thirty six kilometers

13:28 31 July, Prian

Slovenia only has thirty six kilometers of seacoast, and it is possible to cycle into neighboring Croatia or Italy from anywhere along this coastline. Having been fully cycled-out from Bled, and not having a great deal of time, I opted to leisure around the town. When I got off the bus, I was confronted with the problem that there was no obvious tourist office from which to orient myself, and so, seeing two girls speaking English and holding a travel, I enquired as to their expertise on the city. they proved as disoriented as I, but together the three of us managed to find the tourist office, from which I procured a map. Splitting up with the girls, both Australian expats teaching in London, we planned to meet up later in the evening. I headed off for my budget hotel, dying from the heat and humidity. When I checked in, the first thing I did was take a nice refreshing shower, and change into more breathable clothing.

The city center, very Nice.

Having thus prepared myself, I set out to take a look around town. After a short time, I made my way to one of the city squares where I had arranged to meet the Auzzie expats. There was a young boy playing with a ball in the square, and when his kick errantly came my way, I gently kicked it back to him. Well, from his perspective, it was game on. With mom in sight we played in impromptu game of kick the ball back-and-forth, until I was rescued from a future of seemingly perpetual kickball by the arrival of the girls. We slipped into a cafe where we got a light dinner and a glass of the 80 euro cent house white wine (terrible). We stayed up chatting for a while, until I was prompted to continue my tradition of Mediterranean Travel by making a midnight run down into the ocean. The three of us daintily slipped across the "beach" - a collection of large boulders - and into the warm waters of the Mediterranean.

The enterance to the sea.

Tradition in tact, we parted ways and I enjoyed my first night of private accommodation since freezing in my tent in Iceland. This morning, the cost of the accommodation was partially offset by the excellence of the breakfast. Quite the spread met me when I came down from my room, with bread, jam, eggs, Mediterranean salsa, muffins, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and cheese. The eggs were not so very good, but everything else was fantastic.

I've spent the rest of my day trying to to look too closely at the "beach". While in many ways, Prian reminds me of Nice, there is a distinctly older population here. Families with young children running around in their birthday suits mingle with leathery old men burnt to the point of eligibility for affirmative action. Swim trunks still have yet to penetrate the Continent, and speedos do little to retain the modesty of beach goers so bloated as to evoke images of beached whales. Over the age of 50, it becomes common for the women to adopt Amazonian style and abandon upper body covering. The overall experience was enough to shake me to my Puritanical core.

The backways of Prian.

Now begins a rather hectic 24 hours, wherein I get on a bus to Ljubljana, transfer to the airport, fly to Budapest, find my hostel, sleep, and catch a 12:05 flight to Athens. Fingers crossed, I'll make it with all my possessions.

13:51 30 July, Veolia Bus to Piran

I raced the to the best station this morning in Bled. Late in the morning, I decided that I'd catch the 9:30 bus into Ljubljana to connect to Piran, rather than the 10:30 bus, so as to have more time to spend in Piran. At one point, I despaired of making the bus, when I made a 10 minute wrong turn that looped me around to my starting place, but I arrived at the station at the very moment the bus was departing, and flagged it down. It's in the high 80's in Slovenia right now (don't fear, I'll never bother reporting temperature in centigrade) so even without being burdened with all of my luggage, it would have been an uncomfortable run.

It all ended up being for naught as the forebodingly-named "911 Bus Service" to Piran wasn't running today for no explained reason, so I had to wait for two and a half hours for the next bus once I arrived in Ljubljana. No problem, I just rolled my luggage into the downtown, and had an early lunch (by now, this should be no surprise: a panini & beer) while I read by the riverside. It was a good way to kill two hours.

Just now, I thought I had almost missed the bus to Piran, when, after seeing it pull up to the station and offload passengers, it quickly started back up and took off in the direction of the superway (with me futilely trailing behind it, the wheels of my suitcase clacking feverishly along the cobblestone). However, it must have doubled back and returned to the station where I paid the 12 euro fare to Piran, plus an extra fee for luggage (apparently airlines are not the only practitioners of this bit of consumer trickery.) But now I'm rolling along toward the coast, hoping that Piran will be worth all the aggravation and expense (no hostels means dishing out $75/night for a budget hotel, plus transportation to and from the coastal town). I have every confidence that it will be great.