When my friend Johannes returned home after exploring the Julian Alps together for more than a week I was on my own again. I decided to stay in Kamnik, about 20 kilometers north of Ljubljana for a couple of days.
After setting up camp at the local campsite I visited the town which has some nice old buildings in it’s centre and two ruins from the middle ages.
The next day I decided to have some exercise and cycle to Ljubjana, a 25 KM ride and about two hours. I took the time to explore the city and the medieval fortress Ljubjana Grad and in the evening I took the bicycle on the train back to Kamnik.
I took a day off traveling and stayed on the campsite to write my travelogue and relax a bit. One day later I moved on east, where I was invited by Boris from CouchSurfing. But first I visited and hiked around Kamniška Bistrica, a locality at the foot of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps.
Boris had read about my adventure on Couchsurfing and as he is a world traveler himself he invited me to his home to share some stories. His home is actually his parents house with attached vineyard and in the basement the wine vessels were the vinification takes place.
Boris cycled from Europe to Singapore and South Korea and drove to Vladivostok and Siberia during previous trips, so he had some good stories to tell. We made a hike in the mountains near his house and visited Maribor, the second largest city of Slovenia.
After some days of Slovenian hospitality I said farewell to Boris and his family to move on to Serbia. Of course I could not leave without a bottle of local produced wine. But before arriving in Serbia I had to cross Croatia. On the way to Croatia I made a short visit to Ptuj, the oldest city of Slovenia. By chance there was also a food festival taking place or actually more a showoff of baking, wine making, cheese making and other crafts.
In 4 days, 3 nights I crossed northern Croatia, wildcamping along the way and not taking much time to visit places of interest, also because lack thereof. However in Vukovar I decided to take some time to get myself acquainted with the violent past of the Croatian war of independence.
But luckily it’s not all pain and sorrow that Vukovar has to offer as it is also one of the early human settlements in Europe and they offer very interesting municipal and archeological museums where all of this is explained.
After visiting these museums it was a couple of hours drive to Belgrade where I arrived in the late afternoon. Here I will be attending the Hackaday conference and take some time to explore the city.