September 21, 2025 by Jason

Day 8 and 9: More Meneghetti, Just Enough Venice, Sanford

Me and my favorite person in a stunning spot for the afternoon!

Backroads always tends to build their hotel selections from great to best. And this trip did not disappoint! The Meneghetti Hotel is something special. Big huge rooms with dining rooms, living rooms, outdoor patios (some with pools), large bedrooms and bathrooms with vaulted ceiling and beams and high grade wood work and art throughout. The grounds are surrounded by white gravel roads, pebbles for walkways, open air lobbies and bars with lots of seating inside and outside on a variety of verandas. This property had a beach club about a mile from the hotel that had exclusive access to a bay on the Adriatic with covered seating under large trees, umbrellas, sun couches, bean bag seating and a walkway into the sea (the beaches were made of small smooth stones). The sea was super salty (buoyant) and pretty chilly water. Back at the property there was an outdoor pool, an indoor pool, a salt pool (spa), a cold plunge and a variety of saunas. You could rent mountain bikes, paddle boards and a variety of other things or just walk through the vegetable gardens, the vineyard or a variety of trails into the countryside. This place was pretty great. I always love it when water and soft drinks from the minibar are included with the rate of the room too – hotels: let’s find a way to make this a thing!

Did we learn from our last Backroads trip when we vowed to always stay extra nights at the last place we stay? Nope. But we should have as this would have been an incredible place to hang for another day or two. Next trip, we take one day off of the front of the trip and add it to the end of the trip and stay at the last hotel organized by Backroads. This is a must-do.

Today a short riding day – somewhere between 24-30 miles to lunch at another farmhouse (never gets old) where the local owner served a variety of alcohols that were too high test for my liking but others said they were quite good. They all tasted like NyQuil to me. More pasta, meats, cheeses, salads and a nice dessert with coffee. The cheeses at this stop were the best of the trip. Super fresh and salty varieties – very yummy. The morning had a tour of a small batch olive oil producer (2,500 olive trees that were up to 500 years old!) where we learned how they make olive oil and also got to taste their four varieties. Prior to the lunch stop we largely backtracked my extra miles from yesterday and rode two pretty punchy 5-6 minute climbs, one to the “Schnapps Stop” where Janna our third and local guide serve peach and blueberry Schnapps with peaches and other snacks. It was nice rolling almost every mile with a larger group of 8-10 folks today. The norm is more like 2-6 people in a group with re-grouping at various snack stops.

Our Schnapps Stop – Janna showing us her Slovenia (the rain made her do this in Croatia) – Slovenia wins in my opinion, but just barely.

I don’t think I shared a lot about our Olive Oil tour at Grubic. We learned:

There are olive trees in this region that are over 1500 years old!
Harvest season is from late September to the beginning of November
All olives harvested are hand-picked by the locals – it’s a celebration of their town where they serve community meals, picnic on breaks and work together to build a product the town is proud of creating.
All olives picked each day are fully processed into oil by days end. Picking lasts from 8-4 each day and processing typically runs 10am-7pm.
Olive oil should never be purchased in large amounts.
Olive oil should never be purchased in anything but glass (preferable) or tin
Much of the world’s mass-produced olive oil is a mix and not pure olive oil.
Oil quality is felt on the top of your throat with a small tingling sensation.
Olive oil is best used for drizzling – most of the good olive oil has a smoke point that is too low for good frying – if you use it in a pan, use it quickly and at lower temperatures.
Our guide especially likes certain olive oils in ice cream and on desserts – interesting but maybe not for me.

Our olive oil guide (green shirt) explaining how to taste the oils.

This is a machine they bought from the set of the TV Show “Lost” – kidding – this runs the olive processing part of the process. Centrifuges were involved (no joke)

After the tour we rode as a group to lunch and then after lunch some rode to the sea for a boat trip while others (Cindy and I) opted for a cab back to hotel to spend more time at the property. We sat by the ocean and dozed and read and hung out with Alex and Tracy who opted out of riding altogether (they like this game plan at least once each Backroads trip) to spend maximum time relaxing at the hotel.

Jason LOVED the high test beverages – our host (just behind him) made most of them from hand and most of this lunch.

The trip ended with a reception and dinner at this hotel. These are always fun nights – some reminiscing, some planning for what’s next, some gratitude to our guides and a little sadness for it having gone by so quickly. The dinner was unreal. I had beet risotto with blue cheese sauce – unreal! Dessert was a cream with sorbet and raspberry jam. Everything was grown on the premises including the wine which flowed throughout the evening. It was a great trip with great people and makes you value the time spent with others in community. Next trip? Dolomites? Swiss Alps? Denmark? Who’s to say except there will be another.

