64km Ljubljana to Zagorje

Dragon Bridge in LjubljanaAnother pretty bridge in LjubljanaNot a bad distance for half a day’s work. We had a late start getting out of Ljubljana because we wanted to get a few things done before we left. First, a nice man at a sports shop managed to order us a replacement cartridge for our water filter on short notice (we dropped our last one off a table and broke it, not unlike the fate of our old camera… sigh) so we had that to pick up. Then we spotted a used book shop where we found some more reading to keep us going; State of Fear by Michael Crichton and Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of the famous children’s book, Le Petit Prince. Next we toddled back to a free wi-fi coffee shop we’d found the day before to do some more online tasks but we lost the connection after only a few minutes and despite two cappuccinos and much fiddling we couldn’t get it to work again. Frustration ensued but we hope to find a place to get online again before long down the road. So far Slovenia has been a bit of a mixed blessing as far as internet goes. There seems to be plenty of it, mostly free in tourist bureaus, but usually even if we pay a few euros to get online, the computers and software are so old we can’t use them to update our site. We gave up on the internet and finally picked up our usual stash of groceries (today’s haul included feta cheese and some Asian stir-fry mixes – something different, hurrah!!) before heading out of the city around midday. Ljubljana was a very easy city to get around and out of, with its seemingly endless bike paths. It wasn’t long at all before we were biking through fields and gardens on back roads, heading east along the big but rather brown and murky Sava river. We had planned to continue along the river until the Slovenian-Croatian border, with the idea to see Zagreb, but last night we decided we’d rather see more of the Slovenian countryside so tomorrow we’ll turn north in search of more lakes, woods and waterfalls. Apparently the world’s oldest grapevine awaits us in the town of Maribor so that’s another photo to look forward to in a few days.