Slovenian achievements

The Culture team managed an unexpected feat. Riding from Brno, Austria to Kranj, Slovenia in one day while taking the scenic route, passing over not one, but two mountain ranges. Two, I tell you! I'm not sure that has ever been even attempted by a man before! The sights were spetacular and roads varied from hairpins to knee-dragging 150kph sweepers.
That was yesterday, today we made the short transition to Ljubljana, and checked in a youth hostel.
I can hear the most cynical of you smirking at the mention of us and youth together.
To those despicable cynics I'd like to say that you would be here too, if you could.
The hostel is a fomer prison, with each of the cells converted into a hostel rooms by a different artists,
They're also hosting an all-u-can-eat BBQ tonight, but as the temperature is something like +33 C, that might be a tad too much.
The Alpine team, on their part, has been touring the Dolomites, from Arabba, Italy for a few days now. They're supposed to meet us here tomorrow.

Dispersion of Teams

The Lokit had a plan to divide to 2 separate teams, the Alpine one, and the Culture one. The Alpinea have a reservation to a hotel in the Italian Dolomites, and they're planning to ride the alpine roads free of baggage for a few days.
The Culture team is concentrating more on the undiscovered little gems of local culture.

The small Polish town was called Wloclawek. The lead of the Alpine-team left the town after one night, the second wave after second night, and the third wave seems to have taken permanent residence in the said little town.

But without the intensive research by the Culture people, I wouldn't be able to tell you about the horrific murder of one priest preaching against the communist regime some 25 years ago. His body was dumped to river running thru Wloclawek (Wiswa?). Now the location hosts a 20-meter cross, several memorial stones, and a memorabilia/beverage shop to commemorate him.
Lech Walesa made a statement: "The worst has happened. Someone wanted to kill and he killed not only a man, not a Pole, not only a priest. Someone wanted to kill the hope that it is possible to avoid violence in Polish political life."
Me personally (part of the Culture Advance Group) am now in Brno, Czech Republic.

The lift-off

It's that time of the year again. The Lokit are migrating south.

This time our group is a party of seven, all the usual Seagulls plus one enforcement from Jyväskylä. The bikes consist mostly of large-displacement go-insanely-fast street bikes.
The tour is planned to last for 17 or 18 days, and cover places like Austrian Dolomites, Ljubljana, lots of small East-European towns, and Novo Mesto in Slovania, where there's going to be a festival next weekend. The plans are vague, and subject to change at the slightest hint of rain or cold weather.

The afore mentioned festival is called Rock Otocec, and judging by the pictures of previous years' festivals, it consist of people swimming and wrestling in small puddles of mud, while semi-famous rock and Iron Maiden tribute bands provide the soundscape.

But that's all in the future. At the time of writing, it is midsummer eve and we're on board a ferry carrying us from Finland to continental Europe. The ship is infested with senior German citizens with their loud senior German stories and even louder senior German laughs. They spread out everywhere, block every service counter and hallway, take up every seat. They're like weed. And not the good kind.

We boarded the ship yesterday, spent a loud but rather uneventful night in the ship's bar and are now a few hours from arriving to Gdynia, Poland. The first leg of the trip is planned to be only about 250km, having us arrive in some small Polish town well in time before it gets dark.