Just keeping track...

New path

Just for your general entertainment, I keep exploring the diverse trails
that surround me. This one is a single-track (read: no Jeep) connecting
trail between two bigger ones. One of the nicest I've found.

By the way: if you ask, I will provide detailed terrain elevation and 3-D
modeling for all the trails where I've used my GPS. Fascinating data, I must
say! But only if you ask...

The precursor

The mountain was getting a bit rowdy yesterday, probably in preparation for
today's immense winds!

Funny how the summit (Kucelj, in case you have no image memory) dwarfs when
cloaked with a powerful cloud.

Dung

Dung beetles come in many forms. Here in the Vipava valley, they come in
great number. We are in cattle country. This one was waiting for a cow to
pass by (good luck!). Adds color to an otherwise boring vista...

Been busy...

I have not posted for a couple of days. Things have been a bit hectic here.
Family stuff. I will write about it another day.

Tonight, the wind is blowing fiercely, shaking the tiles on the roof
(kliketee, kliketee) and forcing the trees to bend, to submit. The window
"persiennes" have to be battened down. Mighty spectacle! Any open orifice
sings to the wind. Chilling.

This is Mac's official birthday photo. It will end up on his site
(www.cogev.com/macintosh) soon, with many others.

I almost forgot...

Today is Puppy birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woodcockrun MacIntosh is one year old today! I will give him a
treat...probably take him to the restaurant. He loves going to the
restaurant!

Happy Birthday Mac!

Prunes

I had never eaten fresh prunes just off the tree, still warm from the
sun...yummy!!!

At first I looked at the little fruit and it didn't really look like a
prune. But a little rubbing on my t-shirt gave it the nice gloss of a common
prune. But the FRESHNESS, mmmmmmmmmhhhhhhhh!

The fruit season

It's hot here. It's been hot for many months. The effect of this (pleasant
temperature) is that the fruits are getting ready.

Today I ate many prunes and a peach. The apples will be succulent next week,
I guess.

And for the first time, the grapes tasted sweet! Not all of them... some
still taste more like lemons than wine...but in a few weeks they will be
perfect (vendange is expected in early September!)

A day on the mountain

Yesterday we had a taste of bad weather. It can get really nasty here. They
have to put stones on the terracotta roofs. Strong winds, some rain and a
cold snap.

Today was perfect: 25 degrees, dry as a bone and some puffy clouds.

So Puppy and I decided to go for a ride in the mountain. We started along
our usual trail, to Sveti Pavl (photos eventually, as it is still a mistery
how people get there. It's apparently an easy trail but after three years I
fail to make it to the chapel. Everyone here says it's an easy walk, 20
minutes max. But of course, they did it 20 or 40 years ago. The trails have
been overgrown since. Really. Big trees. So one day I will take all of them
for a walk up to Sveti Pavl, so they can show me!). We bifurcated north
toward the road up to Kucelj. Bushwalking with a bicycle is rough.
Bushwalking for an hour up 200 meters is really rough!

We eventually found the road. We went up for a while and then the road
vanished in a prairie. Vanished. We turned around and went to Vrtovin and
back to Gojace. 8 Kilometers total. (of course everyone says it's an easy
walk to Kucelj, a couple hours. (One woman (Tanja)was honest and told us
that it took her 3 hours to go up there. It took Linda and I 3 hours last
years. Some people don't lie about walking!)

I had to take the bike for new brakes. The guy was surprised, as usually
disk brake pads last a long time. I explained that my trails are
particularly rough and that I have to wait for the dog (LIAR!). But actually
it just needed an adjustment. So more biking tomorrow!

There is a photo of the road to Kucelj, of the prairie where the road
vanishes, showing the summit within range (we made it half way!) and a
picture of the part of the forest where I had to bushwalk with the bike.

Firenze

I was in Florence for two days. I met some friends there: Lauren (from the
wedding, remember?) and David and Laura (from my trip to Italy
. I met many of
their friends too!

