stopped by.  He spoke excellent English so we talked for a few minutes.  When I told him I was heading south into Slovenia, he mentioned that the famous tunnel on the main highway would be a two-hour transit today.  This, is because of all the traffic.  He pointed out that with the bike I could lane split and cut that time by a lot.  But I wasn't too hot on the idea of all that traffic, so I said I'd really like to take another way.  He said, "Great, go this way," and proceeded to lay out the path shown above.  The main expressway is the road to the left of my path.   The problem was that I had to reload maps to get it, so that took up way too much time given that the download aborted a couple of times.  Just some more of that time-eating stuff.  Ho-hum...I just don't care.  I'm on "cation," as my daughter used to say.

This road was mostly two lanes, through the villages, with wonderful scenery and pace.  Just a GREAT ride, all the way around.  The couple of times I got behind a gravel truck or dump truck, who cared, I just throttled back and enjoyed the ride. 

This is just outside of Salzburg, on my way out.

The big gap is where we're headed.

Some "more" of the same ol' scenery.  I had to look at crap like this for the past three days.  I'm telling you...IT'S NOT GETTING BORING!

Lots of these guys.  You got to be careful in them though.  All those exhaust fumes will make you believe you've had too much to think.



(No, I don't need a spell checker.)

See what I mean?

One of many small "skiing" towns in the Alps.

Bunny slopes
(Enough to scare me, though.)

About 3:00pm I saw a sign for a little cafe and, deciding a cup of coffee would be the thing, I stopped and went in.  This nice lady tended the bar and gave good café.
I took a couple of sips of my coffee and realized that the music being played was Tanya Tucker's 'Delta Dawn.'
That just floored me.  This far back in the "hills" of Austria, and I'm hearing Tanya Tucker?  It was great!  So I told the lady I had to have a picture so I could immortalize her in a blog.

I wish I'd have taken down the name, because it really was a nice place, and she and her kids (in the background) were nice folks.   I think the name of the town was Patergassen.

I was fortunate and the predicted rain storms failed to materialize this afternoon.  I ran into patches of light sprinkles all afternoon, but, other than making me very conscious of the road, and very (I mean very) conservative on the turns, it wasn't a big deal.

Once again, my new iPad buddy and McDonald's came to the rescue.  About 60km out of Ljubljana I pulled in, got a cup of café (pinky finger out, and all), connected to the free wireless, and found this great hotel in Ljubljana.  It's turned out to be a really good deal.  Price is like $76 USD (that's a lot less than I've been paying) and, other than the great hotel deal in Belgium, this is the best place I've stayed in.  It's about two years old and everything is in tip-top shape.  And the ladies on the desk speak English because I sure as hell don't speak Slovene.  It's not the Ritz-Carlton.  But then it isn't priced like it either.
(Ambient Hotel - Ljubljana)

And I made it just in time.  This is looking out my hotel window about 10 minutes after checking in.  It doesn't show very well, but it's coming down pretty well.

So, now I'm sitting in the hotel lounge, developing a taste for the local beer, and getting ready to have a great Cuban cigar.  Is it a great life, or what?

Not exactly sure where I'm headed tomorrow.  But it'll be south of here.