Mestre to Venice Airport

Yesterday we had a great day island hopping around the Venetian islands using the vaporretto water buses. We started off on a the smaller islands, firstly on Murano, it is always interesting to see how all everyday activities around Venice are carried out by boat: buses, taxis, ambulances tearing along with blue lights flashing and even funerals.

We then moved on to the beautifully colourful island of Burano with its leaning church steeple. It Had a great relaxed feel about it compared to Venice itself so we spent a while wandering along the canals and having lunch.

We then came back to Venice itself which although not as packed as the last time we were here was still pretty busy, the eight cruise ships in the harbour might have had something to do with this!

This morning we had a very easy cycle out to the airport, Sunday mornings are a great time to cycle through cities.

So the bikes are now checked in and it's all over for this s trip, (if we ever get to the end of this queue for passport control!)

Today's route https://www.strava.com/activities/1187550708

Duna Verde to Venice 46 miles, about 38 cycling, ( total miles 608)

We had a great ride today with an excellent tail wind from our campsite, along the Lido Di Jesolo following the canals to Punta Sabbioni.  This included crossing a privately owned toll bridge although it seemed to be free to cyclists.

We then had to negotiate ferries to the Lido Di Venezia and then to the mainland at Tronchetto. The guy in white in the photo below is very carefully guarding his carbon Bianchi road bike from the fleet of hire bikes from one of the cruise ships in Venice 

The ferry takes you right past St Marks square and some of the superyauchts moored nearby. If you look at the back of the boat you can see some crew members to give some sense of scale.

Once off the ferry we were slightly navigationally challenged finding our way across the causeway and to our hotel in Mestre.  

It is a bit of a strange feeling tonight, that is our journey virtually completed and we both feel it would be great to just keep going to somewhere else.  However tomorrow we will do some sightseeing amongst the Islands before heading for the airport on Sunday.  It has been another great trip and we are already asking the usual question......where next?

Today's route https://www.strava.com/activities/1185025778

Lignano Sabbiadoro to Duna Verde 44 miles (total miles 571)

Tonight's destination is really only a few miles along the coast but because of all the canals and lagoons we have had to go way inland again to find bridges over the canals.  We have however found deserted surfaced farm roads virtually all the way.

All of the flood plain is heavily cultivated but we passed many derelict farm buildings. Presumably they have all been amalgamated into bigger units. 

We also came across an otter swimming about in one of the roadside ditches.

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We weren't really sure where we were going to end up tonight, we just wanted to leave 20 - 25 miles to the ferry to Venice.  We stopped off at Porto Santa Margherita to review our options, the place was a ghost town!  There were obviously thousands of bed spaces all closed up for the winter, it made the resort in "The Lost Boys" look busy.  Fortunately there was still a bar open.

There were a number of campsites a few miles along the road but given the state of Santa Marghareta we weren't sure whether they would be open or whether there would be anywhere to eat.

We got lucky again!  The first place we came to was a large resort village with golf course, all sorts of kid's activities and about 5 restaurants.  It is really the sort of place we would normally avoid but it is actually very good.  Highlight of the night was Sandra's tomato salad which did exactly as it said on the tin!

Today's route https://www.strava.com/activities/1183533593

Aquiliea to Lignano Sabbiadoro 47miles (total miles 527)

What a difference a day makes! We woke up this morning to bright sunshine although it was quite cool first thing and we could see fresh snow on the mountains we had left a few days ago.

We made a slight navigational error early on by trying to cut corners on the route I had previously downloaded onto the garmins, however this would have taken us onto a really busy road.  So it was back to the original plan with our route taking us through a variety of quiet roads which had to wind their way around the canals which feed well inland from the sea.

We stopped for lunch at the lovely old fishing village of Marano Luganre which obviously still has a thriving fishing fleet working away.

We then followed more quiet roads, gravel tracks and a stretch of very narrow muddy single track to our destination for tonight Lignanon Sabbriadore.

Lignano Sabbiadoro s a large bustling resort town, Sandra was horrified by the mile after mile of beach umbrellas and can't imagine how people can spend all day toasting there. It is certainly quite a contrast from our campsite two nights ago outside Nova Gorica where we were the only residents.

Today's route https://www.strava.com/activities/1182050316

Nova Gorica to Aquileia 29 miles (total miles 480)

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain pouring down on the tent so we were in no rush to get started.  After a leisurely breakfast at the campsite we eventually packed up and set off in what we thought was torrential rain back through Nova Gorica into the old town of Gorzia over the Italien border.

Going through Gorizia was a bit dodgy with heavy traffic and lots of slippy looking cobblestones but we soon made it through onto some of the quieter roads and tracks which I had mapped out. unfortunately some of the tracks were a bit rougher than I had anticipated so we soon found some much better alternative back roads to Gradisca Di Isonzo.  

By this time the weather was improving although the rivers were very much in spate

In fact the weather improved so much I even decided to take my waterproof trousers off, this of course quickly prompted flashes of lightening, rumbles of thunder and then the heavens opened up with really strong winds.  We belted along the road as fast as we could to the first available shelter under the canopy of a petrol station.