Florence is WAY too busy. Take a look at this picture of the "ponte
vecchio". You actually have to push people to walk over the bridge! It is
best seen from a distance (third picture)

On my way there I stopped in Venice. I met Pierre and Johanne for the last
time on this trip (I guess).

This all contributed to make my adjustment to being alone in Gojace
easier. I am back tonight and quite happy to be here by myself (wine, Port
and Limoncella help!).

Arrividerci (or Adio in Slovene).

Technology

I did manage to post from Firenze using my fancy phone. The problem is that my server, or the script that put the stuff on the blog, chokes on foreign characters. Not that there are many in Italian, actually non that I know of. But somehow the email gateway uses something special.

So the previous entry was supposed to contain a photo of a park in Florence. Oh, well! I will have to post manually!

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?FIRENZE?=

A Post Card day!

Yesterday was an exceptionally picturesque day. We drove along the Soca
river for a while, all the way to Bovec. We took a Teleferika (gondola, or
funiculare) to the top of Kanin Mountain (since Mac was with us!) and drove
on back roads to Nova Gorica and then Gojace.

The road to Bovec is spectacular. It starts in Nova Gorica and serpents
through the low mountains until Kobarid, where the bigger mountains appear.

We took a gondola to the top of Kanin, at 2500 meters. This is above tree
line, and the temperature at the top was about 5 degrees. It was 23 at the
base. There was no wind but the top of the mountain was wrapped in clouds.
Very quiet!

We decided to drive back through Tolmin and the mountains behind the Vipava
valley. The sight in Trnovo was awesome!

We came back exhausted and relaxed. We have seen incredible things!

Trnovo

Behind the Vipava valley, the mountains conceal numerous small villages.
After many (hundreds?) twists and turns, on gravel roads barely wider than
the car, we ended up at this SPECTACULAR view point. On this picture ( I
will go back and do panoramas later) you can see the Adriatic sea, all the
way to Venice on this very clear day. We could also see Trieste, Nova
Gorica, Monfalcone and Udine. Hundreds of kilometers of valleys surrounded
by hills and low mountains.

Kanin: Goat!

This little house (a refuge maybe) is on the rocks. A few goats and a guy
were quietly enjoying each other's company.

Kanin

The photo looks tricked, but Pierre WAS standing there at 5 degrees in that
shirt!

On the road to Bovec

Tempreature, 23 degrees.

All alone!

They're all gone!! Pierre and Johanne left today for Venice and beyond. So it's me and Mac in the big house.

I might be going to Florence tomorrow for a couple of days. To be decided in the morning.

I will post again later today. For now I will just be sad.................

Brda wine region

I drove Nancy and Lauren to the train station this morning. I then drove
Linda (my wife...) to the Trieste airport at noon. This was a very difficult
separation, as I will only see her in 6 weeks. Ouch!

Johanne, Pierre and I went to Dobrovo in the Brda wine region for a
reasonable sampling of local wines. Excellent new discoveries this year. A
notable "Brandulin rdeče" was worth a purchase. I also replenished our
supply of the full bodied "Simčič Teodor Reserve".

The caves at Scocian

We visited the caves at Scocian. A Unesco protected site, open to the
tourists that we are. But there is limited traffic. Only guided groups
(although our group was way too big) are allowed in the locked cavern
system. This is my third visit to this site and I am still in awe, even
though the element of surprise is not there anymore (I DO have some
memory!). A must see in Slovenia. There are more photos at
http://www.burger.si/Jame/SkocjanskeJame/ParkSkocjanskeJame.html (take a
look at the rest of Burger's site. Fascinating photos of the country).

You'd think we had enough...

You'd think we'd had enough people on the wedding day, right? But we decided
to throw a little fiesta for the neighbors on the next day. Linda wanted to
serve a bit of wine and some hors-d'oeuvres, but since we have a cook (Nancy
co-owns and cooks in a cool place called "Local 4" in Toronto) we got
excited and ended up with enough food for 50 people. You know the drill: you
cook 10 different plates, each one big enough to feed the whole group...

