September 21, 2010
Celje
Ken described today like a bike ride in fairy land - it was the best day yet. The floods were receding , the sun was shining and the temperature a very pleasant 22 degrees. We started off riding up the valley of the Dravinja and this was an easy ride. The small villages were busily going about their everyday business. We called in at a bar/café for a coffee, it was clearly the social centre of the tiny village and was packed with people. Unlike NZ and Australia where the coffee drinkers at 10am are mainly women having just completed the school drop off these were mainly older men. As usual when we entered it was as if a space ship had just landed and the aliens had stepped out. Conversation stops, we are eyed carefully up and down then in a very friendly way they start talking to us. I try and explain that I am completely challenged by the Slovenian language. We ask the waitress for two coffees with milk everyone smiles a lot then the talking resumes. When we leave lots more smiles and what we take to be good wishes for our journey. Coffee is very cheap in Slovenia only 1euro 60c for two cups so this can be repeated several times a day.
We have been very impressed by what an extremely neat and tidy country this is so now on the second day without rain the machines were out cutting the grass at the side of the road and lots of people were working in their gardens. The colours of the houses are something that has really struck me, they are extremely bright - orange, yellow, purple, pink, lime green and the occasional bright white. However because the paint work is always in perfect conditions they actually look good even to my more conservative eye. Last night the decoration in our room was a mixture of pink, orange and yellow and tonight we are in a more restrained room of orange and white with a blue carpet.
After Poljcane the terrain changed and we were into the most serious hills we have experienced so for with gradients up to 14%. It was magnificent, the whole country sparkled, there were still little groups of houses, small vineyards, crops of corn, forests with dappled sunlight coming through the leaves and the odd lazy cow lying around in lush pasture. It was like being in the alps. Our descent into Celje was a relief from the constant up but several kilometers out of it we ran into very heavy traffic - no trucks but a continuous stream of cars. Finding somewhere to stay here was not that easy. We are at the Hotel and Cassino Farron. It is painted black and has gold Pharohs painted on it and large plastic palm trees outside. The wonderful redeeming feature is the delightful girl at reception, she has almost perfect English and is wanting to get a job `on a cruise ship so she can see the world. Her dealings with us were certainly outstanding - they will certainly miss her at the Farron.
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Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 2,478 km (1,539 miles)
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