DATE: October 4, 2008
Photos:
Slovenia
My plans post-Oktoberfest were never very clear. The one infallible beacon in the muddle of possibilities was that I was to meet climbing friends in Greece on the first or second week of November. It was the only solid item in my plan. I had just over a month to get from Munich to Greece, and I was a bit tired of the standard backpacker modes of transport, bussing and training everywhere... so I decided to try my hand at cycle touring.
Cycling is appealing in its flexibility - the ability to stop the bike and take a photograph whenever I choose, or to chat with locals, etc, instead of rushing through from point A to B only to feel rather alone in yet another major European town. I wanted to see the countryside. I wanted to exercise. I wanted to feel the wind in my face... ok ok ;) You get the picture.
So, I had never done anything like this before. I think the most I ever rode on a bicycle at one time was about 30 miles in one day, and I probably bragged about it for weeks. I didn't have a plan or any gear...
18 Sep 2008: Diary Exerpt
My luggage is a pillowcase. (All I need now is to tie it to the end of a stick.) Since I don't have a bike yet, and no bike accessories (panniers, bags, etc), I figured the best thing was to use something disposable in which to carry my stuff. Of course, my pillow case is bright pink with colourful spots on it. Even so, no one in the airport gave me any lip, nor did anyone on the plane or trains. They even painstakingly searched my "bag" in security and said nothing. Not until I got to my hostel did someone say "Oh is that from Ikea? I have the same sheets!"
My luggage
All I had was a nice Oktoberfest Hangover and a big breakfast in my belly when my Swiss friend Caroline and I decided to go into an outdoor shop in Munich. This led to a crazed day of buying a bicycle, helmet, bike computer, panniers - the works! I was fully kitted out (Happy Birthday to me) by the end of the day, and hopped on a late train to Salzburg. The rough, and I mean rough, plan was to get to Croatia by a combination of train and bike, and to cycle south from there to Greece.
I packed my new panniers and sorted out my gear while on the train, to the curious looks of other passengers. Then came the hard part: getting off. I've never handled a bicycle with panniers before and it was, I imagine, quite a show for anyone lucky enough to be standing around watching. I felt like a complete idiot trying to lower the laden bike from the train, wrestle the thing around the station and then ride it to my hostel, which was a fair distance away from the centre of town. I finally arrived, about an hour after disembarking the train, completely overwhelmed and demotivated. How was I going to ride this thing across Croatia? I couldn't even get to the hostel without having a pannier fall off, the bike tip over, and various other issues in just a few short kilometers.
One thing I realised was that I had way too much stuff, heavy stuff, for being a beginner at this. My muscles were not ready to haul that much gear up hills, let alone over a curb. I decided I would need to mail some things home and do some short "training" rides while moving south. I would take trains over the longer distances and do day loops from each town until I felt ready to commit to an A-to-B destination ride.
24 September: Diary Exerpt
Today I went on a lovely long ride. First, mailed off 2 kilos to a good friend in the UK and organized myself better. Then I threw about half of my stuff in a train station locker and went off on a 4 hour adventure, with half the weight. About an hour down a beautiful bike path along the river I reached another town (unfortunately, I cannot remember the name) where I bought a few supplies (tire repair kit, bungee cords, a reflective ankle strip, additional locks for my bags, etc) yay, more weight, and stopped for a bratwurst. Mm! The day was really nice.
My brand new bike on a bike path near Salzburg
Bratwurst stop
I took the train to Villach and arrived late in the evening, again. I have to spend the night here due to the train schedule, not all of them allow bicycles. Fortunately my hostel was nice enough to leave me keys outside even though their reception was closed.
After making a constrained effort to be quiet on entering the dorm room, giving my best impression of the Pink Panther tip-toe, using my headlamp instead of turning on the room lights, cringing like a burglar when something rustled or creaked... I sorted my things, brushed my teeth, etc. and then crept to locate a free bed only to find them all empty! Nice one. Let's turn those lights on and make some noise now, shall we?
