A Bicycle Tour of Slovenia | EPISODE 2: THE JULIAN ALPS

Moving on through the magnificent scenery and culture of the Julian Alps of Slovenia. A bit of a cheat as we start our day; a shuttle that takes us to the top of the pass. But what a day as we cycle down into some of the most picturesque vistas any of us have ever seen. The route winds us through the gorgeous Julian Alps to the town of Skofja Loka. Here we spend the afternoon and evening, a fabulous medieval old town with surprises at every turn. An absolutely spectacular day.
Music:
Meghmalai - Maree Docia
Epidemic Sound
Rise - Jakob Ahibom
Epidemic Sound
Don’t Blink - Clarence Reed
Epidemic Sound
Forward - Dovetail
Epidemic Sound
Outside St. Petersburg - Trabant 33
Epidemic Sound
Lost Empire - David Celeste
Epidemic Sound

[@dennispiciullo8060]

What a video, beautiful country! Wish I were there!

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Thank you Dennis, it's a great destination. Glad my daughters suggested it!

[@TerrapinCyclist]

Have added Slovenia to bucket list :-)

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Good plan!

[@garyseckel295]

Stopped the video so many times to study the incredible scenery! The drone views add so much to viewing such beautiful scenery. Wow!

[@TheBicycleTourists]

These mountains are really amazing. And, yeah that bird's eye view is really something.

[@tonyorme6446]

Just incredible scenery…another great video!

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Thank you Tony!

[@terylteeter562]

What a gift to spend such a picturesque adventure with your girls! Thank you for sharing! ❤

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Yes indeed, a real treat! I'm a lucky father.

[@maxdugan5319]

Another great video to watch on a cold snowy MI night! Always the best video and info on the area. Although Laural and I miss seeing Julianna😎

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Boy, so do I! Love riding with my daughters, but I did miss Julianna's companionship this year. She'll be able to pull away this spring for a nice ride with any luck.

[@juliannahenley4921]

That warms my heart, Thank you Max, but I will be on the next one!

[@user-xt6ck2jw2n]

Slovenija ❤❤❤

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Love this country!

[@jeannapeters5194]

I want to go there. Beautiful 🫶

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Yes! It's definitely worth going a bit out of your way for.

[@dondonner1095]

So glad that this beautiful place still exists. I applaud you having your daughters along with you on this trip. Lucky Guy I say.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Lucky guy for sure. So great to have kids who will still do this kind of stuff with me! It does feel a bit like going back in time in Slovenia. Very old world vibe.

[@camloh]

Enjoying this. My family is from Slovenia and my daughter spent a few days there this summer. We have a picture on our wall at home of the bridge at Skofja Loka. We may look in to bike touring Slovenia next year and in 2025 going cross country USA. Great content, thanks for posting!

[@TheBicycleTourists]

It is a beautiful country with little pretense, very friendly, very easy to get along. And just one stunning vista after another. Sounds like you have great plans for the future. You'll have to check out our Cross America series!

[@camloh]

Yes, I watched them, as well as your trip across Iowa! (We did Ragbrai several times). I was actually just watching the segment you took from Cincinnati I think it was on the Ohio/Erie trail. We live close by the Erie Canal in Syracuse so you weren't so far away on your ride across America! BTW How did you communicate with the Slovenians?

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Surprisingly English is widely spoken in Slovenia, even more so than in most western European countries. Older folks were taught Russian as a second language when they were young, but its very easy to get along.By the way, we loved Syracuse! One of the surprises on our trip was exploring the old industrial cities of the northeast, absolute gems! Thanks for watching, and good luck on your future plans!

[@TheArathor]

@@TheBicycleTourists I loved the video but just a small correction. Nobody was taught Russian here in school. Yugoslavia was neither in NATO nor the Warsaw pact. It formed the Non-Aligned Movement and was technically a third-world country.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Thanks for the clarification. I was told that by a cab driver who was one of the only people I spoke with who couldn't really speak English, perhaps it was lost in translation.

[@jurijfranko9002]

I really liked you have pronounced Škofja Loka 100% correctly! Seen all your Slovenia videos, very nice presentation.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

I'm so glad to hear that! I have a real talent for mispronunciation.

[@iaingeorge1006]

This is brilliant! Thanks.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

You're so welcome!

[@PumpkinVillage]

What beautiful country and some great family time. Thanks for the video and take care, Al

[@TheBicycleTourists]

A great time for sure! Thanks Al!

[@user-nw2gm4zw9d]

We did our biketrip through Slovenja in May last year. Thanks for bringing back to us all these beautiful memories. We are looking forward to your next episodes to check whether you will visit the places we have seen. Up to now, we have been biking almost all the places you‘ve seen as well. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

I believe there is a standard route a lot of these touring operators use, if that's the way you went... I'm so glad these are bringing back some memories. It's such a great country for bike touring.

[@user-nw2gm4zw9d]

@@TheBicycleTouristswe did not use a tour operator but organized the trip ourselves. And, yes, it really is a great country for biking - an excellent mix of high mountains, the seaside, wild water, nice towns, history, culinary experiences and extremely nice persons…

[@TheBicycleTourists]

This is the first (and probably only) time I've ever used a tour operator. One plus was that I didn't do much research into the area, and so I was constantly and pleasantly surprised at what each day had to offer. You said it well, it's an excellent mix.

