Yellow mists obscure
The road, bury it in corn.
Harvest season nears.
Well, really, harvest season is here. We woke up early this morning and set out for what we had been warned was an extremely boring and crop-lined stretch between Venezia and Trieste, and we weren't disappointed. All the roads we took, even smaller roads, were jammed with late-season tourists and farm equipment hauling multiple trailer-loads of corn which spilled all over the road. That along with the immense flat expanses recalled Indiana to me. Ah, Indiana.
This continued for about a hundred kilometres. We couldn't see the sea; the coast was so irregular that most roads went far inland, and it would have been dozens of kilometres out of the way to actually get down to the water. Sigh.
After a long time during which we ate lunch, took coffee, blah, blah, blah, we stopped in a bike shop for our first real interactions with people for the day. They didn't speak English, but the owners of the bike shop were thrilled to hear about our trip, and they happily aired our tyres and sold us some extra tubes, and they even adjusted our brakes for free and gave us a lesson on how to do it ourselves. We were thankful for the pause; this stretch of road was monotonous and full of angry drivers and utterly uninteresting.
It got later and later, and we finally saw the mountains of Slovenija in the distance. We wound up some small roads and into them around sunset, crossing the border into our 11th country just as red and orange and green ripped across the horizon.
The change in altitude was serious. It was cold when the sun dropped below the horizon. Evan's beard was soaked with the condensation of his own breath, and our meagre lights were barely enough to help us see around corners. We were thankful to the French road workers who long ago gave us the high-visibility vest. We slowly made our way about 30km across the country to Sežana, where we knew we had hosts waiting for us.
We had gotten poor directions from the Internet, but fortunately we found the local postman of SeĹľana in a bar. The girl who ran the bar spoke English, and she helped us to ask him for directions. Better than that, he simply led us to our hosts' house. :) Some people are so kind!
We arrived around 22h, and, boy, were Aleksander and Azra surprised to see us. They even said they had forgotten that we were arriving... we really need to find a solution to the awful French phone we still carry with us. Anyway, they welcomed us into their home and let us shower and cook dinner, then we all sat down to discuss some things about the area and the schedule for tomorrow. It sounds like we're in for a tour, and Aleksander is really excited to show us around. We're excited, too, and not just because we get to sleep in a bed.