Paige and Ryan sending us off without their support. Godspeed to us all!

On Day 9, Cindy and I woke to enjoy one more great Meneghetti breakfast and a little more time with our friends before getting into the bus for the 2-3 hour ride to Trieste where everyone would scatter. For me and Cindy, in Trieste we hopped a 2 hour train ride to Venice and a 20 minute cab to a hotel within proximity of both the airport and the island of Old Venice. We took a quick turn at the Four Points Sheraton to quickly drop bags and then hop a local bus to the old Venice. It took about 25 minutes to get there. Once in Venice we wandered a quick large circle from one piazza to another over the various canals and such until we found a restaurant that looked like it would offer prime people watching and decent food. Except when we sat down we realized that there was no pizza and we both wanted a little pizza. Friday night is pizza night, right? We topped that off with one more gelato and a little more walking before having seen enough of the old world Venice. My two observations: Venice had a Myrtle Beach feel to it – lots of very bright souvenir shops selling junk and the place was a bit overrun with cruise ship tourists. Just too many people wandering aimlessly. All for people wanting to get a view of this great city, but unloading 5000+ people x the number of boats in port is frankly just hard to handle in small spaces.

Can you tell we are getting closer to the cruise ships?

Pizza and Gelato acquired…now how do we get out of here again?

Tomorrow we leave at 5:30am Venice time (12:30pm EST) for the Marco Polo Airport in Venice where we fly to London then to Charlotte and then I’ll drive to Sanford to meet Charlie for his soccer weekend and if I’m lucky, I’ll get there in time to catch some of the 5pm game. Big day ahead.

Success! Sanford (where the heck is this?) with this wise guy (yep – it’s like 8:45pm) and yes, his team won 1-0.

September 19, 2025 by Jason

Day 7: Adriatic Coast to Meneghetti Hotel

What a difference a day makes. We woke to a day of blue bird skies, 65-70 degree weather and another world-class buffet breakfast at the hotel. This time with honeycomb, nice salty cheeses and an outrageous selection of breads. I love a European breakfast. We sat outside with a view of the waterfront and do what we do when we arrive to breakfast before a Backroads day – mingle with our fellow riders and vacationers. We are a group of 20 so there’s always people you know sitting at nearby tables to talk about the day to come or the amenities experienced at the hotel or the meal before. Sometimes you even get into life a bit – usually kids, grandkids, what life is like near where you or they live, etc.

After a quick revisit to the room, restroom and to put the bags out for the Backroads pickup we headed to the bike section to talk route rap. Paige and Ryan had a great assortment of Pringles cans depicting what they called the “Pringle trails” (aka dedicated bike paths) and helmets to depict the hills with tie-down straps to map the route. They have a little fun with it along the way to get a few laughs and share what they’ve learned about us along the way. It’s goofy and fun and I like it more with each day. While this is occurring you are applying sunscreen, getting your water bottles filled, popping a few snacks of gummies, or m&ms or bars in your pockets. Once that is over they send you one your way with bikes in good stead, helmets and Wahoo Roam computers on each bike lined up as best they can by couples and groups.

Rolling out of Kempinski with my e-bike posse!

Adriatic bike path – pre-man down a hole incident

Today we started riding alongside the Adriatic Sea and past the salt mining fields which were large squares built to catch the tide as it came in and out. These fields were owned in plots of twos so you could shovel the salt from one plat to the adjacent one where it could dry during low tide and then be shoveled for transport and processing. This part of the Adriatic became quite wealthy years and years ago from the processing and trade of the salt and industry surrounding it. Early into the ride we ran into a little bike paths construction forcing us onto the road and in a precarious position we all decided, somewhat incorrectly to try to rejoin the bike paths which required a small plank crossing by foot and then an arched bridge crossing to get back to the path. Within seconds of being here one of our Backroads guests volunteers to test getting across and back to the path and promptly fell 6-7 feet into a large hole covered by brush. While I didn’t see this, it was recounted several times by many and caused a bit of a stir for 3-4 minutes until a large, and not-so-nice German man out riding his bike jumped down and lugged this guy out of the hole. When he got back up and shook off a bit, thankfully without serious injury, you realized he not only fell a long ways, but on the way down and back he acquired hundreds of scratches up and down both legs and arms. Brutal. The Backroads guide was steadfast in helping managing a group of 20 people through this while we all knew deep down that she must have been completely mortified. An off-bike accident on a biking trip – all accidents are to be avoided but off-bike ones especially.