It was fun. A guy on a tractor came. Actually, he was going to his field. He
has to go through the front yard for that.

We went to bed early, everyone being quite exhausted (and only one of us
below 30) and in need of a good night sleep.

Incredible!

So, they are playing for us this string of non-slovenian music, with
international panache. Bravo!

The group

in Zemono, Slevenia

Done

this was less than an hour ago!

Getting ready

Getting close; 12h30 here!

Linda

Linda, je t'aime.

Aujourd'hui, nous officialiserons ce que nous savons depuis longtemps,
depuis notre première rencontre, il y a dix ans.

Que ce jour merveilleux et rempli des sentiments les plus joyeux reste gravé
dans nos mémoires pour toujours.

Je t'aime, Robert.

So... today...

So, today I'M GETTING MARRIED ! ! ! !

Well. Who would have thought!

We are here in beautiful Slovenia, Linda and I (she is still sleeping,
though...) with our friends Lauren, Nancy, Johanne and Pierre. MacIntosh is
also here. Actually he is the only other one awake at this (very) early
hour. I've just made fire in the water heather (this is an OLD house).

I was not able to get "live feed" over the internet from my phone link. I
will try later, but this is not my highest priority at this moment (I'm sure
you'll understand...)

I will post picture as often as I can during the day, some keep coming back.

See you later!

More dog pictures

Let me tell you that it is not the most brilliant idea to take a hunting dog
(bird hunting is his specialty) to Piazza San Marco, where thousands of
pigeons live (on the faint hope that (brainless) tourists will feed them
(which they do, of course))!

He was a bit "overwhelmed"!

Pierre and Johanne

By the way, Pierre and Johanne are at
http://www.cogev.com/trips/scotland.htm

More tourists!

Before someone else complains, here is a picture of the girls, In Venice
again.

By the way, Pierre and Johanne are on their way! They should be here Monday.
Fun! More on why later...

Proof positive

SOME PEOPLE (Francine and Janine in particular) have been complaining about
the fact that the blog contains stuff about bikes and the dog, instead of
tourist, and Linda, pictures and that some pictures might actually be
FORGED!!! That Linda and I are NOT in Europe but that these might be
pictures taken somewhere around Montreal!!!!!! Here's a quote from Francine:

"Robert , Linda
Hey great to see your photographs of grapes, trails, bike and dog BUT
inquiring minds want to see you et al.. How do the unwashed masses know you
are not sending pictures and prose from Rosemount...let's face it we can
see bikes and dogs there,even vineyards are within 60 minutes of Rosemont.
Hey even I can pretend Lauren is visiting me and boy did we have a great
time of it in Pari..no Milan uh Venice that's it Venice
Give the people what they want....

Francine"

Well... two things: first, this is MY blog. I write what I want. Period. If
someone else wants to write in it its ok, but so far no one has asked. So I
do the input. And if you have read my previous rants, you know I'm a bad
tourist. Second, maybe it is forged. Let's face it, who wouldn't rather be
in Montreal forging a blog all day than here having to be outside all day,
admiring nature's diversity and sight seeing.

But I understand that some people need proof (belief and trust have gone the
way of the Dodo. I pity the churches (actually I don't)) so here it is. If I
can fake a picture of Linda and Lauren (to Lauren's dad: I also call her
Loren... must be a French thing. Yes, it's the same girl, unless you tell me
it's not her in the picture!) in Venice I might as well quit painting and
work for a government somewhere.

By the way, Venice is EMPTY! Compared to last year, the Serenissima is
tourist-free. This is a picture of the street leading to Piazza San Marco,
usually shoulder to shoulder with a semi-lost international melting pot.
Even on the Piazza, there was no line-up going into the cathedral. Not that
we're complaining! We are being told that the German economy is a bit tight,
so less of them are invading Southern Europe. This is bad for the local
autonomy, but if you are visiting this year it will make your trip more
enjoyable.

