Thursday 16th September mileage 9578 Hotemaze NW of Ljubljana

Savi and I both woke through the night and so at 4am decided to get up and use the internet to update the blog and review our e-mails.   Back to bed then up at about 9am, showered and packed away our few belongings which we then stored in the hostel storage room before venturing out for breakfast.

We went to the Lunch Box where I had had a good meal the last time I was in Ljubljana but they were having problems with their cooking facilities and they were unable to offer any food.  We went to an adjacent restaurant and had omlette and bread and honey.  The coffeee was far too strong, and the waiter was like a sour faced Bryan Ferry.  Not a good start to the day!!

We then went to the main square where we waited for the 11am free walking tour of Ljubljana.  There were drunken men on the square (who sounded russian to me) who at this time in the morning were already well pissed, and in fact were taking a piss right in the middle of the square!!

A woman called Tina gave the two hour walking tour. She was very nice and knowledgeable, but could have gone a little faster to suit my style.  She talked us through the main square that is called Preseren Trg. and is named after Slovinia´s most famous poet Preseren.  She also told us about Slovinia´s most famous architect Pletchnik, who designed a lot of the squares and buildings of Ljubljana.

She then took us to the modern bridge with the statues of Prometheus,  and another figure from Greek mythology who was the god of wine, and also statues of Adam and Eve.  This bridge also had locks attached to the railings where it has become the fashion for lovers to fasten a lock to the bridge and then throw the key into the river which is meant to represent their everlasting love!!

We then went on to the market where we saw some interesting graffiti that seemed to be saying that heterosexual love was alright, and lesbian love was alright, but male homosexual love was not acceptable !!!

Then on to Dragons Bridge, then the main St Nicholas Cathedral with it´s doors representing the life and times of the history of Slovinia.

Then Fountain Trg and then Shoemakers Bridge and finally on to the University buildings and the open air theatre.

After the tour we went back to the Lunch Box restaurant, and now they were serving food so we had soup each and then shared a meal of the peppered salmon again.

We  picked up our bags from the hostel and made our way to the bus station to make the journey back to Hotemaze to see June, Jenny and folks again.   It had now started raining quite heavily in Ljubljana.  We went via the market and I bought a small section of sheepskin rug to use as a cushion on my motorbike seat. ( I had read in the book by Tom Simons in his journey around the world that he had found a sheepskin fleece to be the most comfortable seat cover material you could have, and so even though I am not uncomfortable on the plastic seat I thought I would invest in this hide and see if it realy makes a difference.).  We then went to a haberdashery shop and a really nice woman helped me with mechanisms to hold the fleece onto the seat.


We caught the bus to Kranj and it seems I am still supporting Veolia !!

and when we got to Kranj the woman in the bus station ticket office gave us the wrong information about which bus to catch to get to Hotemaze.  The driver corrected us but by this time we had missed the bus and had to wait another 50 mins for the next one!!

Back to June and Franz´s house and updated all my outstanding blogs.

Tomorrow set off on my own again to complete the rest of my "Great Motorcycling Journeys of the World" planned in this journey.

More later
TOR