We almost could have been on one of these 21 countries in 21 days bus tours! Breakfast in Croatia, (sort of) lunch in Slovenia and then dinner and bed in Italy!
This was a great day, possibly the best of the tour so far. It certainly started with the best breakfast (by far) of the trip. A big shout out to the Valamar Renaissance for their fantastic buffet. Sorry, no pics. For some reason we never think about taking pics of the breakfast buffet and we probably have enough food pics in here anyway. Suffice to say there was just about anything you could want for (unless you’re from the UK - no blood pudding on offer). Not only was it a great breakfast, it started at 7 am. We made it down for 7:30 and we’re ready to start our ride by 8:30 - almost a record early start for us.
Similar to yesterday, the first 10 km’s or so were on a relatively quiet highway and there was really no traffic to speak of until about 9:15 and by that time we were then on designated bike routes that were either very quiet roads or dedicated bike trails. Lovely!
At the ~40 km mark we crossed the boarder into Slovenia, the very narrow window that they have onto the Adriatic. Similar to our situation in 2017, we would just be transversing this section on our way to Italy, but the hour or so we were there really impressed us with their bike infrastructure. The 35 km’s we cycled here was on some of the best cycle infrastructure we’ve seen anywhere. We’re coming back into Slovenia in a few days for an extended stay and this little taster has left a very good impression.
The only potential fly in the ointment is it seems like a lot of other people have discovered biking in Slovenia, to the extent that we got caught up in a ‘guided’ group of about 40 people on e-bikes who were cycling from Piran to Koper and it took some effort to break free from them.
This was our second time biking into Trieste and we remembered that it’s a lovely place but getting into it required travel through some ‘less than good’ industrial port sections. After some back and forth with TA, we were lined up for a small ferry from Muggia, a nice port just outside the container ship maw of the Trieste harbour, right into the very nice central harbour in Trieste. It was new for us and very nice way to get into Trieste. Thanks Scott!
We’re here for two nights, and the weather forecast was for heavy rains on Monday, so it was just as well that we planned a day off. Turns out I’m writing this up on Monday afternoon and there’s been a few sprinkles, but no real rain to speak of.
On our first visit here in 2017 we had a really great dinner at Al Bagatto, a Michelin recommended place. We wanted to give it another shot but unfortunately they are closed on Sunday and Monday, the two nights we were here. Instead be booked another M recommended place that looked like it would be similar, Al PeTes, and guess what? It was great too!
All in, this was a really great day of touring, just about everything you could ask for.
Once again I screwed up and missed stopping the Auto save function on my Garmin watch when we were on the ferry from Muggia to Trieste Only missed the last flat 2 km’s to our apartment in Trieste though. Just imagine an ‘end dot’ just the the NE of the Trieste harbour. That’s us.
The Parazenna bike trail is an old rail line that ran from Poreč to Trieste. It swings fairly far inland when leaving Poreč, and it is largely unpaved with quite rough gravel / stones. We came across this portion of it after Frenetiči and gave it a go … for about 400 m. The adjacent road had beautiful smooth pavement and almost no traffic, so guess where we rode.
A few hundred meters later we popped out at the boarder crossing. This is the Croatian side. Notwithstanding both Slovenia and Croatia are in the Schengen Zone, there was a manned control booth at the Slovene side and one lane of traffic was crawling through. It didn’t appear that anyone was being ‘checked’ - we certainly weren’t- but it’s obvious that the Schengen zone is not as free flowing as it once was.
However, immediately upon entering Slovenia we encountered a very well paved and signed cycle path. This would continue for the entire time we were in the country, including passing through Koper which is a very big container ship port. Hat’s off to Slovenia!
A short ride to the Muggia passenger (and bike) ferry to Trieste. We made it with loads of time to spare so we found something useful to do to fill the time.
Waiting on the dock for the ferry. Scott A, it’s actually marked now (both on the road directing you to this dock) and on the dock itself. There’s even a posted timetable and fare schedule! Who knew?
Scott AndersonWell, that would definitely help. We looked hard and saw nuthin'. It was sort of a leap of faith to stand on that empty pier until folks suddenly started showing up. Reply to this comment 1 month ago
A little walk around before dinner - clouds gathering! Trieste has been passed around between competing empires of the centuries. Many of the grand buildings around the waterfront are from the Hapsburg area (1800’s generally)
There was a large half marathon run here today and we think this main square was the finish area. Tents and other race infrastructure was being taken down.
A really good Malvasia from just south of here. A natural wine from Carso - pronounced just like k’s last name - so of course we had to have it. She’s very interested in the label details!
Al PeTes reminded us a bit of La Petite Chou, a great little place we were at in France on our last tour. Small place, great friendly staff and great food. Also a really great and eclectic soundtrack! So many places we’ve been at on this tour have been lost in the 80’s (as I so often am), but not Al PeTes. Lots of new (to me) and interesting stuff subtly playing in the background, including this one …..