[@user-nw2gm4zw9d]

Dear Roland, thanks for this incredible adventure. We already followed closely your videos from your bike tour through France and we now very much enjoy your reports from Slovenja. My wife and I did a bike tour through Slovenja in May last year and we loved it. We also biked in Bohinj like you did in your first episode. Now we are looking forward to the upcoming episodes to check whether you have also been where we have been. Thanks. again, Andreas

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Thanks Andreas, That's great that these are bringing back some special moments. I always say, bike touring gives us the best memories. Do you have plans for the next tour?

[@user-nw2gm4zw9d]

Yes, indeed, we plan to do a bike tour in France, partly along your paths. We plan to first start in the Jura mountains and then to ride along the river Doubs (Euro velo 6) to the Loire castles and finally to Bordeaux (by the way, we are from Germany, so that going to Slovenja, France or almost any other place in Europe is much simpler than in your case).

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Sounds like a great trip. I hear the Jura are a great place to ride. You're right. I'm envious of how easy it is for those who live on the continent. Also, the touring options there just seem limitless.

[@alethearobinson8132]

What a beautiful tour with your daughters. Your filming is stunning. Sorry your tour didn't provide better cycles. There are tours that provide really nice road bikes. Don't give up on supported rides. They can be really good.❤

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Thank you Alethea! The tour provider route is okay, I guess, and it worked well here as we had a very short window to make everything work with my daughters. But I much prefer the freedom of self-guided, self-planned, self-supported. It's just a completely different experience.

[@johngorentz6409]

It looks like you didn't stop for coffee at the same place in Skofja Loka that I did. I didn't appreciate how special the place was, but had mapped out a route around what I called the Kranj basin, and was just trying to find a way across the river to resume my route. Your video of the bridge is much better than mine. I saw many of those hay drying racks, but never saw any in actual use for drying hay until seeing one in each of your two videos so far. I saw a lot that were being used to dry firewood, though. (We left Slovenia on September 22.)

[@TheBicycleTourists]

By special do you mean touristy? It is, a bit for sure. We were in Skofja Loka on the 19th of September. Looks like we might've crossed paths. there were certainly a lot of cyclists in town.

[@boyan64]

Farmers now have machinery and old practise for drying grass dying 😢😢. Yes now they use them for drying woods.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

That kind of thing is happening everywhere sadly.

[@lindahowes5949]

Gorgeous countryside! So wonderful to have this time with your daughters. Surprised not to see many people in the town. You are making the best of it with those bikes! What tour company did you use? 💜

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Fewer crowds is one of the plusses of riding off-season, I suppose. We used a company called the Natural Adventure, a British (I think) company who subbed out most everything to a local company called Helia. A fraction of the cost of a Backroads tour, but I would go with something in between.

[@claudemarie9136]

@13:02 “ grateful to live .... *relatively* stable times”. Erm.... today started the largest NATO Kriegspiel since the 80ies. We were told yesterday by one Admiral Rob Bauer ( a cool Dutchie, who must have drawn the shortest straw), here is the exact quote: “You need to have water you need to have a radio on batteries and you need to have a flashlight on batteries to make sure that you can survive the first 36 hours," That’s 460m Europeans (Continentals, nobody knows where the Brits are today, starting with themselves) turned into “Preppers”. So, Yeah, *relatively* 😉

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Well, yeah, things suck these days. I'm always optimistic that things will get better, but things suck right now. Still have a long way to go to compare to, say, 1944. Relatively.

[@xx-uf6gl]

We're all bikes step thru? Brand/models?

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Mine was not a step through. I could not say what the brand was. Not familiar, that's for sure.

[@cheezy-rider]

I wonder why all the trees aren't dead like they are in the US?

[@TheBicycleTourists]

We saw no beetle-kill.

[@cheezy-rider]

I hate to tell you. The beetles are a symptom. Not a cause. There are too many different species dying and could not be a result of different types of beetles. Not to mention why would we only have beetles here. Beautiful country. I wold love to ride there someday. Enjoy the rest of your trip and thank you for the videos.@@TheBicycleTourists

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Thank you, it is a beautiful country indeed!

[@boyan64]

6:15...Sorica

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Yuo, Sorica. Love that place. What a morning.

[@boyan64]

​@@TheBicycleTourists True, nice you found and saw this Village. And congratulations for cycling with such heavy bikes.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

I should've been a better consumer. I should've looked harder for. better tour operator. My bad.

[@slowerandolder]

"This is straight, right?" Teehee. Looks like a neater, cleaner West Virginia, if you don't have a European travel budget.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

West Virginia is amazing. All that's missing is the Slovenian culture.

[@rodmilankov8966]

Occupied by communist or liberated from German occupation? There were partisans in Slovenia too. Bedanec!

[@TheBicycleTourists]

Definitely both! It's great that they got rid of the Nazis of course. I guess I look at it from a contemporary perspective: Slovenia is much better now than they were under the communists. At the time it was a choice between two evils, IMO.

[@gorazdkosmac2269]

@@TheBicycleTourists Now Slovenia is occupied by capitalism, which is the worst of all ....isms.

[@michelesauret7779]

Le pays est magnifique mais pas les vélos 🙄🥴

[@TheBicycleTourists]

C'est vrai!

[@boyan64]

​@@TheBicycleTouristsyor really got worst bikes. We have much, much better bycicles...After all best world cyclists comes from Slovenia. Pogačar and Roglič.

[@TheBicycleTourists]

The worst.