146-148: Moving along

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Clunegapyears

146 – Saturday 12th Sept 2015: Exercise, Doctor and a Pretty Drive

K ran and pilates and then showered in the plush facilities. Although we were right next to the water park, it did not open till mid morning so we were not disturbed … we find it increasingly a rarity to get up early! We also emptied and filled Chardonnay … it was actually nearing mid day by the time we left.

Our expensive stop … still managed to get a load of laundry done!

The 2013 addition for the water park …. not our cup of tea at all

The receptionist told us about a 24 hour doctor to check J’s leg and we set Sally for this. Yes, Slovenia has 24 hr Doctor / light A&E facilities in lots of towns! Sally took us down a dead end – again, another really helpful Slovine put us right. J seen within minutes and again no charge.

On the way into the town, K had spotted a church with lots of smaller chapels in the path up .. we had a quick look at this (from the bottom) and then repaired to a cafe. J caught the last 10 mins of Latvia beating Slovenia at basketball; cheering on SLO with the locals.

We drove pretty much hugging the Croatian border to a small and basic campsite outside Novo Mesto. The campsite at Otocec was extremely pretty and along the river Kyka: we parked along its were yards from anyone else; our nearest neighbours a family of 4 swans who bedded down on an island metres from us. And we BBQ’d 🙂 So lovely we decided to stay two nights.

A beautiful spot and … yes, more laundry drying!

Perfect evening light

147 – Sunday 13th Sept 2015: Boozy Bike Ride

We set off south of the river to Novo Mesto, but part of the track was uphill, so we performed an exercise, called “pushing’. It became a bit of a Bike Booze Cruise, as we had a glass of wine when we arrived at the town, several with lunch (EUR10 for 3 courses and salad, but indifferent quality), and two wine stops on the return leg!

Wine stop number 1

Free paddle boarding … if we had a change of clothes, we would’ve given it a go. I know the idea is NOT to fall in … but ….

So we had a go on a swing instead ..

Not sure the cycle helmets were entirely necessary!

148 – Monday 14th Sept 2015: Back to Ljubljana and more Slovine Kindness

K ran part of yesterday’s cycle route to Otocec, crossing over the wooden bridges and ran the furthest she has ever run – 4.7KM, but the steep hills were walked! Being Monday, we knew all museums etc would be shut, so we followed the Krka River valley.

Large rebuilt fortress in Zuzemberk

Used for markets, concerts etc. Mostly rebuilt as flattened in WW2

Lunch stop at Sticna outside the Monastery. K was blending soup when David knocked at the door – he is the local tourism rep. He kindly telephoned the Monastery to see if anyone was free to give us a tour … we would have been in luck, had we spoken Slovine :(. We have his telephone number and if we find time to go back there, he has offered to point us in the right direction to best explore the area. Yet again, another example of Slovine friendliness and helpfulness.

I just love the barns – is this a medical condition?

A renovation project? Most of the properties have been done up and look an indeterminate age.

We arrived at our second home …. Ljubljana CamperStop mid afternoon so K did some MORE washing and we did a van interior clean. This is our this stay of two nights and our host welcomed us – we will enjoy the EUR8.50 supper.

Tomorrow we take Chardonnay for the first of her maintenance / repair work…. the 40,000 KM BIG service.

144 -145: I am Royalty!

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Clunegapyears

144 – Thursday 10th Sept 2015 – No Atchu in Ptuj!

Our lovely hosts said good bye to us as they were off to a vineyard to cut grapes … leaving us – strangers – on their driveway. Would we trust people so implicitly in the UK?

We drove a short way to Ptuj, the oldest towns in Slovenia with a compact centre. Having finally found a place to park, we promptly found the TIC and a cafe. Two coffees and J had a cheese and ham toastie – all of £3.80! Walked up to the Castle and I am booked to move in! It was owned for centuries by the Counts of Leslie. One of the relatives was a Scottish Leslie. LESLIE is my family name and we came from Scotland (there is also a town called Leslie), but we can’t have been very popular in Elizabethan times as we were sent to be landlords in Ireland.

Weird seeing my not-common name all over the castle.

Wonder if I could prove inheritance and sell this lot for our travel fund?

Strong and noble women .. that’s me!!!

But I don’t look like this!

Views over the Drava river. Mountains always in the background.

We wandered the town and eventually someone told us where we could find food … lots of bars selling alcohol, but not fodder.

A local’s restaurant – we needed help (kindly given) in orientating how it all worked, but got wine easily enough!

