The Wobbling Sprocket

We love Ljubljana.   Both the Croatia Tour and the Slovenia tour start and end there.  It’s laid back and is chock full of enchanting street cafes.  It’s also full of history.  There are roman ruins that you can go see in the basement of the museum.  It was a cultural cross roads and, in some ways, still is.  I’ve wandered around town photographing nothing more than front doors.  They are massive and spectacular.  You can see some here.

It seems that, in addition to having a coffee in  one of the many sidewalk cafes, we can now have a glass of raw, unpasteurized milk dispensed from a street side vending machine.  This seems down right un-American.  However, it does seem completely appropriate for Slovenia which is dotted with beautiful dairy farms and picturesque haystacks.

I don’t profess to know the pro’s and con’s of raw milk for general consumption.  I do know that I would be more likely to drink some in Slovenia than in the US.   Most people actually do a lot of thing overseas that they would not do at home….swinging above and plunging 30 feet into the Nam Song river outside Vangvieng and eating cicadas and a lot of other things come to mind.

We’ll have to check it out next time we are off to Ljubljana….

Raw milk on tap — in Ljubljana « The Bovine.

It’s a little hard to capture some of what happens on tours.

Part of the deal is food. It’s not always fine dining with white table cloths (although, at night, it usually is).

Everyone is on their own for lunch. Who would have thought you could find big ol’ burgers in Slovenia? Once we found them, it was tough to resist. Especially when they are man sized burgers that have you contemplating what life without burgers might actually be like. As it turned out, given the “bunnage” to meat ratio of these, life might actually be a lot better. It was kind of like eating a loaf of bread, with a side salad. It did take two hands though.

It isn’t all big burgers. We had some great fish and seafood including these trout on the ride into Tolmin. The restaurant is right above a pen where they have live trout. Slovenia is known for world class fly fishing for trout.

After a long day in the bike saddle, what might be better than to stop in the lounge at the hotel and relax with a cup of coffee or a tall cool one?

….it certainly is not, however, to spend more time in the saddle…..a horse saddle. But that is exactly what we did in Tolmin. Giddie up, cowboys (and cowgirl)!

Brian flew the coop this morning so it is down to me in LJU.

It’s kind of cold and overcast so more of a walking day than a biking day. This isn’t really a big city but it seems like everytime I go out in it to explore, I come across something sort of funky and kooky. Perhaps, it is because the population is so young. The average age can’t be much over 30.

Anyway, near the Hostel Celica (a prison turned Hostel…..where you literally check yourself into jail), I came across what looks to be an artist compound. Lot’s of professional looking graffiti and funkadelic galleries. You can find some of this kind of thing all over town, but this place has to be the nerve center. Check it out:

The best for last. If you are going to create stuff like this, you need some cool wheels…..an old Citroen XM…never mind that you’ll never get more than two inches off the ground…much less your destination.

I love it.