Venice again!

The girls (Linda, Nancy and Loren, who arrived just after Nancy) are in
Venice today for a "girl's-night-out". I will meet them tomorrow and bring
them back home.

The trail

Here are some images of the trail. Nasty. It goes up nearly 300 meters in
1.8 kilometers, for an average slope of 16%, in rocks and dirt. I found a
more leveled one that is quite pretty. I will explore it today.

Nancy just arrived!

She is a bit blurry...

Venice today

We are going to Venice this morning to pick up two friends. Lauren and Nancy are coming to visit Linda and I for a little while.

Since we will be in Italy, I will post a few pictures directly from the phone as the day develops.

Communications

This is our Internet connection. The phone has to sit on top (or into) the
towel roll on the kitchen counter and has to face the general direction of
Italy (plus or minus a few degrees) for it to get the Italian signal here in
Slovenia. If you do a search of Gojace on mapblast.com (last time I tried it
was there), you will get the idea.
 
We are using the Italian connection mostly now, at least in (or around) the
house. It doesn’t work anywhere else. Not even from the next village. I
tried. It seems to be just a luck that it works here! We will be using this
setup for a while as I got a special deal from TIM (the Italian mobile phone
supplier) that allows me to use 300 Mega bytes of traffic during the month.
That’s a lot of pictures, blog updates and general web browsing.
 
Linda was making fun of me getting all frustrated trying to get the Internet
working, but she loves it now! We even get to chat live with our friends in
Italy and America!
 
We have 2 phones. The one for communications is my old phone that can’t be
used for talking anymore because of a defective filter (dixit the
 technician at Fido in Montreal). So I had to buy a new phone: Sony-Ericsson
k700i. Nice little thing. I didn’t buy it from Fido though, because they
would not let me use it here on MY choice of network. So I had to get it
directly from the importer. It came with a Chinese instruction booklet…
 
So much for the technical stuff. Now that it works, I will just use it.

The bike

This is a picture of the bike, ready to go for a morning ride.
Unfortunately, I am NOT a morning person and it will be waiting all alone
for while. I prefer to ride at 5 in the afternoon. The advantage to a
morning ride would be cooler temperature. It's a nice 20 degrees this
morning. But I just can't get going that early. It would be hazardous.

By the way, the stone table in the picture is our picnic table. It can also
serve as a communication center, as the phone will pick up the Italian
signal from there. This is actually where I conducted all the tests.

The grapes are growing!

The nice temperature is doing great for the grapes. Lots of sun and an
occasional rain fall (lots of water yesterday!) are making the grapes grow
like, well, grapes.

MacIntosh is chasing something. Something imaginary this time. He has become
obsessed by a couple on lizards living by the front door. He goes and looks
for them every time we open the door. He managed to catch one the other day
but the thing got away (lucky for it, and us too: I don't want to see lizard
insides...).

Good morning

Good morning! "Dober dan" as they say here in Gojace.

Last night was stormy and cool, 20 degrees. The general weather pattern here
in the valley is 30 degrees during the day with frequent thunder storms late
in the afternoon. So today is going to be hot!

It works!!!

Finally... I got the internet connection to work in Gojace. It was a
long day! I went to Italy twice to try to get it to work with my Italian
phone number. No one, I repeat NO ONE knows how to make this work at
TIM, the Italian cel phone company. I talked to many people (including
two rather obnoxious ones at the TIM store in Gorizia)and no one could
really help me passed the usual "we will send you an email with the
configuration". Those configurations did not work.

In the end I reverted to the connection that I had used in my previous
trip ( www.cogev.com/trips/italy_04.htm )and it worked after lots of
tweaking. The phone has to sit on top of a roll of paper by the kitchen
window...

The thing is that since I am in Slovenia, the Italian antenna that I
catch is kind of far away... 15 kilometers! So I have to stand in a
precise spot for this to work.

