Three countries and several mountains in one day

Despite leaving Salzburg much later than we'd intended  - largely because we were faffing about -we still managed to ride the whole way across Austria, cross into Italy, take pictures at the border crossing which is now a collection of disused buildings, then do the same several miles up the road at the border with Slovenia,  spend the whole of the afternoon riding some spectacular mountain roads, before crossing over the Vrsic Pass, then  dropping down into Bled, where we found a place to stay for the night.An excellent day's riding and many kms covered, although it's now starting to hit home that China and Mongolia are actually a very long way from London, and it will be quite an ordeal to get there. Not that that changes anything though;we're still doing exactly what we set out to do, but the enormity of it is now out in the open!

But the bikes are flying. Really minging along whatever we throw at them - motorways, mountain passes, gravel tracks. They've not let us down at all so far and are a really cool ride.  Met and American couple in a service station Austria this morning who asked about the bikes and they just couldn't get their heads around how such small bikes will get us so far. But we will get there one way or another.

Had a wander around Bled tonight. It's quite spectacular with a castle right on top of a tall tuff of rock, standing over the lake, which apparently has healing qualities. As a result, the little rural village that was once here is now a bustling tourist town, catering for people with bits that don't work or are falling off them, but believe that the water - which does look and smell like ordinary lake water  - will fix them. But good for them; if it was a toss up between Lake Bled and the NHS, I'd probably do the lake route too.

The plan tomorrow is to ride over to Bohinj and have a quick walk, then go to Ljubljana for lunch, and then head for Zagreb and Coatia.