{"id":2208,"date":"2018-05-08T11:59:26","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T16:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/?p=2208"},"modified":"2024-06-17T18:52:31","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T22:52:31","slug":"180508-caverns-and-castles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/180508-caverns-and-castles\/","title":{"rendered":"180508-Caverns and Castles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I woke up this morning starving, a good sign of my metabolism speeding up. After an early hostel breakfast, I wandered over to the supermarket before stopping by a bicycle shop for a replacement tube. The shop owner didn&#8217;t speak any English, but writing 32 x 700 cc on a piece of paper got us to whether I wanted a tire or tube, and it was easy after that. That&#8217;s the closest I&#8217;ve come to language difficulties so far this trip. The response to my apologizing when asking if someone speaks English is, &#8220;Of course!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Before leaving town I also picked up stove fuel at a sporting goods store. I can&#8217;t carry fuel on the plane, and I find not being able to cook for myself limiting, esp. since the campgrounds haven&#8217;t included a stove. <\/p>\n<p>I left Postojna twice, one because I should have played a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boardgamegeek.com\/boardgame\/18\/roborally\">Left instead of a Right<\/a> following EV9 for a couple of kilometers before it turned south and I realized that was not the way. <\/p>\n<p>I passed a small tower and cave about 10 km outside of Postojna. A lock hung on the tower door.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_1827475810130.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"rps20180509_1827475810130.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\"  alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_1827475810130.jpg\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>There was no attendant at the pathway to the cave. I wandered  down the trail to the cavern. A good explorer, I carried my headlamp, but about the point that darkness encroached I reached a sign (and gate) that I could go no further without calling the local caving society.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_182702-332852667.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"rps20180509_182702-332852667.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\"  alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_182702-332852667.jpg\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>I spent today following a secondary road following a motorway &#8211; little traffic. I had to diverge only once when the secondary road ceased to exist. I rerouted myself to pass nearby another castle  that I had previously flagged as not interesting. However, I had a great time wandering through the ruins. That castle won&#8217;t be there much longer; I knocked a small section of wall down when I leaned against it. &#8220;Here lies Rick Steeves, killed by a falling castle wall.&#8221; Not exactly the epitaph I want, but not statistically unlikely. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_182629123358615.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"rps20180509_182629123358615.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\"  alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_182629123358615.jpg\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Between my metabolism starting to shift, the marshmallow puffs I found that are mostly glucose, and the entire day being flat or downhill, I made great progress today, arriving in Ljubljana by 3:30. I checked into the hostel, visited the castle, and spent the evening wandering about the city.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_182541-591905680.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"rps20180509_182541-591905680.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\"  alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_182541-591905680.jpg\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>I spent this evening talking with Sam, a 1st generation Londoner. We got embroiled in US politics, healthcare, and guns, and that used up the remainder of the evening. <\/p>\n<p>I spent a couple of hours last night intently looking at my maps. I don&#8217;t know what Mark was talking about &#8211; there&#8217;s a great route to Zagreb along the Sava River. I head out towards Zagreb in the morning. I can&#8217;t quite get the spacing to line up for somewhere to stay along the multi-day trek to Zagreb, so I don&#8217;t know quite how that will play out.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_182503954830862.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"rps20180509_182503954830862.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\"  alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/rps20180509_182503954830862.jpg\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I woke up this morning starving, a good sign of my metabolism speeding up. After an early hostel breakfast, I wandered over to the supermarket before stopping by a bicycle shop for a replacement tube. The shop owner didn&#8217;t speak any English, but writing 32 x 700 cc on a piece of paper got us &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/180508-caverns-and-castles\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;180508-Caverns and Castles&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-touring"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2208"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2492,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208\/revisions\/2492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}