-Justa Jester

We opened our Facebook account and came across this Status update in the News Feed and felt the immediate time/space propulsion back to Metelkova Mesto in Ljubljana, Slovenia. While we do believe there are some boundaries to the canvas, Justa Jester (aka David Cymerman) verbally paints a scene sensory delight, one that we have had the opportunity to experience in the capital city of Slovenia.

Metelkova Mesto (“Metelkova City”) is an autonomous squat in the capitol city of Slovenia. A former barracks of the former Yugoslavian Army, turned artist’s settlement. We spent our first night in Ljubljana partying here, and were immediately sparked into dreams of an autonomous artist’s center in Chicago. An entire block dedicated to whatever people want it to be, to be painted and repainted, boring brick wall defacing turned into dialogue. The millions of expressway underpasses turned into color chambers and parks like the one at the Kennedy and Logan Blvd. Maybe all of the Gold Coast actually gets painted gold spattered by, largely, incomprehensible sentence fragments (like here). Anything but the tan box treatment of the Daley’s Graffiti Busters. Save the busters for the gang turf war tags on random joe’s cornerstones, or better yet, turn the Graffiti Busters into full-blown Graffiti Artists that turn crap tags into reputable works. Plain and Simple turn the world’s vast Interstitial Space over to the people and the world will become a more colorful place!

Always a work in progress at Metelkova Mesto (photo by BirdonBike)

and endless Colorful backdrop in Metelkova (photo by BirdonBike)

Metelkavo Mesto (photo by BirdonBike)

We aren't just talk Graffiti, are we? (photo by BirdonBike)

(photo by BirdonBike)

(photo by BirdonBike)

Interstitial Space along the Danube in Vienna (photo by BirdonBike)

Vienna Graffiti (photo by BirdonBike)

Gray is better when it is covered in Colors ((photo by BirdonBike, Vienna)

Now for our call for submissions or a call to artists; Our friend Necip from Guzelcamli (see here and here) has been battling the Turkish beton (turkish for concrete) movement for some thirty years. He has gone from having a view of the Greek Island of Samos in the Aegean Sea to being blocked in on both sides by the condos of Aydinites and Izmirites who occasionally inhabit them in the summer months.

The picture below shows the remarkable canvas that was erected a little over a year ago that needs some coats of paint. Necip is a good man and we are sure that if one was so inclined to take a vacation to turkey and work on this awesome blank canvas, one could score a pretty good deal on accomodation. Hell we dug a hole in his garden for a drastically reduced rate. Not to mention, Necip’s food is amazing and his capacity for long nights of wine and music is boundless.

If you feel like you need a vacation and want to make some art in the process, let us know. We can put you in touch.

Necip's Blank Canvas. An artists dream is yours for the taking, so long as you can keep up with Necip's cooking at the Ecer Pension, (on the Aegean Sea in Guzelcamli, Turkey)

It took some time and some patience to find the right place to camp for the first time on the coast. Of course, we had to be right next to sea. We wanted to be able to jump in from our tents, but in such a populated area this proved quite difficult. None the less, we found a really good spot in an olive grove, on top of a cliff overlooking the sea, Izola and Koper in the distance. Waking to this was wonderful.

Campsite in an olive grove on cliff above the sea in Isola, Slovenia

View of Koper from near our Campsite in Isola, Slovenia

We rode through the old city of Piran, went sightseeing for a few, and stopped for an espresso, which for three table spoons of coffee lasted for over an hour. Ugh. Service in tourist destinations is, almost always, predictably poor.

Piran, Slovenia

Jowita rolling acroos the cobbles in Old town Piran

The best children's tri-cycle we have seen....make them work for you!

Main Square in Piran, Slovenia

We crossed the border into Croatia, the first time we have had to show someone our passport at a border since beginning our journey.

Lunch break along the coast in Umag, Croatia

At lunch, we began to discuss our ideal seaside campsite. Obviouslly, it had to be by the sea, close enough to go for a swim. It needed to have plenty of dry wood to make a fire. It needed a good sunset and we needed a bottle of Croatian wine.

One of our best Camps

Sunset Camp near Mareda

Tobias prepares the fire at sunset near Mareda, Croatia

Going for a morning swim out our front door near Mareda, croatia

Yeah, we pretty much nailed it!

Unfortunately, we had to leave the comforts of Sara and Gandalf’s warm home, but we like to think we left them full with our previous night dinner and good conversation. We know we were. We hope they will come to visit us in the states when they journey there in the next year or two. We think they would enjoy Chicago, but we will have to find a fixie (track bike/fixed gear bike) for Gandalf and maybe a short term messenger gig for him. He would be instantly at home with these comforts. Gandalf was the first, or maybe fourth, person in all of Slovenia to have a fixed gear bicycle, and with his killer mullet, we can’t help but think about this video we saw on facebook a while back.

