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Tour date: 1-17 June 2005. Total distance: 1400 km.
Bicycle Tour: Eastern Europe (Italy - Slovenia - Croatia - Hungary - Slovakia - Austria - Czech Republic)
Thomas Driemeyer2005-10-16 14:37:51
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we followed the river Sava all the way from Ljubljana to Brezice, always choosing the side with the smaller roads, often paralleling the train tracks. Most of those roads have a single lane, virtually no traffic, and are fabulously scenic. The road winds its way through forests and small farming villages, often with a view of the river. The road has many hills, all short and easy. Unfortunately we had some light showers that day and no sun, but otherwise this was a beautiful ride. We had excellent pizza at the northeast edge of the town of Radece.
Brezice is the last town before the Croatian border. It consists of an old main street, where we stayed at the Splavar Pension and Rafter's Pub, and some residential streets. It almost feels like a Potemkin village; the houses lining the main street just have small gardens in the back where one would expect the next city street, as if it took all the town's strength to put together their one main street. The Splavar Pension has very nice and reasonably priced rooms, but the food is pretty bad in their pub.
CROATIA
We expected some traffic at the Croatian border checkpoint, but they were satisfied when we waved our ID cards at them. Croatia is not yet an EU member but will be soon. The 40km to Zagreb became progressively more busy until we were basically on a four-lane freeway. Croatians appear to be very safe drivers though, everyone gave us the whole lane to ourselves. In Zagreb we first found the tourist info, and the Fumic bicycle store to fix a bottom bracket that had come loose. They also let us park our bicycles there, and we spent a few hours wandering through downtown. (The tourist office hands out maps with scenic routes marked.)
Zagreb downtown is not marred by concrete monstrosities like Lubljana, and its old part is considerably larger, but not as homogeneous. Curved streets with beautiful old low buildings alternate
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See photographs from:
Slovenia Gallery
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Slovakia Gallery
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Italy Gallery
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Hungary Gallery
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Czech Republic Gallery
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Croatia Gallery
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Austria Gallery