It was a wee bit scary sheltering there with great flashes of lightening all around us.

Here's a link to a clip showing how stormy it was, https://youtu.be/UjauR2PO1Kg  however it wasn't as scary as the guy behind us filling 30 litre containers of petrol with a fag in his mouth!

After quite some time the weather seemed to improve enough for us to carry on however it was still pretty bad and we stopped a mile or so later at a roadside cafe where we got some shelter heat and coffee.

We had originally planned to head for the coastal resorts of Grado but there didn't seem much point in today's conditions so once the weather improved we cut across country to the old roman town of Aquiliea, the weather was much better by this tiime and we were actually still dry under our waterproofs, but as the ground conditions are pretty boggy we've booked into a chalet on the campsite rather than pitch our tent.

Although the conditions have been pretty awful we've actually quite enjoyed today's trip as we were never too cold and wet and we had to sort out quite a few route changes along the way.  The weather does however confirm that we made the right decision getting the train yesterday as we would originally have had nearer 60 miles to do today.  Anyway the forecast is for sun tomorrow.  Yeehah!

Today's route https://www.strava.com/activities/1180488790

Bohinjska Bistrica to Nova Gorica, mainly by train but 11 miles cycled (total miles 451)

As forecast the weather was terrible again this morning and as it was forecast for more of the same tomorrow we abandoned our plan for the big climb over the pass and instead cycled the 5 miles to Bohinjsaka Bistrica where we got the train to Nova Gorica.  We weren't the only ones with the same idea as we met a couple of Dutch cycle tourists at the station, although I think this had been their plan A to avoid the climb.

The weather was a good bit better at Nova Gorica and we ended up in a great wee family run  campsite a few miles out of town . https://parklijak.com/.  We are the only guests on the site tonight and also the only diners in the campsite restaurant, we weren't really expecting much as the slightly grumpy looking barman / chef took our orders however we have probably just had the best meal of the trip so far.  It's great the places you stumble across on your bike.

Tomorrow we head into Italy, yet another country where we can't speak the language!

Lake Bled to Lake Jezero 26 miles (total miles 440)

It was a bit of a disappointing day today, I had really been looking forward to this really scenic section of the trip as we made our way through the Julian Alps however the weather today has been atrocious with torrential rain all day.  As we climbed out from he camp site we could see down to the boat park for the rowing championships, apparently most of the boats had already left.

 

We then continued to climb for for nearly 3000ft over the next seven miles on really steep roads of about 12% gradient for a lot of the way ramping up yo 15% in places which is pretty steep when your bike and luggage weighs around 30kg.  But at least the rain was keeping us cool, in fact well before we got to the top we were totally soaked ( gore-tex pah!!) and getting pretty cold so it was on with extra gear before the descent.

Along the top and on the descent we got glimpses of some of the spectacular scenery as we passed through wee alpine villages.

When we got to our campsite the weather was still horrific, so after a quick pizza we went back along the road a mile or so to a hostel where we are now sitting in front of a log fire with a few refreshments writing the blog.

Unfortunately the weather forecast for the next couple of days is for more of the same and as our planned route for tomorrow involved similar big climbs to today it looks likely that we will cut our losses and take the train through the mountains tomorrow unless there is a great improvement in the weather

It's really disappointing missing out on some of the most spectacular scenery of the trip but we will just have to come back some time.

Today's route https://www.strava.com/activities/1177320473

Ljubljana to Lake Bled 41 miles (total miles 414)

We had a bit of a dodgy start this morning,  first of all the campsite cafe had been swamped by some sort of  sponsored walk which had chosen this as its starting point so the single waitress was somewhat overwhelmed and grumpy. We eventually gave up waiting for breakfast and hit the road with our wet washing which had failed to dry overnight making our bikes look like mobile clothes horses.

Next we did a bit of improvisation on our route.  Looking at online maps last night I found that there was a way marked cycle route out of the city towards Bled, our destination for the day, so we abandoned the route I had previously mapped and set out to follow this.  Unfortunately the first 7 miles or so of this were on cycle paths alongside major roads and with the foggy conditions this morning the air pollution was pretty grotty, we did however manage to find a reasonable breakfast along the way.

Once out of the city things improved and we followed very quiet country roads and tracks to Kranj where we made a total rickets of trying to find a decent place for lunch, we ended up with a couple of titchy waffles which had enough sugar to keep us going on slightly busier and hillier, but pleasant roads to Bled.

Bled is absolutely beautiful and was very busy due to the World Masters Rowing championships taking place.

After stopping for a beer in Bled we cycled the couple of miles along to the campsite to be told there was no room at the inn! Despite great attempts at persuasion the receptionist was adamant that they were absolutely full.  It was only as we were on our way out that he noticed we were on bikes and suddenly found that there were In fact some pitches available.

Fortunately we booked a table at the campsite restaurant before going to watch some of the rowing as it was absolutely packed and we were able to spend a leisurely couple of hours waiting for our food and watching the waiters running around like blue arsed flies while people queued outside for tables.

All in all it's been an excellent day and we've even managed to get all our gear washed and dried, luxury!

Today's route

https://www.strava.com/activities/1175885084