The ride was on a direct route on the main road to the coast. Luckily, with the adjacent expressway, the traffic was calm and better yet with such a wide road. Postojna sits in a part of slovenia known as the karst. For information about Karst topography, click here

It was a chilly ride and we were hoping that once we dropped over the Karst Cliff some five hundred meters to the coast it would warm up….but it didn’t. Autumn had arrived, after avoiding it for so long. None the less, first sight of the sea was a much anticipated event, our first major goal achieved.

From Jowita’s hometown in Poland to the Adriatic Sea…..Check!

With our first view of the sea had us looking over some towns in Italy, and as we dropped over the Karst, everything changed to seem more like Italy, or what we think of Italy. The Architecture, the language, the fruit, the vegetation, the people, the towns, all so quickly changed to a new place. We had reached the Mediterenean!

Tobias and jowita cycling from postojna to the Coast

Church with Karst Cliff backdrop

View of the Karst Cliffs near the Slovene coast

Tobias snatching Japanese apples in slovenia

Cycling into old town koper, Slovenia

There are many great things about Couchsurfing, besides meeting some really great people, you get to have an experience with knowledge you can’t find in a travel book. Yeah, we visited the castle in Predjama along with the bus of American and then German tourists, but we also walked into a giant cave led by a local geologist who was taking samples of the water from the three rivers that ran through it. Our bicycles could not have taken us there, a bus could not have taken us there, only a Sara and Gandalf could take you there.

Chad, Tobias, sara, and Gandalf at Predjama Castle

Aqueduct runninfg out of the cave

Mist hovering above the river at cave mouth

Natural Bridge

The low river left furry rocks

Mouth of another cave

New friends, old cave

Chad woke early to try and beat the crowd at the US Embassy to obtain new documents that would allow him to continue forward through the border of slovenia into crotia in a few days time. Of course he arrived too early and had to come back only to wait in line with the other Americans who were experiencing similar problems. After the round –a-bout process of obtaining photos, passing out some cash, using internet while waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting to finally, four hours later, get a signature from the American consular, Chad had to return two hours later to receive his temporary passport.

Chad with ientity intact!

Fiinally, we could depart — 2:00pm and we had over 60km to ride to meet our Couchsurfing hosts, Sara and Gandalf. The ride was fast and with our new traveling companion, Tobias, a very new experience for us. It was a great relief to be riding as three for a change. Despite traveling as a couple, we had begun to feel the aches of loneliness before arriving to Ljubljana. It is a different type of loneliness than that of being by yourself, rather the type were we longed to share our experiences with, to share our thoughts, and to learn something new. We found it in Tobias, and how lucky we all are to have been placed in the same room of all the rooms.

It was a cold ride. The storm of lost passports brought a chill to the region and we saw our first piles of snow along the rode and we wore a couple extra layers. Retrospectively, the lost passport was the divine way of saying, ‘don’t ride in the rain today, instead make cake’, (which we did) and the delay found us riding under sunny skies to Postojna.

Our first site of snow!!

Tobias snatching some grapes

Sara and Gandalf found us in the main square, shrouded in the darkness of the young night. We played a game of follow the leader to their home and stuck our faces into Sara’s hot pot of Minestrone and ate like savages, or maybe pirates, and headed out for drinks in town.

We got a late start but we managed to still put in 65 km to Postojna with Tobias riding along side. We arrived as it was nearly dark and met our hosts for the next two nights. Sara and Gandalf fed us an amazing minestrone that help bring warmth to even our cold toes. Today they led us through some of the really spectacular sights on this karst landscape. We visited The Predijama Castle and some caves that we were able to explore behind the locked gate with their friend, a physical geologist, who was taking samples deep in the cave. We cooked them a good meal of Crepes with a savory filling and a sweet cheese filling, and Tobias made brussell sprouts. It was a damn good meal.

Tomorrow, We will ride with Tobias to the Sea. Finally!! The Sea

After a good nights sleep in the haystacks, we woke to a rainy morning. This would be our first day of ridingin the rain, and it was quite pleasant. We arrived in Ljubljana and found a very nice hostel with a shared room that had a double bed in it. This is very rare and excellent. Our room also came equipped with a German Cyclist on his way to Damascus. We have really enjoyed our time thus far with Tobias. We lookde forward to sharing our ride with him for as long as he can stand our snails pace.  We went out for pizza and to the arts district that is more like a graffitti covered, anything, goes kind of area. It is a very special section of the city. We saw a bizzarre feminist performance at a small performance space there and are still haunted by some of the raunchy songs sung in Slovene.

The day was mostly downhill and along loud and beautiful rivers. We continued to have great mountain views without the burning of our muscles. We like going downhill best when it is for a long distance like this was. We still had our share of muscle pumping hills but nothing like the two days prior. We arrived in Bled, without much of any type of plan and very hungry and very tired of our daily rations. We found our first campground that had people pitching tents and not just in caravan trailers. We ate a good meal in the nearby resturant that proved fatal to Jowita’s stomahc later that evening. She spent much of the night hunched over and heaving. It was not pleasant. Bled is probably the most visit place in Slovenia outside of the capitol city, Ljubljana, and with good reason, as the lake is quite a site.