t’s Christmas day and Natasa and I have it alone-together.  Natasa suggest we walk around Lake Bled I tell her I also want to go on the river walk that has all the bridges, VINTGAR GORGE.

I last visited Lake Bled on my original bike tour through Slovenia, it was fun to come back.

After a full day of adventure hiking and walking, were not done.  I’m driving and suggest we go into Ljubljana for the Christmas lights.  There’s a river cruise, so the tourist in me says, let’s go for a boat ride.

Meanwhile back home, it’s snowed and the sledding hills are showing themselves in Skofja Loka

You can tell by the last post Christmas was awesome.  The excitement didn’t end there.  I had the flu so on New Years we stayed at home watching The Grand Budapest Hotel.  We heard this big explosion, looked at each other? WTF?  Being it was New Year’s and there were plenty of “real” fireworks and explosions that night, we shrugged it off and  went back to watching the movie.  A few minutes later, we look and see this.

Soon the entire apartment is engulfed in flames.  The first 3 fire trucks only had extension ladders.

From our window you could see the whole thing unfold.  One firefighter stood on the ground using a hose, that couldn’t reach the fire, it would have been funny if it wan’t potentially so tragic.

They thought they had extinguished the fire, and brought the ladder down.  From our vantage point we could see the fire had started up again.  They raised the ladder again and extinguished the flames again, they did that twice.
The next day we learned that the guy committed suicide by lighting a room full of natural gas.  I talked with the neighbor yesterday, he said he saw the explosion, a blue flames shooting out the windows and the whole roof had lifted up.

We got some sunny winter weather and I was able to bike around .  People ask how do you ride when it’s -3?  I always say, it’s like going skiing, you just wear a few extra layers and off you go.

I”ve never actually lived where you could or had to bike with snow all around.  I have 5 layers on,

Surly sent me some parts for my bike and told me to go to Pici Bici  to have it fixed.  They had some cool bikes and other bike stuff.  They specialized in refurbishing old bikes and are the Surly representatives in Slovenia.

They had a bike with a sharpening stone attached.  You removed the bike chain and attached the grinder chain to the front sprocket, start pedaling.  I think something like this could work really well at on of Portland’s many Farmers Markets.

RIDING THE SNOWY BACKROADS CAN BE CHALLENGING, YET LOTS OF FUN TOO.

I wanted to get a clock for the living room wall.  I shopped on ETSY for bike clocks, but with shipping it was going to cost $50 easy.  So I was in the Chinese shop at the mall and bought a clock for 8 euro.  I  also bought a bike shoe box at the same store a couple weeks ago.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE JABBA THE HUT?

i didn’t take a photo of Natasa cleaning up and stomping down the last of Jabba the Hut. It took 3 weeks to melt.

The stories that I planned to write about this time will have to wait till  next time.  There is so much to share about living here in Skofja Loka, Slovenia and best of all with Natasa.
MORE PHOTOS HERE

Thanks for reading.
People People where are the comments?
JEFF

NEXT? Farmers market, walking bridges  politics, and?

                                                HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM JEFF’S BIKE TOUR

We are doing super. I have a great situation, Natasa and I are super happy together.

Not only is it great with her, but Sara (her daughter) and parents are great to be with too.
The family situation for me is something I haven’t had in my life, for a long time. After my grandmother died in1995, there has been only a couple family Holidays for me, once with my brother. My mom died last summer, I hadn’t talked with her in 20 years.  My Dad? That’s another story too, I’ve written him once in the last 10 years.   I unfriended my 1 brother  on Facebook, a couple of months ago. Enough. 

So that gets me to what I want to actually talk about.  The great family situation I’m in now.  Natasa & I laugh and love all day, I’ve never had it so good.  “Living the dream” that’s really the truth.  Natasa’s parents are only a 5 minute walk away.  We’ve  had them over for breakfast. Sunday night dinners and Christmas.  Natasa’s Mom, Mirjana  had a 70th birthday party this summer.

They had numbered birthday cards but they were sold out of the 70 ones, I went to 3 stores!

 

Both Franc and I were on our own for dinner one night. He tries to speak some English, it’s still better than my Slovenian. We had coupons for 2 free Bosnian Sausage dinners, we went and had a great time-even with the language problems.
I cooked Christmas dinner this year, turkey, vegetarian shepherd’s pie, salad, mushroom stuffing.  I looked down at the table and soon realized, I cooked the whole thing, holy shit.

Franc said if he likes the food he shows it by eating ALOT!  It’s actually quite amazing how much he can eat. Mirjana is a great cook too.

 

Another traditional Holiday that they have here and not in America is St. Nicholas Day.  You exchange small gifts 10 days before Christmas.  Natasa’s brother’s family, parents and Natasa and Sara.