Next, I decided to take a train to the town of Bled, Slovenia. I'd heard great things about it, and it seemed like a good place to hang out while further sorting out my trip details.
25 September: Diary Exerpt
Train to Jesenice. The bike was once again an issue. There was no bike carriage on the train! The conductor didn't want to let me on, but I argued that I had been sold a bike ticket for that train (which I had) and after much hand-waving and staredowns, he finally let me on.
From Jesenice, I had a 15km ride to Bled. Easy enough, right?
The first 5 km were a KILLER steep uphill. Well, OK, for you cyclists out there it probably wasn't that bad, but for me... well, I had to stop several times to catch my wheeze while cars whizzed past me on the hairpin turns. At one point, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. I had no idea how far this uphill was going to go, and if all 15km was like this - I was going to lie down and spend the night on the side of the road.
View down into the valley of Jesenice from which I came
Luckily, I finally crested the hill and the last 10kms were a pleasant downhill meandering through fields and villages, all the way to Bled. Checked into my hostel (Traveller's Haven), which was very nice. Once again I was pleased to find that I had the room (and pretty much the whole hostel) to myself! What a treat - some peace and quiet to sort out my trip logistics.
The meandering bit heading towards Bled
Bled
Questions, Questions... Let's see, do I cycle all the way from here to Greece, through Croatia and Albania? Oh wait, Albania has notoriously bad traffic and not very good roads. OK, maybe I take a ferry from Croatia to Italy and from Italy to Greece and ride across Greece to Athens? Yes, that could work. What did you say? A famous cyclist was killed while cycling in Greece because the traffic is so crazy? Oh. OK, maybe I can find a bus to get me from the ferry to Athens... What? The Croatian coastal road is incredibly hilly and also has crazy traffic? Um... OK people work with me! I'm an eager beginner here! Should I just do Eastern Europe's Greenways or the Elbe? Hmm... Oh wait, hang on. There are lots of islands in Croatia with ferries... that could work. North or south, north or south... arrrrgh.
26 September: Diary Exerpt
Having another "Fit of Indecision" TM
I knew I needed to do a long training ride and start some serious muscle-building, so I decided to do a mountainous loop from Bled to Lake Bohinj and back, which looked to be about 60-70km long on my little hostel map. The first 15km involved a good number of 10-18% grade uphills (no exaggeration, there were signs alerting this) and nearly killed me, but it felt good in a mad psycho masochistic sort of way. I was finally beginning to appreciate hills, even though I still had to stop a few times to catch my breath.
The loop from Bled to Lake Bohinj and back.
Evidently there had been a bicycle race of some sort on the uphill section of the loop, as there were numerous encouraging comments spray painted all along the road during the most difficult bits. I couldn't understand most of them but they still managed to give me a boost!
The beginning of the "Tour de Duro" :)
When I finally got as high as I would go, my feet blocks of ice on their pedals, I was treated to some bomber descents followed by varied rolling terrain through fields and farms with wonderful views of mountains and sunny valleys. The end was the fabulous Lake Bohinj. It was a fantastic ride and definitely helped bring my spirits up. Perhaps I could do this after all! The total loop ended up being about 83km.
Slovenian village on the welcome downhill
Sunny valley
Lake Bohinj, Slovenia
Spectacular cliffs around Lake Bohinj
Lake Bohinj
The biggest thing I learned from the experience was to NOT eat a gigantic soup + schnitzel + fries lunch in the middle of a long ride. Bad idea.
My Schnitzel lunch
I stayed in Bled a few more days, hiking in the hills, visiting a cave and getting to know a wonderful family of local climbers, enjoying the atmosphere, and trying to finalize the details of how the rest of my trip was going to play out.
A lovely walk through Vintgar Gorge, near Bled
Another view of the lake in Bled
Just as I was getting ready to leave Bled after four days, a piece broke on my bike! I dropped it while trying to lock it to a post by a climbing wall. Not a big deal, carry on, carry on. Well, on riding back to the hostel, the bike was having some serious issues. As in scary noises can't change gears can barely ride kind of issues. I checked it out and a piece was bent, from the fall. I tried to bend it straight again and it snapped in my hand. D'oh! Turns out it was my rear derailleur hanger and, no, the bike shop in Bled did not have a replacement for me.
