It’s raining yet again, but we’re close to the station so after a few lazy capuccino’s in the square we cycle to catch our train to Trieste with plenty of time to then connect with the Ljubljana train. Amazingly the train is on time but the steps up to carriage are impossibly steep and require  2 of us to manhandle the loaded bikes up. Having done that the guard runs up the platform and with arms waving tells us that bikes aren’t permitted. We have to catch the local train which only gives us minutes for our ongoing connection. The local train is also on time and we make the dash between platforms with minutes to spare. The Italian rail system seem to have lifted their game.

The tight connection means no time to buy food . We have half a pack of cheese of unknown vintage and 6 Worthers originals. At least it’s an even number and I don’t have to use my pocket knife to cut one in half. We are starving and the train doesn’t get in until after 3pm.

My friend Franklin is joining us for a week long loop around Slovenia. I’ve been looking forward to this part of the trip for ages and have heard so many good reports about it. It’s been on my radar for ages and finally here I am. Slovenia is probably the most bike friendly country in Europe, has stunning scenery,  a burgeoning food and wine scene and impressively green credentials. We plan to follow the green gourmet route which links restaurants, wineries and other sustainable tourism enterprises through the northern and eastern parts of Slovenia.

Meanwhile we arrive at Ljubljana and it is tipping down outside and has been all day. Our AirBnB is  luckily close to the station but we get pretty wet in the  5 minutes it takes to get there.  The apartment is comfortable and doesn’t leak which is a plus, we meet up with Franklin and head out for a few beers, a nice dinner and watch a slightly disappointing champions league semifinal in a bar.

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It continues to bucket down all night. The next day is not much better. At least it’s our scheduled rest day because the weather conditions are horrible for riding. More depressing is the 14 day weather outlook. Heavy rain and cold for the next 10 days. And then I get an email from one of the apartments I’ve booked for later in the week. They suggest I book somewhere else as it’s ‘wet and very moody outside’.

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Time for Plan B. We head out for breakfast and take a long hard look at the weather map and decide to catch a train to Verona on Friday and ride the Via Frangecina cycling route to Rome. There seems to be much less rain there and it’s likely to be much warmer.

I don’t know what’s going wrong with my relationship with the weather gods. I’ve never had such crap weather as on this trip. So another train day tomorrow and then hopefully back into it.