Campsites are bit few and far between and we were feeling a little weary so we headed to the spa complex (hotels, conference centres and massive pools complex). As I checked in to the campsite, you know how it goes:

Do you want electricity. How much? No, thank you.
Do you want to use the pools?
By the way I charge and admin fee and don’t forget the Tourist tax.

Still EUR28.34. BUT I made good use of the hot water and did a massive hand wash. J rested his leg … slight mishap with a bicycle rack and a shin wound.

Expertly !!! dressed and sympathy given

145 – Friday 11th Sept 2015: EHIC into action

K ran along the Drava. J’s wound re-dressed, but K not happy that it will heal properly as right on the shin bone. Decision made. Hospital spotted yesterday on the Ptuj map. Just as well we had a town map as hospitals are not signposted. Of course all the locals know where they are.

We handed over the EHIC and logged into free wifi, prepared for a long wait. Machine coffee only EUR0.30! Seen within an hour. Courteous and smiley staff. K kept up to date after bottom injections for tetanus. Promised to smack his butt later!!!! Came away with instructions about seeing a Dr tomorrow, a fistful of replacement dressings and a cheery, come back to us if you need anything. NO BILL. NHS eat your heart out!

Lunchtime so we headed for the nearest Gostilla (basic restaurant). What a find. EUR7.00 for yummy mushroom soup, salad bar, dish of the day and dessert – wafer thin pastry with Slovenian version of cottage / cream cheese. The brave walking wounded had a few vinos to help with post traumatic stress. Doggy bag again … the Slovenes do not know moderation in portion control.

Wine as an anaesthetic! The bandaging is a lot more serious than needed … save your sympathy!

Pork in a creamy mushroom sauce with mash and tenderest fried chicken with rice … two meals in one! And three fresh herbs too.

K’s ‘skunk head’ (white stripe in parting) had become rather too evident. A hair dresser by the car park quoted a reasonable amount for her labour, given that K has the hair dye product. So J rested … did I mention post traumatic stress, or was it the wine?!?

It was 4.00 before we left Ptuj and headed for another Agrotourism. Slight hiccough – Sally the Sat Nav took us to a dead end – a farm. and this was after many miles of bumpy single track. The family came to our aid and repointed us to our intended destination. However, we did not like the look of the low overhanging branches along the suggested route, so stopped to look at other (limited) options nearby. A passing car stopped and also tried to offer assistance … just how lovely are the Slovenes? We aborted all plans for a cheep night and ended up at another thermal spa resort … but it has wifi!

142-143: First Cut is the Finest!

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Clunegapyears

142 – Tuesday 8th Sept 2015: Moving North and East from Maribor

We left Horvat vineyard saying farewell to our hostess; the vine expert. I put the parking on the Parkings app that most motorhomes use as the Agritourism book is really badly distributed and advertised. It is the least we can do after such amazing hospitality.

We drove North … with the aim of covering pretty much all of Slovenia … doing it properly! So we headed north to Gornja Radgona, but did not stop … a ski centre in winter and pretty ordinary. Due to vagaries of the border with Austria, we were briefly out of Slovenia which meant we could use our free Roaming with Three. So we parked up at a village:

spoke to K’s daughter and mother
booked Harry Potter Studios visit
booked K’s train ticket for her visit home end October
checked bank accounts still alive and not imploded

and perturbed a local resident who walked all around Chardonnay as if she had landed from space!

Back into Slovenia and back roads to a town called Grad, where we parked at a Church and had lunch. I know it seems irreverent, but in the countryside there really are no lay-bys or parkings. Grad actually means Castle, we saw the sign, but not the item itself. The scenery around here, was very pretty … more peaks and churches.

Grape pickers finishing for the day

Having peaked at Grad, we headed south again and through Moravske Toplice: this is another hot natural springs spa resort with an over priced and very commercial campsite … we kept going to …. Dobrovnik. Not the Croatian one – the Slovenian. The Agritourism book listed a parking here and we wanted to justify the purchase of the book!

This one was actually the car park of a man made lake – Bukovnisko J. Being rural, the car park attendant did not speak English or German (our standby language recently), but a few gestures and mimes and she sold us a ticket for EUR5 and told us to park over the other side of the car park. No one else there, in fact the whole place was not busy, and we did not feel like lepers! Parked up and wandered in to see what there was…. an ice cream later …. and we failed to obtain a free map of the lake and area so we took a phone pic of one of the info boards and wandered around the lake. Peaceful and pleasant enough, once you got past the Hungarian coach load of 90% loud and chatty women. There was a small chapel with a natural spring which is reputed to have healing properties. It really did feel a sanctified place. Sadly a man meditating and a couple on a bench near this – one wonders if they have some sorrow they are looking for help with.

