(written by Dave)

This will be a quick post as we have lots to do and are planning an early night here in Trenta.  As Nancy mentioned yesterday we have two big passes to get over tomorrow and sleep is pretty important if we are going to get an early start in the morning.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we should talk a little about today.  The campground was pretty quiet and we were the first folks up this morning.  After a leisurely brekkie, we thought about stopping in Kobarid and seeing the WWI museum.  In the end, we decided to just head out and enjoy a great Saturday morning for a bike ride.  First stop was only a 1k from camp and the Napoleon Bridge.  It wasn’t just WWI that happened here.  As noted by the bridge, Napoleon made his presence felt, WWII had some significant battles and as Nancy mentioned yesterday the whole area is called the Julian Alps, named after Julius Caesar.  Our road had a sign noting reconstruction in 2009.  It also mentioned several other efforts, the first by the Romans, major renovations done between 1399 and 1425 and in 1901 as well.  How they knew the exact dates of the 1399 renovations is a good question but that’s what the sign said.

The road followed the Soca River all the way to Trenta.  We had another one of those wow days where every corner the view seems to get better.  Our little point and shoot camera makes getting the light right in the photos hard but I tried and managed to get a few that captured the feeling.  Nancy didn’t really mind me stopping today as it was a short day and she wanted to take in the views as well.

We made it to Bovec for late morning tea/lunch.  They had some sort of trekking event on but as you can see from the photo below, I pipped all of the competitors and won the race.  Nancy took the photo but for some reason none of the local newspaper folks seemed all that interested in an interview.  Oh well, the bakery was just round the corner and we managed some lunch.

It was 16k from lunch to Trenta, lots of stair stepping climbs.  It was that way all day actually.  At least we finished 400 meters above where we started and only have 1,000 meters left to reach the top of the first pass, Vrsic, which tops out at 1611m.  After we come down Vrsic and cross into Austria we have to climb Wurzenpass , which tops out at 1073m.  It is only 48k to Villach Austria from here and we are hoping that an early start will mean that we can make it before dark (actually, I’m not worried about dark [editor’s note – but I am!]) but there may be some stopping and resting on the steep bits.  We’re off now to get some dinner started.

It may take a day or two to get a sim sorted in Austria so we may have some delays with posting in the next day or two.

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