Jeff: On the move again - we made it to Slovenia

The owners arrived back late on Thursday evening so we stayed with them for the evening before heading out on Friday back on the road in Jeff. We drove north with a couple of quick stops for water and food before we arrived at a town just north of Bologna called Ferrara. Our plan was to explore Ferrara today and Bologna tomorrow but firstly issue is the weather. Its got really hot here, today was 36 degrees with no wind and fairly high humidity so we are melting! We parked up in a nearby park and got on the bikes to cycle into the town and stopped at a vegan restaurant for a quick snack which basically turned out to be desserts (a brownie with ice cream and a cannoli) and even this short cycle made us sweat buckets! We decided to head into the centre and have a look around, which was really nice as its such an old town with some beautiful buildings including an old fortress, a cathedral (which was lovely and cool), old streets with archways and large city walls which we walked around on. Eventually we decided to head back to the vegan restaurant for some dinner (as we didn’t fancy cooking in the van) and I had a great vegan cold summer lasagne and Rich had a seiten roll filled with peppers and cheese and some mushrooms while we shared some cheese and spinach dumplings/rolls. We then cycled back to the van, had a cool shower, and decided to move to another park for the evening as its more out of town (and not just so we can blast the AC while we drive). The park was fairly quiet but it is an adjustment to get used to the change in sounds from the very quiet house in the hills to being in the van. Sleeping was fairly difficult anyway as the low over night was only 21 degrees making it a hot night even with the fan on all night.

The next morning we got up and decided to do a short workout in the park as we were not going to run in this temperature, even some basic workout on the equipment and with our TRX was hard enough. After a shower we decided to continue north, instead of visiting Bologna, towards Slovenia, as its too hot to visit a city and we have already been there in 2017. We got to a town called Monfalcone which is not that far from the border between Italy and Slovenia and spent the rest of the day trying not to melt. It was scorching again and in the mid 30s so we had the fan on full blast and had lots of ice lollies to keep us cool. It did give us time to plan what we were going to do given the weather for the next couple of days and this weather is due to break on Monday in Slovenia, although after some rain it will still be hot but in the late 20s and early 30s rather than this mid 30s temperature. The next morning after another hot night we got up and drove across the border into Slovenia which was a easy crossing as there are no controls and we had already bought the Slovenia vignette for the motorways. We drove south to Koper where after a bit of searching we found some parking and jumped on the bikes to head to the nearby beach. Once there we were in the water faster than you can say its hot! However the water was disappointingly warm and not as relieving as we had hoped but it was still nice. We managed to get some snorkelling done and relaxed on the beach for most of the day before cycling back to the van and moving on. We found a parking spot for the night on our app only to realise it was back in Italy (the border criss-crosses this area) and so we were back in Italy for the night. it was a lovely seaside stop with bars and nice areas to sit and watch the sun go down while we were having dinner.

The next morning we got up for a short run, up and down the sea front but it soon became hot so we stopped and had an outdoor shower on the front, which again was disappointingly warm before heading on the road as we had to be out the parking spot by 8. We headed inland to Skocjan caves which is a long cave system with a river flowing through it and one of 20 caves you can tour in Slovenia. We went on the first tour of the day and followed the group through around 2kms of the cave seeing the vast size of the different chambers and hearing the roar of the river. It is supposed to be a constant 12 degrees and we were looking forward to being cold for a bit, but it really didn’t feel that cold and the humidity is high which probably makes it feel warmer. Unfortunately you can’t take pictures in the cave but it was a great place to look around. Once you come out the other side you have three options in relation to the return walk, a short 15 minute, a medium 30 minute walk or the longer 1h30 walk so we chose the longer walk which meant we saw a couple more caves and were able to see a nice small waterfall. It was a nice walk but included lots of stairs so by the time we got back to the van (via a little detour to a viewpoint) we were hot and sweaty again.

After the cave we head some breakfast and headed then on to Predjama castle which is a castle built into the rocks. The area is in the middle of nowhere but they do capitalise on tourism with parking for campers being 12 euros flat rate so being us we parked 3km up the road and got the bikes out to cycle there. It was fine going there as it was mostly down hill, although it was a gravel path and Rich almost lost it on part of it. We got to the castle safely in the end and tied up the bikes before walking up to the castle. We decided we didn’t want to go inside as the outside is the best bit (as is the cave underneath but we have already done a cave today) so we took some pictures and headed back to the bikes and took a different route back to avoid the gravel. Once back safely at the van we headed into Postojna to get some supplies, including water as we are drinking so much in this heat, from Hofer which is the Slovenian name for Aldi before heading to our stop for the evening which is at the ruin of an old castle. It has now proceeded to pour down with rain which is so lovely and cooling for us. We know it will warm up again but its nice to have a break in the weather for a couple of hours!

Well it did rain on and off all night but by the morning it really cleared up with a nice cool crisp air (I say cool, its still in the mid 20s but its far crisper than it has been). We decided to look around the ruins we parked up next to which was interesting and we found a small herd of goats with some kids and a donkey who all appear to roam the ruins and probably keep the grass under control. The goats and kids were eager to say hello (and see if we had any food) and the donkey was less eager but did come over to see what we had to offer. After a short walk we headed back to the van and onto our next location which was a 2.5km long gorge/valley called Rakov Skocjan. We parked up next to another British van (who we chatted to and found out they are on a 2.5 week holiday) and headed off on the walk. There are a number of sites to see including some natural bridges (made by the river flowing through the rocks and breaking them down), caves and flora/fauna. We soon saw the first small natural bridge and walked around and over it before seeing a sign saying there was another walk down to a sink hole area but to proceed at your own risk due to stability of the area. We decided not to go down there but we carried on the walk and soon realised it isn’t well signposted and managed to follow a couple for a cross road which appeared to have no signs. At the next cross roads we were on our own and decided to go one way (which turned out to be wrong) and followed that path through woods into the meadows. The river continued past us on our left and we walked for a couple of KM through meadows with no paths until we reached the bottom of the large natural bridge. It was a stunning sight but we realised that we were on the wrong side of it for the path and there was no way to cross the river from here so we had to walk back for some of the path and find a path up to the top of the natural bridge. We found a path and managed to climb up to the top of the bridge and to a road and crossed the river where we saw another cave in the distance. We then found the signs for the path and followed these back to the start. Not far from the large bridge we met the British campers who had also got lost on the path and we showed them the way to the bridge while they told us to go down to the sink hole as the path is fine and the views down there are great.

We managed to walk back on the path for most of the route and got back to the little bridge and the sink hole. This time we followed the path down and down to a cave which we then walked through and found a little bridge over the river. We crossed that and went through another cave walking on a bunch of large rocks/boulders for a path and got to the underneath of the little natural bridge and the views up were great. The whole area was stunning and made you feel really small with the size of the giant walls striking up into the air. Once we had walked to the end of the path we headed back the way we came and back to the van for some food as its been almost 3 hours since we left. After chatting to the brits when they made it back we headed off through the country to a little town called Brezice where we plan to spend the evening and tomorrow.