Leaving Bulgaria, we didn’t want to go back through Romania and everyone confirmed that the road back via Serbia was good, so we booked a hotel in Trieste and planned for a long day of driving. The road from Sofia to the border and from there onwards about 100 miles or so wasn’t so great, but from there on it was full-on autostrada and we made excellent time through Belgrade, across the rest of Serbia, and across Croatia back to Ljubljana. My friend Liz and I had been trading text messages to see if our trips might intersect, and we managed to rendezvous there in LJB for drinks and dinner. We showed her the cool kids bar and the excellent restaurant, where we had another (identical) Slovenia feast, and then Loren and I drove the last 120km or so to Trieste, arriving at about 2am. I’ll post more about Sofia itself in a bit…

PS: I’ve been putting together a map of the trip; it’s not quite done yet, but you can check it out here: http://maps.google.com/?mid=1185862802. Photos are gradually being uploaded here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdwelle/sets/72157600934673287/

We had been headed east from Munich thru Linz towards Budapest, with the intention of stopping at ARS Electronica on the way, but instead detoured south to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Wow. Beautiful small city, beautiful country. Try Hotel Emotec, ask for a room in the new wing. Restaurant Sokol served up an amazing Slovenian feast, complete with local “Teran” red wine. Very classy. Yesterday we drove around the countryside a bit, found a nice swimming hole, drove down some “Class 5″ one-lane dirt paths through the forest, and then back over the mountain to the city. All in all, Slovenia seems like a real hidden gem. Definitely worth a visit, and going back to.

This morning we drove SSE to Zagreb. So far not anywhere near as impressive… We might stay here this evening, or just move on to Budapest… I’m still trying to settle into this trip. I’m finding that I’ve got a bit of travel anxiety this time around, and also that my mental picture of the East is not pretty. In my head it’s literally scorched earth, dust, no green in sight. So far the reality is proving otherwise, although of course we haven’t really gotten that far yet.