Day 3 of our cycle holiday and we depart Bovec located in the heart of the Soca Valley, and head towards our destination for today, Tolmin. We cycle along the Soca River and are surrounded by stunning mountain ranges and lush green forests.
Luckily today we are blessed with dry weather which makes the cycling really enjoyable. We are trying to keep to eco mode on our E-bikes but sometimes there’s a need to go to another mode to make the cycling easier. Our mountain bikes are really good but quite heavy and when heading into the wind a higher mode may be required. Of course it all depends on the person as well as to what mode is used!!
Our coffee stop today was at the old town of Kobarid. There is a lot of history here and remnants of World War 11. We also discovered an excellent shoe shop which was surprising as it was a very small village with hardly any other shops. The lady in the shop told us that we were only 5 kilometres from the Italian border and that as the shoes are all the same in Italy, they have a lot of customers that come to the shop to get shoes that are different!!!
There is a modern statue of poet Simon Gregorcic in the main square of the town.
We rode on to Napoleon’s Bridge, built in 1750, which connects the banks of the Soca River below Kobarid. It was named after the famous French commander-in-chief as his army used it to cross the Soca River when they were marching towards Predel. Since then, it has been blown up and rebuilt a couple of times, initially in wooden and iron shapes, but nowadays, it is back to being made of stone. Napoleon’s Bridge is the feature picture of this post.
We then rode through tiny villages such as Volarje and Gabrje on the way to Tolmin, our resting place for tonight. Tolmin is quite rundown with very little going for it. There is one pizza restaurant and a buffet in the hotel we were staying in! Hotel Dvorec is a nice clean hotel and a great place to lay our heads for the night.
So on to Gorizia Brad tomorrow.