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my tyre choice on the wet surface , almost no useful direction signs and banks of cloud clinging to the hillside that hid everything the moment I dipped into them . There were a few hidden villages clinging to the edge of the road , which tended to have little cobbled squares and a single church spire to identify the centre ; no shops or services in general though . It seemed like an endless discovery , and I never knew for sure if I ’ d taken a wrong turn ; a compass was useless with all the switchbacks and although the Illyria Raid was a GPS navigational event , I had never used satnav in my life and wasn ’ t yet set up for it .
Once I got down the other side , hours later , I picked up the toll road at my earliest option , bypassed Venice and just let it take me up to Gorizia , on the border , to enter Slovenia . I could see the dark , angry sky over the Dolomites , where I ’ d come through , sunshine across the flat plains to the south and east , then the high snowy peaks of the Julian Alps , up towards Austria and the north of Slovenia .
I ’ d left the rain in the mountains and was riding into the early evening through the green rolling hills of southern Slovenia , a heavenly landscape . The first roadside place I came across was at a village called Postejna , it was around 8pm and I was thinking it must have some altitude as I found the air quite chilly . This B & B was a new building , and I don ’ t know where they got their inspiration from : lots of glass , chrome and marble trimmings , big mirrors everywhere and a luxurious , over-the-top staircase . It was warm and dry , and I could open out my tent and spread wet clothing all over the place before re-packing in the morning .
The breakfast room was even more
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