Day 7 – Slovenia Cycle Tour – Postojna to Piran

We started the day with a drive to Postojna Cave.

24.34km long, it is the second longest cave system in the country. The caves were created by the Pivka River and first described in the 17th century.

To get down to the caves we took a cute little train. So cute, you could buy stuffed trains in the mandatory gift shop on the way out.

And of course they took our photo before we took off. We didn’t buy one. Cameras are forbidden within the caves due to their flashes, however iphones appeared to be allowed.

We dismounted the train and walked through the caves.

There was some discussion about health & safety and whether or not each stalagmite/stalactite had been appropriately tagged, as would have been expected in NZ/Aus. 😜

Stunning. And definitely hard to capture on the iPhone 12S. Time for an upgrade Tim Apple?

MoD who has travelled to 46 countries, declared this as one of the most amazing natural beauties he has seen. That’s a pretty high recommendation folks.

I concur MoD.

From there our group took a minibus and a taxi, driving for an hour to our next destination. Lunch on a hill in a restaurant called Gostilna Karjola, overlooking Koper. We were all starved by this time so had a really decent lunch, even though we hadn’t biked at all. Later, I was a little sorry for the 3 pieces of bread dipped in olive oil I had before my mushroom soup.

Across the road from the restaurant was the Wine Paradise.

That was its name and that was its claim.

Rightly so.

Wine wells. Pop a token into the slot and out comes your wine.

The views were stunning, not to mention the cute little wine barrel chairs. Might have to get son number 2 to make one of those for me.

Then it was down to business.

Literally. We started with a downhill ride past coastal Koper, riding along the coast, through some beautiful villages, stopping a couple of times for a ‘making of photo’ as our French traveller Audrey calls it, and an ice cream.

48.5km, 328m elevation.

Cruisy. My best day yet. Loved every moment of it.

We reached our destination of Piran at about 5pm with a further rocky coastal trek to get to our Hotel Barbara.

It’s a beach hotel located along a rocky path a little away from the centre of Piran. It has a beach bar and beach access for swimming. Of course the beaches here are straight off the rocks. The hotel itself had an arty flavour to it, I actually loved all of the quaint interior design so naturally shall bore you with these photos.

High fives all round! We did it!

Our room looked out onto the water. Not too shabby my friends after a big – albeit mostly flat – ride.

The group organised to meet at local restaurant so we headed back along that rocky little walk with a fairly reasonable looking view….

The restaurant was Rostelin where our waitress had a quite definite view about what we should eat and drink. She was hilarious. Not quite as definite as the waiter from the night before in Postojna. Now that man was passionate! ‘You shall not drink that red wine with that food which we have made in-house!’

At Rostelin the food was delicious, Hugo Spritz dangerous (Prosecco, soda, elderflower syrup, lime and mint), speeches were made, hugs exchanged and promises to keep in touch and look each other up when in their country.

What a group!