 

It’s great living in the “old town”, bike tourist  come through all summer, it’s great to talk with them.   This is Oscar & Patricia from Argentina, on their  3 year journey. They stayed a few days in our basement room. I think their staying in Istanbul now for the winter.

 

 

 

My plan is to do bike tours here in Slovenia.  I’ve camped and visited maybe 1/2 the country.  There still lots to explore and would love to show off Slovenia to my friends.

 

 

 

We got invited to a neighborhood meeting, Natasa had to work so I went.  They all had kids,  I also learned that people from around Slovenia come to Skofja Loka just to walk around the square with their kids.  I was wondering why I was seeing so many baby carriages.

 

 

 

It’s been a mild &  dry winter.  I rode into Ljubljana 3 times in 7 days (50 km rt), to Christmas shop.  I’m learning all the “safe” bike routes.

 

 

 

We have a small patio and the snow was piled up.
It was pretty cold -8 (17 degrees fahrenheit). So the snow was so dry that you couldn’t make a snow man.  So we tried to shovel the into something?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m learning some Slovenian, I’ll say adijo (goodbye), then they say goodbye to me in English.  Everyone knows I only know a few words but when I try to practice they end up just speaking English to me (thanks).  So I thought ok, I call Natasa honey in Slovenian, why not?

So I started calling her Med instead of honey.  She liked honey better.  Medi is a little bear, so I started calling her Med Medi and she likes that (somewhat) we both laugh about it.
Here’s your chance to see how hard the Slovenian language  really is.  How to say “Did you eat anything yet?” in Slovenian.  There’s only 10 ways to say it!

I really feel like I rescued the 3rd phase  of my life meeting. Natasa and her family  are a true blessing for me.
More Photos are HERE

I hope you enjoyed this update.  Thanks for reading.

Jeff

NEXT: FIRE BREAKS OUT ON NEW YEARS IN SKOFJA LOKA & MORE FUN TALES.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the view from my favorite coffee shop, THE RAJ (translation: Paradise ) it’s right next to the river. They make me a special “Americano” a double espresso with the water run through 4 times,  That’s the castle in the background and the Devil’s Bridge over the river.

Skofja Loka is one of Slovenia’s oldest villages, it’s a little over 1,000 years old.  In 1511 an earthquake destroyed the entire village and it was rebuilt.  In 1660 and 1690 fires also ravaged large parts of the town.   So today’s infrastructure is somewhat new, just 300 years old,   And old infrastructure needs to be either repaired or replaced at some point.  So Skofja Loka  had a HUGE makeover this  summer.  There was sewer and water pipes laid.   They tore up all the asphalt and replaced it with cobblestone.

People still had to shop and get around. People acted like nothing was going on, they all went about their lives.

It was really interesting to watch the transformation.

T

The finishing touches really help give Skofja Loka a great look and feel.

Art is always a good way to put the finishing touches on a great job.

When your traveling it’s time to skip the old Europe: France, UK, Germany, Spain etc.  It’s time to see the old “new” Europe : Slovenia, Czech, Albania, Croatia and of course the must see village of Skofja Loka.  Come see a true medieval village with lots of history, photo opportunities that include many hiking and biking options too.
It’s great just living in the old town of Skofja Loka, but when you have to work on the buildings, it can be a little complicated. When the neighbors needed to get on the roof, they must come into our apartment and climb up a ladder from our deck.

There is more work being done than just the rebuilding of the old town.  Most roads are just one lane each way and some roads don’t even accommodate 2 cars at the same time.  This is the main road from Skofja Loka to Gorenja Vas (where Natasa works), but only one vehicle at a time can pass through here.

Being a member of the European Union has it’s advantages.  The EU offered to help Skofja Loka solve the one lane road problem, by digging a tunnel around the bottle neck.  The money has some strings attached, they were given just a couple years to finish the project or they had to return the money.  When I go out for a bike ride on a Sunday, they’re out there working. They don’t want to give the money back!  (they probably don’t have it to give back)

 It’s really amazing they let you ride your bike while here while they’re working on the road, that would never happen in America.

There seems like there is construction everywhere you turn, the old town, new highway and the country is getting a sewer system, thanks to the EU again.

We’ve had some pretty incredible storms here.  Houses flooded, roads washed away or covered in mud.  Natasa and I did a bike ride through one of the valleys that were affected.

I went back a few weeks later by myself to see how much they had cleaned up.

I hoped you all enjoyed this little tour of Skofja Loka’s many construction projects and storm damage repair jobs.  I have only one more construction project to show you all.

I have had several request on posting our address, email me and I;ll send you the address
I will post all the photos when I’m done with all the Skofja Loka stories I have a couple more.

Thanks again for reading.

JEFF