When someone invites me to do something somewhere in the world, my default is yes. Well I’ve had to re-evaluate that position since meeting Costanza – a woman whose sense of adventure and desire to travel and explore new places vastly outshines my own. She was doing a bike trip through Europe (Austria, Italy and Slovenia) for 7 days that her friend had organized and invited me to join alongside five others. So I reorganized my itinerary (sorry Vancouver, some other time).
A cool thing about the bike trip was since I was in the central European time zone (which was about 7 hours behind in the USA timezone I work within) I didn’t have to take any time off work. Each morning we started biking with an early start to avoid midday European summer head and then arrived at the next destination in the afternoon which allotted plenty of time to attend my remote work meetings and grind on client work. The best part though was that the project I was currently working on during the trip got canceled half way through it, so I didn’t end up working at all during the entire six days, which was great.
The trip started in Salzburg, Austria (9/9/2023) and then continued to
- St Johann im Pongau, Austria (9/10/2023)
- Mallnitz, Austria (9/11)
- Spittal, Austria (9/12)
- Villach, Austria (9/13)
- Kranska Gora, Slovenia (passing briefly through Italy) (9/14)
- Lake Bled, Slovenia (9/15)
Each day the terrain and difficulty varied. We passed through charming little villages, scenic countrysides, forests and up and down hills. A few of the days were difficult with elevation gain, but nothing so difficult that it wasn’t fun. During the entire trip we were very lucky with the weather with only light rain for a morning while we were in Slovenia.
We made a habit of topping to have a beer in the beautiful sunshiny weather en route to our daily destination. Sometimes this was at a roadside bar setup to serve other bicyclists along the route we had taken, or within one of the towns we rode through. It’s quite a privilege to drink a beer outside on a sunny afternoon while bike riding through Europe.
The trip ended in Lake Bled, Slovenia, where I have actually been twice before. I lived in Ljubljana, Slovenia, the capital of Slovenia for about a month back in 2015 and visited a couple of times. It’s probably the most popular destination for tourists in Slovenia, though I have come to understand there are many others worth visiting — including the Julian alps surrounding Kranska Gora. Somehow these have been off of my radar but are truly magnificent. Bicycling through them gave a perspective that I wouldn’t otherwise see driving in a car or riding in a train. They appear as chiseled, granite peaks with few trees, naked and defined – seeming very young and not rounded, old or weathered. Perhaps they are a fitting monument within their country which has only existed since 1993 – though it’s culture and heritage has lasted closer to two thousand years (the Julian Alps are named after Julius Caesar).