Broken derailleur
This resulted in several more days' delay, this time not by choice, as I waited for the new part to arrive in the mail. Radlbauer, the bike shop in Munich, was truly awesome and sent me a replacement part via express post, no questions asked and at no charge. Thank goodness! I would have been frustrated had they charged me, given that I had just dropped quite a large load of cash just over a week earlier to purchase the bike. I would have expected it to last longer than 8-9 days before breaking, no matter how clutzy I am. In the end, it all worked out well except that I stayed in Bled far too long. It's a nice place to be stuck, though. :)
1 October: Diary Exerpt
Can't believe it's October already! Wow. And I'm still in Bled.
Well, I broke my bike. :/ The day after the ride I went to the climbing shop to inquire on climbing in the area and dropped the bike as I was locking it up. Stupidest thing ever. Bent a piece and on trying to straighten it, it snapped right off. So now I'm stuck here until the new piece comes in. There are worse places to be stuck, but time is slipping by and I've already been here longer than I should have. Oh well, not the end of the world, Hakunah Matatah.
Went back to the climbing shop in the evening because they have a huge bouldering area in the back, which is AWESOME (can't believe I didn't take a picture). The kids who live there are so lucky! Competition climbers of course. :) There were some American girls hanging out there, too, who are hitching and couch surfing through Europe. Pretty nice peeps.
Couldn't resist another Bled / Lake shot...
Next day we all went up to a cave. Let's see - the two boys who live above the shop (with their parents) are 18 year old twins Jerry and Matt. Matt's gorgeous girlfriend Anna is also part of the family, it seems, and very nice. Jeremy showed us to the cave. Unfortunately Matt & Anna went climbing - I didn't know or I would have tried to go with them instead. D'oh!
The family is sooo nice. They have had all of us over for dinner twice already. What wonderful people.
During this time, I also received notice from one of my friends that he was moving his trip up by a month. Yes, the one clear and solid beacon of Athens in mid November was no longer clear and solid. This put my entire trip back on the drawing board - I didn't think I could make the cycle through Croatia in just a couple of weeks... Technically, it could be possible, but I was depending on ferries with temperamental off-season schedules. It could easily occur that I would be stranded on an island for a few days just waiting for a ferry.
Not wanting to risk being late to Athens, I abruptly changed course to go north to Berlin instead of south to Dubrovnik. There are cheap flights to Athens from Berlin, I have a friend living there, and (as mentioned earlier) there are some great cycle-friendly paths going from Prague to Dresden and beyond. I decided to get to Prague ASAP and begin cycling from there. Tired of dilly-dallying with the bike - it was time to get started with a real cycle tour!
4 October: Diary Exerpt
The bicycle all of a sudden was a huge burden - what to do with it? How to move quickly and then 'dispose' of it in the end? Asked Danielle (in Berlin) again if she would be interested in buying the bike and she said yes. Flights from Berlin to Athens are about 89E. So... decision made to start heading north again. I decided to sit tight until my bike piece arrived and then take off. Luckily it arrived the next day (Thurs). Bike fixed that day and I took off Friday, in the pouring rain.
Rough plan is to go quickly from Ljubljana to Prague, where I will cycle north as far as I can / time allowing and then hop another train for whatever is left to Berlin when my time runs out. I found a great, Czech website which indicates whether or not bikes (and wheelchairs, etc) are permitted on various trains all over Europe. Awesome! This is extremely valuable! You have no idea how hard it is to find this information. Looks like there is a direct train from Ljubljana to Prague which allows bikes. Yay for me.
To get to Ljubljana, the plan was to cycle two towns over to Radovlica, which I'd heard was cute and only 6km away, and take the train from there. Since it was raining, I took my time in the morning and was in no rush to get out the door. When I finally left at about noon, started thinking maybe I should have left earlier. The weather is never as bad as it seems through a window, once you get out in it. Got to Radovlica with more than an hour to spare and the popular bee museum was closed, so I decided to keep going to the next town with a station - Podnart.
