SLOVENIA tour August 2020

10. - 17. 8. 2020 in the beautiful mountains and at the pittoresque coastal towns of SLOVENIA

We left Vienna on Monday, 10.8. and had a very relaxed ride trough Austria, via Semmering Highway S6 and S36 and then along local roads over Neumarkter Sattel, passing by Friesach, St.Veit and back to the A2 in Klagenfurt (L17 training for Julian). We passed the border to Italy at Arnoldstein/Tarvis.

In Tarvis we crossed over to SLOVENIA over the Passo de Predil (especially challenging downhill on the Slovenian side due to road work). We reached BOVEC in the Soca valley in the late afternoon and checked in on  nice "Camp LIZA" directly at the chilly cold river Koritnica.

 

In the evening we visited crowded BOVEC (3km away) with our bicycles (uff! Heavy uphill passage from the campsite). We were not able to get a place in one of the (few) restaurants, but had a very good dinner (Chevapcicci and Pleskavica) at a food stand at the local market place.

On the next day we went back to BOVEC again for a very exciting (pre booked) ZIPLINE and CANYONING Tour organised by the company: https://www.socarafting.si/

          ZIPLINE Tour

10 ZIPLINE slides over

 Ucja Canyon

 CANYONING Tour in the Susec River Canyon

 Walking uphill first with the equipment to hike, slide and jump down the river afterwards...

After 2 days in Bovec we followed the Soca river valley to visit KOBARID.

Kobarid is well known for its 1st world war mausoleum and museum and the Napoleon Bridge over the emerald blue-green Soca river.

 

Then we headed further south along the Soca river valley, crossing the river in the beautiful village KANAL

 

 

A bit later we reached NOVA GORIZA (the modern, but not very attractive Slovenian side of the twin city) and after some orientation problems managed to find a good way to GORIZIA (the old and beautiful Italian part of the city). We crossed over at the "border" and drove up the castle hill. Unfortunately the castle was closed (Siesta? Corona?...) but offered a nice view. Down again at the "border" we had to buy a vignette for the Slovenian highway.

And after one more hour long the highway and motorway we reached the Slovenian coast

We had a reservation at "Camp Belvedere" - a holiday resort with a hotel, appartment and a campsite on the STRUNJAN CLIFFS west of IZOLA.

way to the beach

 

STRUNJAN cliffs - a protected nature resort with sandstone cliffs, birds, speciall shells and jellyfish

   IZOLA

There we stayed 5 days and visited KOPER, IZOLA and PIRAN and PORTOROZ with our bicycles (along the Parenzana bike route)

KOPER:

IZOLA:

sunset in Izola after a heavy thunderstorm

 

PIRAN and Portoroz

Fiesa beach

Coastal path to Piran

View from the Campanile of Piran

On the way to Austria we crossed over to Italy again to visit TRIEST and to use the Val Canale Highway (to avoid traffic jam due to Covid-19 border controls)

In the late evening of 17. 8. we were back home again and Julian had lots of driving practice!