A beautiful morning. No rain forecast. The plan today was to do an out and back ride along the upper reaches of the Soca Valley.

Leaving Kobarid, high on the hill is the Church of St Anthony, that also includes an ossuary containing many arranged bones of soldiers killed in the World War One battle front.

We immediately started climbing and part way had to stop, for five minutes due to roadworks, where a bridge is being replaced/widened.

It was a lovely valley to ride through, up and down, but very comfortable climbs. We were riding at a super chilled pace, stopping frequently to watch the goings on in the valley and river.

Stand up paddle boarders. The guy in red is waving at us, and was super chilled, spinning around to go backwards whilst he watched his charges.

Canoeing and kayaking was super popular, with many vehicles carrying watercraft passing us, and many towns and villages with signs promoting their local businesses for the same.

Bushwalking is another popular activity, with trails around the river and valleys.

Our plan was to ride to Bovec, the adventure centre of the valley, but we continued on up the valley to the village of Soca.

At Soca there is one little bar/shop where they have nothing to eat but you can buy from their little grocery store and eat that outside. Most seem to stop for a beer or coffee. cash needed as their eftpos stopped working some time ago…

We met a lovely German couple at Soca who had arrived by car, but are also into cycle touring, and wanted to talk about bike set ups with luggage.

Sabina and Tobias have done some awesome cycling adventures including the Black Sea route to Istanbul. We recently followed a USA couple who did that route and followed their video blog. Always lovely to talk to like minded people who ‘get’ why you do what you do.

If you keep heading up the valley further, you get to Vrsic Pass, the highest alpine pass in Slovenia at 1611 metres. Between WW1 and WW2 it was the border between Italy and Yugoslavia, but today both sides are Slovenia 🇸🇮.

We headed back along the same route offering a differing perspective.

A poignant reminder of war, where there are burials here of Austro Hungarian soldiers. There are four fields like this with only this field having markers. There are no names on the markers.

My paternal grandfather fought in WW1 (Light horseman in Egypt), my great uncle Alex died at the Somme (I have his bible), my maternal grandfather was in WW2 (musician entertaining troops PNG). I do not understand war….so many innocent people die. Just all to sad.

It was a really nice ride today and I can highly recommend it.

The road was fairly busy with some cars zipping by fairly closely so you needed to concentrate and hold your line, and hope they hold their too! No bikepaths here.

Despite the savage and barbaric history of the Soca valley that saw the deaths of 1.7 million men, the displacement of 300,000 local residents (many did not return after the war, their houses having being taken over by soldiers or destroyed) the region survives.

Likes the phoenix rising from the ashes, the Soca Valley and Slovenia are on a positive, upward trajectory with fun and happy people filling the valley and making positive memories in a gorgeous, and unprecedentedly beautiful setting.

Today’s route was 66 km, with 823m climbing. My bruised hip hurts less on the bike than sitting on a chair or the bed!

I suspect the Giro d’Italia may have had a stage through here in a prior year as the road is well sealed ( often happens before a major tour comes through) and there were numerous pink bikes with Slovenian flags in villages.

Thanks for reading 😊❣️