After we all gathered ourselves and got back rolling it was through the fields and up some hills to the ridge line overlooking the coastal farmlands. There was a pretty sizable climb that took us to our first break where we could see the fog that had set in over the sea. Water, snacks, chit-chat and then back for more quiet roads and rolling hills where we rode along at a nice pace as a group of 10-12 people. The e-bikes are a pretty phenomenal equalizer. I rode behind Cindy at 18-20mph for a long time – it was awesome! In an optional loop we encountered several big climbs where the e-bikes could turbo up and I could put my head down and spin trying to keep up. For the most part today I could but it was work. The best part of climbing big climbs were the views and then bombing down the payoff – long winding hills with cooler ocean breezes. In this time we quietly cross the border from Slovenia to Croatia. Interestingly there was no check of our stuff and passports and you actually go through a border crossing to leave Slovenia and one to enter Croatia. It seems as if most bike crossers just get to ride through as some other local bikers passed through without question too.

8-10 miles later another break where Cindy had to replace a bike battery – first one of these needed midday as far as I could tell. It could have been a product of us riding together – although Cindy was doing most of her riding without the use of the boost. This means the e-bike is only compensating for the extra weight of the bike and she’s making the majority of the power. It’s a fantastic equalizer for us.

We kept on riding for another few miles until we reached lunch on the veranda of a farm house in the hillside. Lunch consisted of fresh cheeses, potatoes, salad, meats (both cured and grilled), truffle pasta and fresh bread. Of course there was local wine and some coffee if you wanted it after the meal finished. The region we rode through is the top producer of truffles from Croatia. Every once in a while you’d run across a person with a dog and a basket – truffle-hunter! We rode up to a nice town that has a name we couldn’t pronounce and I can’t remember with a great cobblestone set of roads, some shops and an outdoor market with a view of some great rolling Croatian countryside. The kind of town you could just sit and move slowly from bench to bench all day sipping coffee, beverages, etc. Really cool – we were inspired to buy some truffle stuff – our luggage will likely never smell the same!

After lunch, Ryan set me up with a 50 mile option to ride straight into our next hotel, the Hotel Menegheti. The option had me climbing another 2,800 feet and rolling about the countryside on my own – there were no other takes in the group to go do this. And it was awesome! I packed two bottles, a patch kit and a few bars and set out to make some miles. I rode around 16-17 mph average with some big climbing and made it back to the hotel in just over 2.5 hours. I did take a few stops for pictures and to reload the next map into the Wahoo but for the most part just spent the time riding. It was glorious. Most roads were quiet – the climbing was doable – nothing as steep as in Slovenia and the temperatures were a perfect 75 degrees. After an 80 mile day, I was tired but not snockered. I also got back to the hotel in time to enjoy a little time at the pool before meeting the cabs that were arranged to take us into the town of Rovinj for dinner. This was a great day!

I’d later cross that valley and head up the hill on the right

Dinner in Rovinj was one where everyone was on their own to eat. Cindy and I ate with Alex, Tracy, Julie, Jason, Tara and Suzie in a courtyard restaurant on a slippery cobblestone street about two blocks off of the marina area and a few hundred feet up above the sea level. It was cool and breezy with a local cat smartly positioned to find any scraps it could. Plus, being a seaside village, this cat was well feed on fresh seafood scraps I imagine. Rovinj was a tourist place with a ton of local flair. It was also known for a stunning sunset over the horizon which we arrived into the village just with enough time to sprint to the waterside and get those perfect “golden hour” pictures alongside of many, many other tourists looking for the perfect shot to post on the ‘Gram. Gelato to end the night and back to Hotel Menegheti by 10pm where everyone was feeling the sun from the day and the growing fatigue from biking all week.

Cindy and I entered this Backroads trip thinking that this could be our last. They are awesome and almost always flawless and well worth the cost, but we are thinking about spending longer periods of time abroad when Charlie’s out of school and immersing into a local area in an AirBNB while would limit the need of a Backroads-like experience. But I think what we are reminded of is there’s some real value in turning off your planning brain and having some really great ambassadors of the area who are highly trained on hospitality and culture to guide you through a week of movement and history and the wonders of seeing the less-traveled areas of other countries. Plus, what they are curating with various lunches and tours would take a ton of research and thought but instead you get to hand all of that over to someone to help you through it. So in short, we aren’t ready to be done with Backroads and thankfully, I don’t think a lot of our friends are either. Both Cindy and I said to each other separately how unique these experiences are and how lucky we are to get to share them with each other. We also know you can’t exactly do this alone. Charlie being flexible enough to see his parents go away from 10 days and having various grandparents and friends check in on him and host him while we’ve been gone is something we are lucky to make all of this possible. We are the last of our friends leaving a kid behind – it will get a ton easier when Charlie’s in school – but at the cost of not having access to Charlie like we do now. It’s been nice FaceTiming with him and sharing a few pictures back and forth. I love the patience he has shown that lets me and his Mom get away for a few days – the time together is just so valuable.