Got to Podnart and still felt great! Would have loved to ride all the way to Ljubljana, but due to my late start I didn't quite have enough time before dark, so I decided to hop on the train there. In total I rode about 25km. Not much, but fun. :)
"Bikes on my Train? - I don't THINK so!"
I took the precious train-with-bike-carriage information with me to the train station in Ljubljana, where a man resembling Jabba the Hutt promptly told me that it was incorrect and that there was no way to get a bicycle on an international train in Slovenia. AAAARRRGGGH! Evidently, Mr. The Hutt despised me for presenting him with a such a unique problem such as "How to get out of the country on a train with a bicycle." He shook his head as he eyed me warily and said "Bike is problem. Bike no. You must ride bike to Austria."
Unfortunately for him, I was not going to disappear nor was my bike. Finally he sighed and started to type. Shook his head. He grumbled under his breath to his fake blonde, chain smoking colleague while they both shot me insidious looks. Typed some more. Grumble grumble hiss hiss.
4 October: Diary Exerpt
It was so difficult for me to remain polite I can't even tell you. Anger was surging through me and I wanted to verbally lay right into him and tell him just what I thought of his attitude, but I knew that would get me absolutely nowhere. So I remained as sweet and docile as I could. It was an extreme effort.
He finally presented me with an itinerary and venomously told me that I would have to take the regional train the next morning to a town called Maribor and cycle about 20km from there across the border to the first town in Austria (Spielfeld-Straße), and then pick up another train from there. Fine, I could do that. All told, leaving Ljubljana at 8:45am would put me in Vienna at 8pm. (The normal-person train to Vienna only takes about 7 hours). I could spend the night there and then take another train with many connections etc etc for another day of travel to Prague. (The direct train I had found from Ljubljana straight to Prague takes about 12 hours). I clenched my jaw, purchased a ticket to Maribor, tucked the printed schedule into my backpack, spun on my heel and got the hell out of there.
Thankfully, the evening was much more pleasant - I spent it checking out Ljubljana by bike.
Ljubljana
The artsy (shh, don't say toursity) "renegade" Metelkova district
4 October: Diary Exerpt
I saw in one evening what would have taken a whole day on foot. Luckily also the rain had stopped and the lighting was beautiful for photos. I was starving - hadn't eaten lunch, but I put off eating to keep exploring by daylight.
Ljubljana is an interesting town... mix "typical" Austrian with a mild case of Anarchism and you get the feel of it. It'd be a fun place to go out - bars & cafes everywhere, but that wasn't what I was there for. I didn't really need more than a day there.
The centre square of Ljubljana, with a statue of Preseren and the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation
Average street in Ljubljana
Starving, I went into a local Slovenian-food restaurant and stepped right back out. It looked good, but was full of men and definitely somewhere I would feel awkward eating alone. Decided to go back to the hostel and see if anyone wanted to go out. An Italian girl in my dorm room, Sylvia, was up for it. So we went back to the resto and had some pretty good beef stew. Slovenian cuisine in general is not in my top 10, but it was still hearty and decent and great for a cold and wet day. It had started raining again and the wind was blowing hard.
After dinner we got a drink and froze at an outside table before giving up and deciding to go back to the room.
The next morning, I appeared at the train station promptly (I know, hard to believe) at 8:20am, ready to find my train. To my surprise, the reader-board said the train to Maribor (my train) was leaving at 8:30, not 8:45! So I hurried to the platform (carrying the bike full of luggage up and down stairs) only to be immediately denied in a definite "Talk to the Hand" movement by the conductor.
What?? I had bought my bike ticket and everything, but no, this train DOES NOT ALLOW BIKES. It was so incredibly frustrating that all these people and guides and internet kept telling me I could take a bike and then it turns out I couldn't. ARGH! This time, there was no persuading. The conductor won the staredown. She was rigid and, well, kind of mean.
