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Remember when I bought new sunglasses in Split [Split, Croatia] and said I hoped they’ll last 2 months? AHAHAHA! They broke in less than a week. Just by trying to get them out of their pocket.

Anyway after a short city bus ride down to sea level, I was soon in the train. Destination: Slovenia! The train goes up in the mountain as it leaves the bay (gulf?) of Rijeka. Beautiful!

I was quite surprised when we stopped for a while at the last Croatian station, and I was asked for my passport. I thought Croatia were fully in Schengen now? Anyway, Croatia, you have a bloody gorgeous coast line! No wonder it’s getting expensive. And don’t get me wrong, I love the Balkans, they’re beautiful! But they can be some infuriating at time!

Pozdravljena Slovenija!

The 30th country of the adventure, out of 40, but not the least. Finally back to my favourite country on this planet! And I immediately reminded why I fell in love with it: as we get more into the country, the landscape becomes a vast, canva of all shades of green. Long untouched grass fields of spring green, surrounded by dark green forested mountains. Still a perfect emerald.

I first stepped foot in the tiny town of Pivka, where I found a restaurant to eat delicious lasagna. I walked around a tiny bit, but it was already time to get back to the station.

The next train was a modern EMU (that’s the modern trains where all cars are « merged » into a long articulated one, typically regional trains) going to Sežana. Again a delightful ride, but we were a few minutes late, so I didn’t explore the town.

Back in another EMU to my final destination for today: Nova Gorica. Nova Gorica is a town built in the 20th century, when the outskirts of Gorizia, in Italy were separated from the town center by the drawing of the Yugoslavia borders. As such, the train pass less than 10 m away from the border on its final run there.

Being the border nerd that I am, I was extremely tempted to cross into Italy. It was laying there, just a couple meters from me! In the end I didn’t because there was construction work blocking the way and the path on the Slovenian side was really pleasant.

But there was solething else that made me hesitate from the start: it wasn’t in the country order I had planned the trip. Now I’ve always said that this would be subject to change and that with the pass I’m free to go anywhere whenever I want. But still, there I was, blocked by the idea of changing the plan. This happens to me fairly frequently in many life situations, and I think today I put a finger on it: I am scared/annoyed of breaking patterns.

That’s what pushing me to go to all countries, but also to get a train in each, get a keychain in each… Even to drink a pint, because now that I started it, I don’t want to break the pattern! But why? Am I affraid to relearn the order? Am I affraid to cheat on me? Who knows…

Well, tomorrow morning I might walk up to the Italian castle if I’m motivated.

Anyway, back to business. After that border walk, I checked in at the hostel, then went back outside to have a look on the beautiful rail bridge (that I’ll cross tomorrow!) over the pale blue Isonzo river. I had never seen a water this colour, it was almost white.

I came back to this hostel, and got chatting with a Slovene woman. Apparently Ljubljana is getting swarmed with tourists nowadays. Let’s hope Slovenia doesn’t ruin its pristine countryside on the altar of mass tourism. With that said I’m going there in a couple days…

On a side note, I have quite a cold, as my nose has been running like crazy for the last three days, with a bit of throat soaring too. Might explain the headaches.