By about 9.00 we had the place to ourselves – totally, other than a few zillion stars.

Our lonely but very peaceful pitch

143 – Wednesday 9th Sept: Vine Cutting Festival

Leisurely start. As we vacated to run around the lake the car park attendant pounced on us to sell us a ticket … we persuaded him that we had bought an over night one already and that we would be on our way in an hour. I know it would only have been another EUR5, but it is the principle of the thing! So we ran, and departed.

We got as far as Lendava, right at the eastern side of Slovenia. Lack of parking in the centre so we hunkered down in the supermarket carpark. K shopped and J washed! we then breakfasted there. Again Chardonnay caught attention being a) a motorhome in the less touristy area b) being British and c) being beautiful, not that I am biased (Chard that is!)!

We had been told that the Sauvignon Blanc around here was supposed to be good and there were cycle wine routes but since the harvest has just started, staff are busy, and we could not easily find the Tourist Information Office anyway! And we’ve bought too much wine already! Or is wine like shoes and handbags in that you can never have enough?

We followed the scenic road to Ljutomer where we lunched in a car park (car park meals seem to be a habit! today!), popped into the TIC in a rather impressive square and had an ice cream, of course.

We have seen these milk dispensers in most towns.

J smitten.

Typical traffic – tractor on tractor.

There are many new houses being built, but most of the old ones have had a re-furb and the choice of rendering colour for the walls is not to UK taste and we have seen this pretty much all over Slovenia.:

We took the smaller road to Jeruzalem and were really pleased we had … little pointy hills with lots of vines. We kept stopping for photos; fortunately the roads are so quiet. Not much at Jeruazalem other than two hotels, a church, a TIC and 40 inhabitants (official figures from the chap at the TIC). From the TIC, we bought:

A ‘I feel SLOVEenia T shirt for J and EUR2 cheeper than in Ljutomer 🙂
A bottle of pumpkin oil. We have eaten local food drizzled with it and have seen them harvested in the fields and left to ripen. Apparently they are pressed for oil in October.
A bottle of local Sauvignon Blanc … we wanted Verus, the vineyard we had drunk at our posh meal, but we could have every grape but Sauv. Bl. by Verus, so we selected a different vineyard to try.

We then set the sat nav for our third Argotourism …. it took us the quick way – in and out of Croatia in 5 mins. We were surprised to have to show Passports on the way out of Sl, and again on the way in. We were also asked, sadly, if we had any Syrian refugees on board.

At our overnight destination there were about 25 people all out front with the men wearing black felt hats and wellie boots. Fortunately the son of the farmer spoke near fluent English and guided us to where we could park and helped us avoid an over hang … another puncture in Chardonnay not desired!

Our hosts were insistent we joined them… and ‘does the fat dog slide on lino?”

The farmer has a patch of about 20 different grapes in the front. Every year, he and neighbours dress in traditional clothes (hence the hats and boots) and they have a party for the first cutting of the grapes.

BUT before the precedings commenced we all had a shot of ‘grappa’ infused with herbs which gave it a green hue. Then the cutting commenced.

As peoples buckets filled, they filled the large wooden buckets, which were then transported on backs by Shanks Pony to the stalk stripping machine.

Clever device – pulls the grapes off the stalks and spits out the stalks. All the 20+ varieties of red and white grapes in together …

A bit of a pause: wine and food. Again J and I tried to slip away … uninvited guests and all that, but with a little pressure it was borne on us that it would be rude.

Food was homemade breads, parma ham and salami style meats, tomatoes and onions. I don’t eat bread, but I tasted J’s – one was like a soft pizza dough (but better) with bits of pork sprinkled on top … these came from the rendering down of the lard like butter … delicious.

To help a bit, the grape mush was loaded into potato sacks as it makes it easier to unload and reload the press.

Then the pressing began. Three pressings actually.

All the men were involved by this point – Zvonko Jr. (English speaking son) explained the Slovenian saying: ‘Too many midwives spoilt the birth’. Similar to our ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’. But no issues here as most were in a supportive capacity.

The juice drained away through a long pipe into the Fermtation tank in the cellar. Zvonko Sr. used an device held to the eye to measure the sugar content – only 13. Sugar would need to be added. Do you think J and I look expert … expert drinkers! Or all at sea?