As I was getting fed up in Italy, I decided to spare no expense and buy a
Slovenian cel phone number. I went to a store in Nova Gorica and explained
that I wanted to use GPRS and that I wanted them to help me. "Sure" they
said. Well, the girls (all girls in that store) knew EXACTLY what to do!
One spoke English and was translating to the other one who helped me set
up the phone. The interpreter then interpreted to a second girl, who was
the real technical guru, and they waited until the phone actually worked
aver the Internet, including setting me up with a special email account
and sending a few test emails back and forth. Lovely! That's service...
five people got involved and I left a happy man! Thanks Mobitel!

So I got the whole thing channeled through my Palm T3 and the laptop
computer this morning. All is well.

>From now on I will post more regularly, as it is just a matter of turning
on one of the devices and firing away these incredible snippets of
information and travel history.

Bye for now.

P.S. There will be pictures in the next posts!

Internet sucks! (sometimes...)

This is my first connection to the Internet since I left Montreal. That’s a sad situation! I still can’t get my phone to work with GPRS (Internet access with a cellular phone) so we had to go to an Internet café this morning to try and sort things out. No one in Italy seems to know how to configure a phone. I use an Italian service provider. We are in Slovenia, but GPRS is expensive here (if at all available on a pay-as-you-go phone plan) and from the house in Gojace we can get a (weak) signal directly from the border town, Gorizia, 16 kilometers away.

We landed in Munich on Sunday morning (August first). All went well and we recuperated the dog promptly. He didn’t mess up his cage and just looked a bit spooked. We didn’t mess up either. So we called the rent-a-car agency who picked us up quickly and drove us to where the car was. A brand new 7 passenger Renault Grand Scenic. There is a LOT of gadgets in this car. The most impressive one (so far, because I still haven’t read the whole book) is the fact that you don’t need to get the “key” out of your pocket to get in and start the car. The car “detects” the key (that actually looks like a credit card, or more accurately like a Graham cracker) and when you touch the door handle the car unlocks itself. You don’t have to insert the card in its slot either to start the car. Again, it is “sensed”. Cool.

We drove to Innsbruck to meet Linda’s cousins: Doris and Gregor. Very nice people who offered us an incredible meal and hospitality for the night.

Monday morning we drove to Gojace, Slovenia. A long day since we decided to drive through the Dolomite mountains, on small roads. MacIntosh and Linda were a bit fed up at the end and menaced to be car sick if we didn’t find a highway soon. We did the last 100 kilometers on the highway (and 250 in the mountains!). We were all very tired and still jet lagged when we got to our final destination.

Tuesday we made it to Ljubljana, the capital, as we had to get some paperwork done. I also purchased a mountain bike. A Merida Matt Sports (from Spain), with disk brakes and all. Our getaway in Gojace is “in” the mountains (actually, the trail to Kucelj starts in the backyard (literally) and goes up from 180 meters in front of the house to 1200 meters at the top). We hiked up there last year and it was a 3 hour walk (in 32 degrees C weather!). I hope to be able to bike my way to the top before I leave Gojace. Keep in mind that as of today, I can’t bike to the top of the first hill, which is probably less than 200 meters higher than the house…

I will carry my GPS and give you more details on topography soon (I know you’re all dying for this)…

Mom, I promise I wont get hurt…much!

We are in Ljubljana today to pick up the papers (more on the papers later). Hopefully, I will be able to get to the TIM cellular web site and figure out what’s missing in my phone configuration.

As soon as I get the phone to work I will start to post regularly.

Talk to you soon!

P.S. You CAN write. I WILL respond… Also, for now, if you need to reach me f a s t, just leave a message on my cel (Montreal number). I take my messages often.

still no internet

Problem with tiny parameters. But it is quite frustrating!---end
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In Gojace) We made it late yesterday. Today we ran errands... and I bought a mountain bike! (Merida Matts sport

Tomorrow internet---end
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Safe

All is good! Good flight and nice weather in Innsbruck. More tomorrow from Italy---end
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