It’s go time!
Up at 4:30 AM, scrambling for a quick breakfast and out the door, we arrived at Warsaw Central Station just in time to catch our 6 o’clock train to Villach, Austria. This begins our research mission to Slovenia.
For the next 12 hours we will ride the PKP Polonia express train south, through Czech Republic and past Vienna before the final stretch to the southern Austrian border town of Villach. Our plan is to camp just outside of Villach tonight . In the morning, we begin following the Drava River south and then east to Ekohotel Kmetija Koroš in Koroško, where we will meet Dusan ‘Dixi’ Štrucl, one of Slovenia’s foremost bicycle tourism experts, for 3 days of cycling, and discussions about bicycle tourism in Slovenia, past, present and future.
If you’ve been following our conversations lately on twitter and facebook, you might be forgiven for not noticing our plans to spend the next few months researching bicycle travel in Slovenia. After all, we have been consumed both online and off, with the final production of iBike WAWA, our city cycling guide to Warsaw. And although this has taken most of our talking time, slowly we have been making contacts in the Slovenian bicycling and tourism industries, quietly planning behind the scenes for our next bicycle journalistic endeavour: A Bicycle Traveller’s Guide—Slovenia.
As a relatively unpolished gem of European bicycle touring, Slovenia seems to be exactly the right place to focus our next efforts. Mountains, rivers, Adraitic coast, wine country, friendly people, low costs and a nation committed to sustainable tourism, combine to make an almost perfect mix for bicycle tourists. And so, we want to be a part of it.
Now that our daily calendar has been cleared of deadlines and managing the production of iBike WAWA, you will begin to see the return to regular updates and postings in all categories on these pages. We will be focussing on our experiences mapping Slovenia’s finest bike touring routes and the cultural richness that goes along with our discoveries, as well as more bicycle travel inspiration, touring tips, and news to round out the pages.
More soon from the road…