Day 15 (Slovenia): Postojna - Sezana (pouring 2x)

today’s distance: 59km
total distance: 1443km
riding time: 3-4h

The day started off badly - rain pouring down all over. Not much visibility, so for the first few hours I just hunkered down and took care of some unfinished business on the website and other miscellaneous issues. Taking off the rain was coming down quite a bit - not the hard, big drops, but still a good amount of water hitting me. The wind was more or less in my back, letting me make some good progress at least despite the nasty watery surroundings. Temperatures were low - hovering at just above freezing for most of the day.

After taking a wrong turn and doing some backpedaling (wonderful Slovenian cake was a major plus though), I arrived at the Skocjan caves - an astonishing maze of caves and crevices. The place is simply amazing and awe-inspiring.

The river has created an enormous cavern - and the atmosphere is eerie. Arriving at the gate, I was floored by what turned out to be six Italian school classes, but Borud, the guide made the whole experience all that much better, explaining little things here and there for me. He’s a gentle person and gave me good insights not only into the caves and its inhabitants (i.e. bats), but also more generally about his life and family.

We finished the conversation over coffee in the adjacent restaurant before I packed my bags and headed to meet Marko in Sezana, about 15km away. It was bucketing down when I arrived - the local pharmacist didn’t know the street name, but she let me make a phone call and soon enough Marko turned up and I followed him to his house. He’s a major cyclist himself - having covered Mongolia, Tunisia and South America by two wheels and is planning another trip at the end of the year to Great Lakes region of Africa - and is kind enough to let me spend my rest day at his place. Thanks a bunch Marko. We had dinner over really good rucola-carpaccio-parmesan pizza - and I got to watch some amazing movies Marko made from his previous trips.