Day 3 (Arabba to Kranjska Gora)

Woke up to a bright sunny day with clear sky. Ofcourse, sunny day in the Alps could also mean the temp was about 3 deg C. As usual our B&B owner had set up a nice breakfast. Soon we packed up and hit the road back to Cortina as the plan was to head east and touch Slovenia and head to Villach in Austria for the night. But later in the day the plan changed for the good. We headed on the Dolomite road to Cortina di Ampezzo (thru where we came to Arabba the previous evening) but today the Mrs is ready to brave the heights with camera in hand.. we then turned right towards Pievedi, Ampezzo, Villa Santina & Tolmezzo. Another wonderful ride with long curves & fantastic scenery on either side of the road.

Our B&B owners Monica & Pio pose with us

The Lord, the Lady & machine at the start of another glorious day of riding

Video of loading up the bike & getting started for the day in Arabba.

Video of ride thru the Italian Dolomites

Video of ride heading towards Cortina, ITALY



Video of our arrival in Cortina, ITALY



On the way around lunch time we saw a place along the mountain that had a bike indicating bikers welcome.

We went in & found that nobody there spoke English and almost all of their dishes contained pork. I flapped by hands to show ‘chicken’ and also showed horns with both my index fingers to show ‘bull’, but no luck. Finally she smiled & said yes, but I somehow thought there is a new challenge coming. Then a guy in broken English explained she was referring to rabbit. Well thanks, no sorry thanks!! Anyway, since we don’t eat pork, myself & wife decided to settle for some fried cheese dish that the waitress explained in Italian not knowing what was coming our way. When it arrived we found it was small cheese cubes fried in butter and then sprinkled with some other kind of cheese shaving. My wife did remind me of my cholesterol levels, but I had no choice than eat it. Anyway what was our main course seemed the appetizer for the locals who were cherishing it! With our best effort, together we managed to finish about 40%. All in all not to our liking. I decided immediately that for my next trip I am carrying pictures of a chicken, bull & fish to make it easier to express myself! We hit the road again heading east towards Tolmezzo & beyond to the Slovenian border.

Video of ride thru the Italian Alpine Road

From Tolmezzo my GPS acts like a zombie as it fails to understand any of the city spellings I am feeding (Predil/Predel etc on the Italian-Slovenian border). As I am standing beside the road going crazy with the GPS, out of nowhere comes this smart Italian guy driving a BMW M3 and asks me in English if I need any help. I explain my miseries and he instantly feeds in the words as spelt in Italian and Mr. Garmin immediately recognizes them. He then gives us probably one of the best advises in this trip. He tells us “instead of shaving thru Slovenia, why don’t you head into Kranjska Gora and stay for the night there, it’s a nice place, you wont regret it”. I was still in 2 minds, but my wife said, why don’t we give it a shot. So we set the GPS for Predil and head thru some more scenic roads and at one almost straight wide stretch of road I see that we are following a long line of cars & trucks, and for the first time I see Italians driving in a very mellow fashion. Soon I realize whats the reason- My GPS suddenly starts to give out a peculiar & continuous beep and I see a red mark flashing beside the route on its screen and it is advising me about a fixed speed control radar camera. Later it also reminds me that I can download all the fixed speed camera points in Europe from the Garmin website. I still have quarter tank of gas, but I fuel up before the Italian Slovenian border (also needed a butt & piss break).

Again the Italian-Slovenian border is an anti-climax. There is a formal gate like structure, but its left open and there are no guards or any human soul anywhere in sight. We pass thru and enter Slovenia heading into nice country roads with a burst of unrivalled natural beauty. Very sparsely populated and road directions very very well marked. We turn right into Kranjska Gora and enter the town.

Kranjska Gora is a calm and beautiful town that is famous as a winter sports destination as it hosts the Annual Alpine Skiing World Cup. We decide to have an early dinner since the lunch earlier in the day was a fiasco. We go to a place selling Chicken Kebabs (Balkan food) and have a wonderful meal.

Slovenia was part of the erstwhile Yugoslavia, but after the break up of Yugoslavia, Slovenia went its own way & joined the European union. So I was presuming it will be a lesser cousin of the other EU countries, but boy I was wrong. It’s a very vibrant country with possibly the highest per capita income in EU and the Slovenian people are very friendly and most importantly they all speak good English. Well for the English part, what a contrast to a few hours back in Italy where I had a tough time ordering food or finding a male toilet etc…(they only write gents or ladies in Italian language on the door, but don’t put the man or woman sign. So we had to figure out which was the masculine/feminine word!). No such problems in Slovenia.

Search around a little & find a fantastic B&B called Villa Romana owned by Mr. Lubo. Its almost like a suite room with separate living & bedrooms and a window view that’s fantabulous. Price Euro 30 per person. We then walked around the town a bit and ate a nice ice-cream. Like most other places in Europe it is Euro 1 per scoop of ice-cream. The town looks like a Hollywood-set, neat, clean & with hardly any people around.

I think its called window shopping!

Two lonely travelers in a lonely town

My wife found this Slovenian cop car too irresistible to let go….

Our B&B for the night- Villa Romana

That’s our ‘Room with a view’

Sunset in almost all the places we visited was 8:45 to 9:00pm so we always had a lot of time to stroll around after each days ride before it got dark. Total kms traveled today 224 kms.

Hey Italian guy in Tolmezzo, sorry I didn’t ask your name, but my deepest gratitude to you for stopping to help us without being asked and guiding us to Kranjska Gora as it is truly one among the most beautiful places we have seen in this trip. It’s a small place, but nature is too beautiful out there and as a bonus the people are very friendly and almost everybody speaks English. Thanks again my Italian friend.