I should have recorded it … some of the men and women joined in a couple of songs. Honestly, it was 3 or 4 part perfect harmonies. Zvonko Jr. said they sang about the first grape cutting and as they all knew the words they belted it out. Really beautiful.

Other special moments of the evening were so numerous, but especially:

Looking at the barn of old farming equipment, such as a potato digger, that spits the potatoes out sideways. Apparently there is also a party to celebrate the old farming techniques. We must come back!

Being shown a young Edible Doormouse. Yep – this is its official name. Some places have special festivals to celebrate them. They live in trees in Eastern Europe and are a delicacy, but only the Slovenes eat them.

Learning about how each village will have a slightly different dialect .. we had picked up that the Slovene sounded different in the eastern part.

Seeing the Slovenian cattle: smaller and suitable for hilly areas as they don’t damage the slopes.

We thought these were to show wind direction, but they clatter in wind as bird scarers.

We cannot believe the warmth and hospitality of this country. We were not allowed to pay for our overnight pitch, offered toilets etc, given some of the bread to take away ….

This is a treasured and enriching memory. Thank you!

K – dog whisperer!

It worked the first time!

This amazingly generous and warm group of people – thank you.

140-141: Magical Maribor Moments

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Clunegapyears

Sunday 6th Sept 2015: Onto Maribor

We left Prebold, but were fairly unimpressed by the towns we passed through, not enough to stop anyway. Scenery was less mountainous by still pretty and agricultural. The barns are architecturally really interesting.

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More churches and always with hills in the background.

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Hops for the two Slovenian beers being harvested now: Union and Lasko

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Our destination was the motorhome parking at the top of a hill with the intention of walking on the morrow. Best laid plans and badly laid roads put paid to that! We started up the hill on the dirt track – too many water tracks and rattlings: Chardonnay and our teeth! Abort and plan B … Maribor, which was planned next anyway.

Our general expectations of Maribor were not high – even though it is Slovenia’s second city on the river Dava. (Boys and girls – were we surprised! Read on…). We arrived at our first Agro Camping at about 4:00 pm – the Horvat Vinejardji. Our hosts were out and we settled the van onto a very sloping pitch – chocks brought into play to level the bed. Settled to some admin work – and after a while, our host arrived – quick warm welcome (we were their first motorhome, despite being in the Agrotourism book for a while). K offered the standard EUR10 – refused! He asked if we would like a wine tasting a little later in the evening – does the fat dog slide on lino? At about 7:30 – he knocked and we followed him into the house… We tasted about 5 different wines – all white – this area is mainly white – Sauvignon Blank, some different Reisling, Chardonnay…. on we went … slowly with decent sized glasses. Then – our hostess appeared with a large platter of food! A real mixture: local cheeses, sliced onion on bread with a light lard butter (tasty – honest) and pumpkin oil drizzle, gammon on bread – and so tasty. J ate most of it – this was our evening meal – superb ! Our host’s English was very good, so he was able to talk to us about wine growing generally in Slovenia … mostly family run businesses and 6 major large firms, until last year when one in Maribor went bankrupt. Due to the sunny summer this year the harvest is starting this week and expected to be good. Last year there was very little sun and the harvest was poor. We discussed how the little known quality of Slovenian wine impedes its demand and therefore export to the rest of Europe. He also talked about the wines to look out for in the different areas as we travelled Slovenia. We were welcome to park up as long as we liked.

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A nightcap wine tasting of our own back in the van – that fat dog just will not stop sliding – thanks to Thomas O’Reilly for that one, Amelia!

At EUR 5.99 fro 5 litres it really was a poor finale.

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The view from Chardonnay looking up at some of our host’s vines

Monday 7th Sept 2015: Magical Maribor Moments

This may be a long blog – no need for sleeping pills tonight… AM – we cycled into Maribor – I (J blogging here) did a sort of walking tour guide thingy. Maribor was 2/3rds destroyed in WW2 and boasts a large 1980’s iconic bus station. Most of the architecture reflects the ‘proletarian’ history of factories (source our 2001 guide book). However a number of old buildings such as 4 old town wall towers and a synagogue survived. We avoided the tourist train (Kerstin, if you are reading, this pic is for you!) – it did not seem to move due to the lack of tourists :).

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We saw the oldest vine in the world – 400 years old – it’s in the Guiness Book of Records – it still produces wine. As there is a festival to harvest its grapes so the date is pretty much fixed to end of Sept / start October. The wine produced is distributed by the Mayor in small bottles.

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The wrinkly old vine is on the right!