It's as if the moment you say "bike" the whole train world turns against you. They see the bicycle and go "sssss!" (insert snake noise here). ;) Not only are you told "no, not possible" but people glare at you as though you were some sort of hideous creature. No one likes a cyclist. "I'm sorry sir, I'm trying to travel green here and use my own energy to get from place to place. I am embracing life without a car. To do that, I need your help transporting this simple work of engineering art over a mountainous long distance. All I need is a little corner of your train in which to park my bike." Nah. Especially in Slovenia, it is virtually impossible. Luckily Slovenia is a joy to cycle through, but still! It's nice to have options.
This time my frustration had mounted to the point that tears began to well up in my eyes as I turned away with my bicycle. How the heck was I going to get out of Slovenia? (Of course, the hard answer here would be to ride the friggin' bike, you idiot, isn't that what you bought if for, yes, yes I know).
The evil conductor woman had mentioned another train. I decided to go back to the information desk to ask hey, wtf, dude.
Wandering in, this time I was presented by two far more helpful gentlemen. They told me that the train that Jabba the Hutt had presented me the previous evening "doesn't actually run today." They said matter-of-factly, "Today is Saturday." What?! The guy yesterday knew I wanted to leave on Saturday! Why did he give me that printout?? "Sorry, you are mistaken, it doesn't run on Saturdays." Unbelievable. So they gave me a new schedule to Maribor, and I spluttered how incredibly difficult it was with a bicycle and how people kept telling me I could take a bike only to be rejected at the train and that I had bought a ticket and that the man the night before had told me incorrect information and that he was very unhelpful and rude and and (sob)... I turned away back to my bicycle and tried to gather myself and my things for my journey.
One of the men came out of the office and asked me "My Lady, where is it that you are wanting to go?" I said "Prague." He said "Wait a minute, let me look for you, OK?" They told me they were trying to contact the conductor to the very train I had found, the direct train to Prague (no! really?), and to come back in an hour. They would go with me to the platform and talk to the conductor to see if they would allow me on with the bicycle. A ray of hope!!
I spent the hour by going to a bike shop in town to inquire on getting a bike box. I had about had it with this train on bicycles thing. Screw it, I'll pack it up if that's what they want (which, incidentally, does seem to be what they want). I found a box for 5 Euro, decided to wait and come back if they did not let me on that train. I would get on any other train to anywhere, with the bike box, if I couldn't get on that train to Prague. Munich, Budapest - I didn't care. I had to move.
Amazingly, they let me on the train!! It was not different from any other train. It really is up to the conductor. Arrrrgh. There was no official space for bikes, as had been posted online, but I stuck it in the end of the last car and unscrewed the handlebars to move them out of the way. It really didn't cause any problem, and I think the reason they let me do it was because the train was rather empty.
4 October: Diary Exerpt
Back at the station - GOOD NEWS! They'd spoken to the conductor and she'd agreed to take on the bike. Thank God! Couldn't believe my luck. They had me put it in the last carriage as I'd done from Villach to Jesenice. All good! Was very excited but still nervous that at some point a conductor changeover would result in me being thrown off the train. Luckily I'm now somewhere in the middle of Austria and it hasn't happened. They did have me move the bike to a bike carriage which was added to the train at the border. Ahh, now it makes sense. It *is* a bike friendly train, but not in Slovenia. Note to self - the bike indicator as seen on the train site [noted earlier] does not apply to Slovenia.
Austria is beautiful and I'm already seeing bike paths everywhere. Snow on the tops of the mountains already. I'm getting psyched to pedal from Prague. I have over a week for cycling. Yay!
And that is how I made it to Prague in a day, a trip which was going to easily take 3-4 days had I done it on regional trains. I had eaten up about 8 days in Bled and time was now running short. I wanted to maximize the amount of cycle-time and get to Prague as quickly as possible, so I could have plenty of time to follow the Elbe river north to Dresden and possibly continue on to Berlin on two wheels.