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Journal: |
Philippe had negotiated an earlier breakfast time (7:30am instead
of 8:00am) with the management and I met him and Francoise at the
appointed time. We had all been looking at the remaining Via
Alpina route to Trieste (Muggia to be precise) and noticed that
there were a few detours of doubtful value. For today, the
detour involved climbing about 700m up a mountain and then back down
again, without there being anything particularly noteworthy in the
guide. I, for one, was unlikely to make the detour, but
wouldn't make up my mind until I reached the turn-off. The
alternative route was more direct along back roads and would leave
me less to do on my last day tomorrow. Philippe and Francoise
had three days to do the same distance, but I suspect were also
unlikely to climb the mountain.
We had pleasant breakfast,
took a few photos, exchanged email addresses and said our goodbyes,
before I set off at 8:15am determined to cover a good distance for
the day. After 20-30 minutes walking along a rough 4WD track
through some woods, I heard a moped approaching from behind.
The old guy riding it stopped next to me and said "hotel key"!
I had left with the key in my pocket, and they had chased me down.
Very embarrassing and I apologised profusely.
I continued on,
mostly along country lanes, passing through a few small and ancient
farming villages, and admiring the mountain to my right that the Via
Alpina was scheduled to climb. It was very low, by Via Alpina
standards, but still looked a significant task, and I decided to
give it a miss and save the time. The walking along the
country lanes was quite pleasant and I was happy to continue.
A few more villages passed, each of them (and most others passed
during the day) had a small memorial, some of them with red stars,
naming local partisans who had died during WW2.
I reached the
large and drab village of Razdrto around 11am, crossing a freeway
just beforehand, and stopped in at the supermarket where they made
me up a large cheese and salami roll for lunch and I bought an
ice-cream and Pepsi for morning tea, which I ate on a bench outside.
I'm definitely leaving the Alps now, with the sound of trucks
rumbling by and small industrial plants around the villages.
There followed a pretty scrappy sort of path through bits of forest
and open land, often within earshot of nearby busy roads and
rail-lines, which ultimately ended in another large village,
Senozece, also a bit drab and industrial. Passing another
small supermarket I went in and bought a large cold drink to
accompany lunch and just outside town found a grassy spot of the
verge of a local road and had my lunch wathcing the passing traffic.
It had become quite humid and, despite the absence of any
significant elevation changes, I was feeling tired. There was
some more scrappy forest after lunch and then a more pleasant trail
winding across freshly cut hay fields to a small aerodrome with, I
presume, some warnings to look for aircraft before crossing the end
of the runway. All was quiet and I continued on. By this
time I had noticed the ominous-looking clouds building all around.
Sure enough, just before I reached the awesome overlook to the
Skocjan Caves, the heavens opened, significantly spoiling the view
and, with no shelter around, I didn't hang around. It didn't
take long to get very wet and the paths and roads turned into
rivers. I was so wet, it didn't seem worth looking for shelter
and I just kept walking hoping that it wouldn't last for the rest of
the afternoon.
After an hour, it did stop and the sun even
came out briefly for my last hour's walking to the large village of
Lokev, where I had decided to look for accommodation. I found
a guesthouse in the middle of the town and checked in at about
5:15pm, satisfied that tomorrow I will only have a very manageable
25-30km to go to reach the end of the Via Alpina.
I was lucky
enough to catch quite a lot of the opening women's soccer matches
from the Olympic Games and even found I can get wi-fi (from
somewhere?) in my room. I think I offended the waitress in the
guesthouse dining room by not drinking the small glass Schnapps
offered as a gift, even though I apologised sincerely. I had
been warned this would happen.
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