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It had a small and free museum and had some of our overnight host’s wines – Horvat.

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Journalists waiting to ask us how our trip in Slovenia was going … actually Serbian journalist interviewing Slovenian wine experts … should have asked us, we seem to be tasting enough to become expert!

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That led to a sampling of the local wines in a conveniently nearby restaurant – only 4 wines, but we were sharing, honest!

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We fell into conversation with a lovely lady – Petra, and her Crufts Bichon Frisee, and she gave us very good advice on the area and things to see and do.

She talked about how her family, wealthy Ljubljana, had different capitalist ideas to a lot of Slovenia, who were still emotionally locked into the Tito era. She recommended a particularly good restaurant – Mak’s – for special occasions – possibly expensive – K’s eyes lit up the street and she asked Petra to book us in for 6:30 this evening! Bugger the budget Mrs Spontaneous…

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Not having had enough of wine tasting, we headed for the largest underground wine cellar in Slovenia – 20,000 sq metres. A good tour of timber and concrete (?) wine barrels – with German and Dutch couples – the wine tasting then began (again !). Our tour guide was the manager of the overseas consortium that was trying to buy the bankrupted wine firm from the receivers (see note above about 6 large wine firms). He was Dutch married to a Slovene and had worked in many industries (we did get his life story) but it was very interesting to hear his take on some Slovenine attitudes to competition and pricing based on old Communist beliefs.

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No fountain, so visitors press coins into the wall for luck.

7 wine tastings later, we retrieved our bicycles and wobbled back to Horvat…. J was ready to nap before the 6:30 restaurant booking – K disappeared into chez Horvat to purchase some of the wine, where she was offered more wine tasting and a tour of the bottling equipment and the main cellar. The generosity of our host is amazing: he rounded each price down and threw in a bottle of a different grape! In telling our host about the cave tour, he said how a consortium of vineyards had bought some vines from the bankrupt large company and they were in a really poor way but a lot of work on them and they should produce some good kilos of grapes this year. Slovenia is a small country and is is fascinating to hear parts of the same story from different people.

K back with 2 minutes to spare before the taxi arrived….. a very quick clothes change and minimal makeup.

The restaurant decor was fairly bland. The chef / host David was eccentric … jeans, jacket and a mop of unruly hair. He offered up his 19 month son as the main course! We left ourselves entirely in his hands re the meal and the wine. He does not produce a menu as it depends what is available. The pictures can do the talking. It was truly amazing. So much food, but served slowly and all so light that neither of us had that leaden stomach feeling.

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1. Bottom left to right and up – you need directions are there were so many elements just to the starter!

Beetroot macaroon with chicken liver pate and foie gras.

Parsley with homemade sausage and …. on top.

Crostini with Slovenian parma ham

Corneto with minced spiced beef and cream cheese

Lollypop of 24 month aged cheese with pumpkin seeds

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1. Continued … hot part

The lightest tortilla with cauliflower cream

Sweetbread in crumb with ginger and soy sauce

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James knowing he is in for a good time.

Wine was Zlata Radgonska Permina 2006 – apparently the oldest sparkling winery in Slovenia

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2. Soup Course

Tenderest salmon strips in a yellow pepper soup. Quail egg, caviar and a jelly of sweet and sour pumpkin. Served under a large dome with herb smoke.

WINE: Verus Sauvignon Blanc … delicious

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3. Salad Course

Dressed leaves with roasted pumpkin seeds and chargrilled chicken.

As the chicken was on the bone, they came later with a large bowl, jug of warm water and rolled towels so we could rinse our hands!

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4. Main Course

Most melt in the mouth lamb with lightest mashed potato, meat juices, onion sauce and papardelle of pumpkin and carrot.

WINE: Zamut Cabernet Sauvignon (Augustus) 2008 (we rejected an earlier suggestion as we felt it was too heavy – Shiraz)

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5. Dessert

Marinated pear balls, pear ice-cream, cinnamon and wine poached pears, bitter chocolate biscuit, chocolate soil, white chocolate mouse with a mango centre (when you cut in it looked like a poached egg!)

WINE: Most …. this is actually not a wine…. yet. On a certain day in November the celebration is the the grape juice is now fermented enough to become wine. Until then, it is Most (pronounced Mosht)

We were offered a cheese course!!!! To finish we were given shot of grappa, told to only drink half of it as it was a long drink ins a small glass. The glass was then topped up with Chardonnay grape juice.