Tomorrow – sadly, is our last riding day. The weather looks perfect!

September 19, 2025 by Jason

Day 6: Lake Bled, Slovenia to Kranjska Gora

Today was a day the Backroads leaders worked much harder than they expected. And these three leaders worked plenty hard as it is on a normal day. In fact, there’s some things you should know about a Backroads Leader:

They spend several months interviewing for this job
The last two weeks of the interview (if they make it that far), they come packed to either get an offer and fly out to their first location immediately, or they get cut and sent back home.
The chances of getting accepted into Harvard are better than the chances candidates have to become an employee/trip leader at Backroads. In fact, it’s also easier to get to work for Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Co and any hedge fund than it is to work at Backroads.
These guys are paid to make flawless and highly choreographed vacations go off without a hitch. They are paid well but make a good bit of their pay in tips with some nice perks like free room while leading trips and in between trips, the opportunity to stay in some truly ridiculous hotels and the ability to ride bikes for a living while living with low expenses actually giving them chance to save, travel, see the world.
A world class ability to serve and manage others in a way where it doesn’t feel rote or rehearsed or weird. They are pretty amazing at what they day – trip 4 for us and they continue to truly make amazing experiences – not one leader has been anywhere close to a dud.

So, with this in mind…welcome to our first ever rainy day experience with Backroads. Nearly 24 days of planning trips for us and this is the first where rain was encountered. Pretty good luck we’ve had. But the Backroads people were up for this challenge. The night before they set some expectations and set out a few backup plans. A) Ride in the rain. B) Ride not in the rain – if the forecast was wrong (spoiler alert: it wasn’t wrong), C) Spend a quiet morning at the hotel and shuttle to the next Hotel – Hotel Kempinkski in Croatia and old castle on the shore of the Adriatic. Or D) take an alternative activity to a local cave – Jana Caves (I might be making this name up). All decisions could be made in the morning.

We woke to no rain. I dressed and headed to the breakfast buffet with every intention of riding. I ate, headed back up to the room and when I got there the tide had turned. Rain was falling. I sat on the couch talking myself out of riding. Who wants to ride a bike in the rain, right? But then I looked up 10 minutes later to see sunny skies and no more rain. But I’m past departure time. Off downstairs I head saying if they are gone, no ride for me but if not, I’ll ride. I’m now wearing a base layer, arm warmers, a jersey and a kit with a change of clothes and my rain jacket in the van. Cindy’s out. So was the entire rest of our group of 10. The forecast did call for rain almost all day. I get down to the bikes and there are two others, Ella and Wendy from Utah and Ryan the Backroads leader just about to push off. I tell them to go ahead and I’ll catch up. Throw some gummy worms in my pocket, with a bar and some water/electrolyte mix in a bottle and I’m off. 10-15 minutes later I catch up on one of the first larger climbs of the day – no one leaves Lake Bled without a climb. Any right on cue, the drizzle sets in. The four of us ride together for 10-15 more minutes and then I say my goodbye to push off on the first 30 miles of the day. A nice flattish shot to Kranjska Gora, a ski village known for their hosting of the largest ski jump in the world. This is where Primoz Rozglic trained prior to becoming a cyclist.

So today it rained. A whole bunch. Like the entire ride minus the first 10-15 minutes. The majority of the group took option to exercise a backup plan. Backup plan #1: Sleep in, enjoy the hotel and eventually shuttle to the next hotel on the Coast of Slovenia (small coast on the top of the Adriatic Sea. Backup plan #2: offered some sleeping in and then heading to some local karst caves – a feature of central Slovenia between the Julian Alps and the coast. While I rode around in the rain for 40 miles or so, Cindy opted for the caves and several in our group opted for Vila Bled downtime where they made a Cream Cake materialize with some prosecco. Not a bad use of the day. Also shows how well Backroads allows for flexibility – they didn’t just give a backup but really allowed their guests to define any number of backups and accommodated taxis, shuttles, meet-ups, etc throughout the day – this feature is truly what sets Backroads apart to me.

