Slovenia/Poland

caromac

Looking at heading to these places in May, any suggestions of places to visit or avoid ???

cheers

roryboy

Slovenia: Brilliant place for the bike. I stayed in Kranjska gora near the borders of Italy and Austria and being the anorak that i am, i decided to cycle in all three countries in the one day thus getting my passport stamped at each border crossing. If you're going to Slovenia then you'll be spoiled for choice. Bohinj valley is another place to look at. It's really cheap to live off the bike i,e accomodation and eating . Lots more to do besides cycling if you fancy a day off the bike to wander the julian Alps. A must for cyclintg is the Vrsic pass with its 21 hairpins. Poland on the other hand was a bit different. The cities were a nightmare with heavy traffic and the road condition was not good. However once down in the Silesia region the going was better and i was stopping in Zakopane for a few days to take in Rysy the highest mountain in the Polish Tatras. Again places to stay and food was dirt cheap i lived like a lord and the Poles are brilliant when they learn you're doing everything under your own steam. If you settle for Poland then take a look at Slovakia it lends itself to the cyclist as the roads were in much better condition and it was the first place i saw proper cyclists (Club) throughout my trip to Poland and Slovakia 2005 Enjoy.

MichaelW

I liked Slovenia so much I've been there twice.
Highlights include Vrirc Pass, Bohinj Valley, and cycling through a cave/mine system at Črna na Koroškem . The rest of the country is really great as well.
Acoomodation at Tourist Farms is excellent, There are plenty of quiet roads and cyclable logging trails. The rail system is bike friendly and there are two small , accessable airports for Ryanair and Easyjet.

El Gordo

roryboy wrote:

Poland on the other hand was a bit different. The cities were a nightmare with heavy traffic and the road condition was not good.

Very true. The only place in Europe with worse roads than Poland is the UK. It's a nice place though - much friendlier than Slovakia.

cpeachey

We did Birds tours, Krakow then Zakopane and the alpine meadows. Very pleasant. Then 1 week eastwards from Krakow finishing at Rzeszow, taking train back to Krakow. Hotels etc not very prolific as they don't seem to be in to tourism in that area yet. Very friendly people but not much English spoken Schools used to teach Russian but now teach English. Dunejec Gorge very pretty (on the border)
http://s100.photobucket.com/albums/m33/ ... mber%2006/
http://www.bird.pl/
Chris

unCivilServant

I went to Slovenia for 3 weeks in 2003. Might be the scorching hot summer then, but my memories are mostly pretty good. Went from Trieste up the Socha valley; a few days walking in the Julian Alps (let me know if you spot the rucsac I dropped off the side of Mt. Triglav ); across to Ljubljana; down for a day trip in Croatia; up to the Slovene coast; past the karst caves back to Trieste.

It's quite likely to have changed since entering the EU (mind you I'm guessing I was there more recently than Roryboy--I didn't get any passport stamps, and didn't find it particularly cheap). So with that disclaimer in mind...

High points:

#The scenery in general--rare to find an ugly bit #The Socha in particular: amazing mountain views while the road itself isn't that hilly. Bovec for the riverrafting etc.. #Also the pretty little towns. They don't have any great particular 'sights', but if you like picturesque mediaevalness without a huge crush of tourists (Skofia Loka, Kamnik, Ljubljana itself) they're very nice to hang out in. #The Alps. Assuming you want more than a casual stroll, you need to spend at least a weekend (Triglav itself will almost certainly take longer to do comfortably, assuming you start from Trenta.). Beware, the 'footpaths' involve vertical unsecured climbs up rock. :shock: #The coast. Don't go for a secluded beach experience: one look at the map will tell you why it's so built-up...but fun in a tacky way. Also, where else could you get a local telling you in total seriousness that you've underestimated the size of their coastline by *14 whole kilometres*?? (64km not 50km, apparently) #The caves. I went to Skochjan, which at the time was less well-known but apparently more highly regarded by those that did know. It's a World Heritage Site.

Not-so-high points:

#Mandatory bike lanes/routes. As in, you

must cycle in them. Some of them are just pointless (rural area coming from a B-road), others go all round the houses in town, others are hopeless shared use paths (Ljubljana). In Ljubljana, I found bus drivers trying to cut me up when I went on the road, to make a point I guess. Rural areas were mostly OK but there didn't seem to be much cycling culture in Slovenia.
#Busy A-roads. Slovenia doesn't have the density of roads that the UK does, so at some point you will find yourself on the narrow, only road to somewhere that is also used as the main lorry transit use. When I was there there seemed to be a motorway/road-building scheme under way so this may have improved.
#Quality of road surface. This may occasionally be gravel or even track while showing on the map as normal road. Again, this may be less true now Slovenia has got its hands on the EU funds (although also beware that road developments make making sense of maps difficult).

kaupoi

Here's some photos from our trip last summer:

Tatra mountains and trough Baltics up to Finland

Photos you find behind the links "täällä" and "täällä". (Here in Finnish)

It was great. Especially carrying our gear over to Poland from Slovakia across the Mt Rysy peak. True mountain biking. Go for it.

tbshooter

Flying back from Slovenia with a bicycle is easy too. I managed to get hold of two cardboard bike boxes from a bike shop in Zagreb, get a bus (very cheap) to the airport with the bikes for very little money at all!

Hoopdriver

Slovenia is great: friendly, scenic, a little microcosm of picturesque Europe - or at least it was when I cycled through there a few years ago. As is mentioned above, though, the A-roads are very busy and fast. Be careful on them and avoid where possible.

mkaomec

Slovenia has many interesting places to visit so I will recommend you some of them: Lake Bled, Piran, Vintgar Gorge, Postojna Cave, Lake Bohinj, Kozjak Waterfall, Predjama Castle, River Soca, Castle Velenje. You can find a lot of different things and many beautiful places in Slovenia on a very small place. I'm sure you'll like it.