As we left, we had a sour cherry shot! In any normally circumstances, we would feel bloated, poisoned and plastered … it is a testament to the quality of the food and wine and the lovely long gaps that we felt replete but in no way uncomfortable. Amazing experience. WOW – WHAT A DAY!

138 – 139 : Slap Happy and Numb Bums

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Clunegapyears

138 Friday 4th Sept: Dogged Walking … oh and a Lunch

The lovely Meine Hostess let me off EUR1.15 as I did not have the correct change … under £9 a night … peaceful and basic – our kind of campsite.

Logarska Dolina is another valley, the one up from where we were yesterday, but quite a different feel. It is known as the Foresters Valley, is only 7.5 km long and culminates in a Slap! Yep, slap the thighs, another blinkin waterfall! We parked up just into the valley and followed the forest path along the river bed and then up to the Rinka Slap. A real mix of deciduous and evergreen trees. Loads of wild flowers, we don’t know the name of, but appreciate all the same.

We watched the clouds blow in and off the mountain peaks.

Along the river bed. Dry at the moment as the water from the waterfall gets absorbed into the ground unless there is a massive downfall. Given the rain we battled through, I wonder what constitutes a massive downpour?

Rinka Slap. Do check out the coffee kiosk perched up a lot of steps … we’d climbed enough and even the lure of blueberry brandy was not sufficient temptation!

On the descent, J felt peckish so we stopped off for another lunch (must stop this becoming a habit!) and left with a large doggy bag.

Another lunch … happy bunny!

What is hard to get across is how incredibly peaceful everywhere is. Walking the valley, the only sounds were the rain (yes it poured on our way up), the waterfall and the odd cry of a bird. We are now sat on a campsite in the small town of Prebold having moved a little to the east … again, no sounds other than the rain and the odd hum of a car. Slovenia is restful and peaceful. The friendly mein Host has given me a FREE super scale walking and cycling map of the area.

Our neighbour, who likes to talk, wears a shell suit – he comes from what was the DDR! He was moved to Dresden by the powers in the communist era and then you went where you were sent. He said how lucky he was to have been moved somewhere so lovely. I was able to tell him that I had been to Dresden and the Meissen factory some years ago. And all this in German …

139 – Saturday 5th Sept 15: Numb Bum!

K gets satisfied, in a weird sort of way, when laundry is done, so a bedding etc load into an efficient top loader (haven’t seen one of those in a while) and some hand laundry. Again, all hanging under the awning or inside Chardonnay. Slight concern that it will hang around as there is so much damp in the air.

We had a massive thunder storm again last night and they seem quite frequent. We hear the long low rumbles echo around the hills and the water droplets sound like gravel on Chardonnay’s roof. More rain is expected today, BUT we are turning into Mr and Mrs Fittie- Allweather! Bikes down, prepped and wet weather gear donned, we set off. K navigating the back roads to Celje: a slight 3 km detour … oops! Fortunately the rain held off.

A typical view on our route. All the hills and mountains are really pointy and churches seem to inhabit the tops – is climbing up to them some sort of penance for this Catholic nation?

The area we are in seems to be a garden of Slovenia. It is well known for its hop growing; we passed a tall machine harvesting the hops and then being stripped in a barn. However, as well as corn and a few sun flowers, there are LOADS of apple orchards, and numerous varieties.

Should I be jealous? Not sure J would get any takers in those cycling leggings!

Having triple locked the bikes, we planned to go into a museum …. oops! All the museums and shops (except large supermarkets) seem to shut at lunchtime on Saturday! So if you work full time and need to do jobs, there is no chance of a lie in Saturday morning. Given we could not be cultural, J’s tummy rumbled, so we went gastro instead! But when a pizza, a delicious soup and 4 glasses of wine (albeit small) only costs £12 including the tip, it would be rude not to!

Happy boy! Third lunch out in a row and he said it was one of the best pizzas – EVER.

As we left the restaurant, the heavens opened. Why is it ‘heavens’ … nothing heavenly about the weight or length of the downpour. We waited a bit but as it seemed set in we resigned ourselves to a drenching, but decided to go back on the main route in the hope it would be more direct and easier cycling. We had a quick coffee stop (euphemism for J needed to use the facilities) on the way and back in time to change and tidy up before James’ Gaelic Football game started. Power of the internet: J can watch the Dublin v Mayo semi final replay live on the iPad in rural Slovenia 🙂

Only 24.4 miles, but only the second time the bikes have had and airing in a while. Despite, he sexy padded cycling leggings (K has her own padding), J was the one with the numb bum!

Clune Gap Years

A journal and reflections of our motorhome travels

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