Day 33: Relaxing in leafy Ljubljana

Day 33: Ljubljana restday

We had a great sleep-in 💤, at least we tried. Nature literally called and woke us up a little earlier than we wanted, but we didn’t have to get up and that was a nice treat as well. We went down for breakfast around nine. At Park Zibert you order breakfast instead of having a buffet, so Suuz ordered an omelette 🍳 and Mas scrambled eggs. A good try out for what we’ll have tomorrow morning, but then a few hours earlier. 

We checked the route to Bled lake for tomorrow thinking it would be an easy day, but it turned out to be a little tougher than we expected. We won’t be staying on the famous Slovenian lake, because it’s busy and expensive, but instead will go around it and cycle up towards the river at the foot of the mountains. 

After breakfast we almost ran to the bike shop where Johny 🚲 (Mas her bike) spent the night. Mas wanted to check on the bike repair dudes 👨🏻👨🏼‍🦱 and give them the look 👀. It looked like they knew what they were doing. Looked like, they did not use a lot of words. If they have in repair capabilities what they lack in communication skills then we’re all set!

The bike wouldn’t be ready for another couple of hours, so we did some grocery shopping 🛍 in a huge shopping mall. Suuz wanted to buy everything, but we only bought the regular instead. Candy bears 🐻, granola, sun lotion 🧴, cookies 🍪, noodles 🍝, and canned tuna 🐟. Also, Mas bought new shorts. She only brought one pair from home that’s good enough to wear to a restaurant so this is a bit of a problem when doing laundry 🧺. 

We walked back with a beloved Illy ☕️ on the go. Not long after we were back at the hotel, and had just ordered a taxi 🚕 to go into town, the bike shop called that Johny was ready. Suuz wanted to go but Mas went to the bike shop anyway to pick him up. It was indeed the free hub that was broken. Mas tested everything and it looks okay, the real test will be under mountain ⛰ resistance tomorrow.

Anyway, we ordered another cab 🚖 and went to town at last. We walked around a bit through the old city center and crashed at a coffee ☕️ place. But not for long. Suuz needed to do some work (really??) and there was no wifi. We tried a few other places and sat down at one that had wifi, only they didn’t, but we decided not to leave again and used 4G instead. Mas was bored so she wrote a little story about toilets 🚽 out of pure misery (see her Instagram feed for the toilet tale, it’s pretty great).

We walked next door to have Ramen noodles 🍜 for lunch (what else?), and strolled through Ljubljana for a bit after. Ljubljana is this cute, neat city. Very peaceful, not too busy. Quite some tourists already but not in an annoying way. Pretty lovely! All of a sudden we were super tired 😴 and since it’s a rest day we went back to the hotel for a little nap after about half an hour of walking.

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There was only one more chore to do. Cleaning the bikes. Suuz thinks this is ridiculous since they get dirty anyway the second you get back on. Mas uses the shower 🚿and laundry 🧺 example to prove her wrong. We went down to just get it over with. Suuz only did the necessary things (chain, derailleur), Mas went all the way. Singing ‘Johnny be good’🤞🏼in the meantime. It took her like an hour, Suuz was done in 20 minutes and edited a story after.

We rewarded ourself with a beer 🍺 and burger 🍔 after on the hotel terrace and played gin rummy until it was time to go back up for a good sleep. We are going to have a heavy next stretch into the Slovenian mountains ⛰. Very exciting!

Oh and last but not least, 5 things we’ll miss about Croatia 🇭🇷:

1. Nothing
2. Just kidding: the gorgeous blue oceans that cooled us off on many occasions
3. The green island and coastal roads with stunning views
4. See number 1
5. See number 1

Croatia is a beautiful country, but at this time of year it’s so overcrowded with tourists and traffic that it takes much of the joy away.  To anyone considering going there for summer holidays: we can highly recommend Albania instead. It’s absolutely gorgeous, cheap, friendly and not that busy!