This past March we celebrated our 10 year Anniversary and also hit the 5 year mark in Switzerland. We knew that we wanted to go on some sort of special trip for our anniversary and after much discussion and an almost bike tour around Scotland we settled on a bike tour from Salzburg, Austria to Ljubjana, Slovenia. We knew the Austrian countryside and mountain were beautiful and we always wanted to go back to Slovenia after a 3 day stay a few years ago. So we settled on the route from Salzburg to Ljubljana including a few mountain passes. We still want to go visit Scotland on bike but the costs were getting too high and we needed a few extra days to tour around the Island of Skye, Scotland.
John used a great app called Komoot, which was really helpful in planning the route of our tour. It really did a good job at using bike paths and less heavily traveled roads when possible. Thankfully Austria and Slovenia happen to have a lot of less traveled roads and or biking roads/paths.
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| After a 7 hour drive that was supposed to be 5.5(there are always traffic jams in Europe) we are ready to bike 60 km to Hallstatt, Austria. |
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| The added effort it takes to ride with the extra weight of the packs was a bit more than I anticipated. |
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| One of the short sections of gravel path that we had to ride on in Austria. |
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| Day one completed, outside of Hallstatt, Austria where we slept at a hostel. |
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| The river behind the hostel. |
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| Breakfast number one at the hostel. It is a rule of thumb to sleep somewhere that also has a breakfast in the morning. The European breakfasts have grown on us: Muesli, fresh cheese, salami, bread, and fruit. |
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| After breakfast we loaded up the bikes and got ready to hit the road. The second morning we moved a bit slowly in hopes that the rain would move out. |
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| Hallstatt in the background. |
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| Foggy slightly rainy selfie before the start of day 2. |
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| John had to frequently stop to check the route which he had downloaded to his phone... No one wants get lost!! |
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| Random Austrian town on day 2. The little towns are so quaint and pretty! |
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| The Austrian towns are just so pretty! |
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| This was our lunch spot on day 2. We kept it simple and picked up sandwiches and snacks from a gas station . |
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| Pretty flowers in the Sölktal, where we spent night 2 halfway up a mountain pass in the middle of Nowhere. |
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| The flower filled bus stop! |
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| This was a lake we saw on the way up the Sölkpass on day 2. |
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| Agnes' guesthouse was our accommodations for night two. It was just us and another bike tour group. |
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| Beers on Agnes' porch while enjoying the view and the quiet. This valley is named the valley of Erholung (recuperation). The name is very fitting. |
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| Agnes' homecooking, delicious. |
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| Day 3 at the top of the Sölkpass, 1790 meters but sadly no view. It was actually quite cold and windy. |
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| Lunch in the valley after coming down the Sölkpass. |
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| Our next Guest house in Austria was 1.5 km outside of Sankt Veit an der Glan. It was a beautiful walk into town for dinner. |
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| Sankt Veit an der Glan Old town. |
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| Beautiful walk home after dinner with mountains in the background. |
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| Another wonderful breakfast at the guesthouse, this time with farm fresh eggs. |
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| Day 4 took us to Slovenia and up the Loiblpass. It was a beautiful climb, without too many cars. |
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| We made it to the top and into Slovenia... I was out of breath during that climb!! |
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| So happy to have made it to Slovenia. It is such a beautiful country! |
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| Our guesthouse outside of Lake Bled, Slovenia. |
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| Selfie at the popular Lake Bled. It is truly a stunning area. |
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| The castle up on the hill overlooking Lake Bled. |
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| Sunset at Bled. |
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| The last day we decided to do a beautiful loop through the national park outside of Bled. The Guesthouse owners let us leave our packs there (yes!!). Then after the ride we caught the train to Ljubiana. The loop included a significant climb which was steeper than we expected! |
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| Lake Bohinj |
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| After 5 days on the bike, we fully enjoyed the huge continental breakfast at our hotel in Ljubiana. |
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| Another picture of Lake Bohinj. Slovenia is truly of beautiful place. |
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| Old town Ljubiana has such a fun vibe. |
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| And lastly a picture from Villach, Austria. This is where I got to spend 5 hours waiting for John to take the train (our bikes weren't allowed on this specific train and we had missed our reserved train) to get our car, pick me up, and then drive through the night to get home. It wasn't how we had hoped to end the trip, but all in all it was a Wonderful week!! |