My ride consisted of some really quiet country roads, some local Slovenian bike roadways – literally numbered roads for bikes and bikes there were. Even on a heavy rain day, these were filled with bikepackers making their way through Europe. It was pretty cool to see groups of 2 and 3 and 4 riding – most were in full rain gear which seemed warm to me – I was in a base layer, a jersey and a vest with arm warmers at times. During my ride there was an unbelievably steep climb – 20% grade and once I saw 22% on the Wahoo bike computer. It only lasted .75 miles but that was enough. One wheel spin and I’m not sure I would have even been able to walk up it in my road shoe cleats. Seriously steep. The other side was a nice flowy descent over two miles but with the water, it still took some care – disc brakes for the win! Once over the climb it was a smooth 8-10 miles on a bike path to the cool ski town of Kranjska Gora. I beat the support van to the town, so I ducked into a nice cafe and had a delicious pistachio croissant and a double macchiato with some water. The key feature of this stop was being able to warm up out of the rain. By the time I finished, 10-15 minutes later, I stepped out into a brief respite of sun. Janna from Backroads arrived with the support van and gave me an option to ride another 16 or so miles up to a famous Slovenian ski jump where world records were set – as recently as February where a guy flew 254 meters through the air on their largest jump. As I viewed this area from the bottom of the ski jump I wondered how someone decides to make their first jump and how that jump feels. Seems absolutely ridiculous. The rain picked back up and I headed back down the mountain I climbed to get there until the rain turned to hail where I shored up under a large pine tree on the downwind side. Once again, the sun comes out and entices me to ride more – this time to the two lakes of the Superior Lake (up higher) and the (Inferior Lake) – down lower. A serious climb up a steep hill to get to the tip top – the coolest part of this rain segment? Being in Italy for 6-8 miles. Pretty cool. From there it was back to the cute ski town to meet the group who hung at the hotel for lunch at a local barbecue place – barbecue as in roasted pig on a spit with the entire meal minus the salad made in the fire. Just like the old days in the Adventure Guides with the pit pig. The potatoes and vegetables were super tasty – the meat eaters loved the pig too.

Ski Jump facility – the big one is way to the left up high – barely visible

Lake Inferior – halfway up the steep climb

Bike is on the Slovenian side – me on the Italian side – not sure I’ve ridden my bike across a country border before.

After lunch, the sun peaked out again, the rain stopped and we boarded the big shuttle bus to head down to the Adriatic Sea and the hotel Kempinski (and old castle overlooking the sea) via the caves where we picked up the group who took that option. This was one of the longer transfers we have taken in a Backroads trip – almost 90 minutes. Almost long enough to dry my cycling clothes on the bus!

Dinner was in the hotel at what was our 3rd Michelin starred restaurant of the trip – Sofia. I don’t normally take pictures of my food at meals, after all, it’s just food, but this was a pretty dish so I did. Very Millennial of me, right? The meal was outrageous. Backroads really went above and beyond on this one – probably the best meal I’ve had traveling with them. We ate tonight with Ron and Lisa and Alex and Tracy with the Seiberts and their friends Tara and Suzie a table behind us. We didn’t eat the full tasting menu – because we heard it would take 3 hours, but we ate plenty well over three courses. We also had the luxury of watching a storm out across the ocean which didn’t bring more than a nice breeze to us while we ate.

Sadly, only 18 hours in this hotel – but most Backroads trips often have a one-nighter hotel in the 6 days – and this was the right one to be quick at – good hotel, decent beach town but by now we know how Backroads likes to roll – always end on the best of the best hotel and when you end there – do so where you can enjoy 2 nights at the end of the trip. Meringheti – here we come!

Lobster Ravioli – a la Sofia (third Michelin starred restaurant)

Kempinski lobby – Cindy relaxing with her bike bag, chic purple couch

Frogs ahead? Nope – leapfrogging section of the road (as in car passing zone).

September 17, 2025 by Jason

Day 5: Bled, Slovenia

Woke to a picture perfect morning on Lake Bled. Cindy and I sprung, as much as people our age spring, out of bed at 6:30 (daybreak) and went out for a run. Together. Like I was invited to join her. We don’t do this often and I was not about to say no. So off we went. Down the many steps from our hotel, Vila Bled to the lake conveniently named, Lake Bled. Not to be a spoiler, but this hotel was finished just after WWII after it was started under a much worse starting point, the ridiculous man running a country and thinking he was above all others. It didn’t end well for this one, thankfully and it didn’t end well for this hotel under his rule. Roofless and unfinished, in a stroke of irony, the hotel was finished by the Germans as a part of the many reparations they did for the many countries they tried to run into the ground. Karma. Nonetheless, this hotel has a storied history, that of which we learned a lot about by a historian that Backroads put together for us after our day of activities. The 40 year singular ruler (dictator – I’m not sure?) over Slovenia made this place a place he used to hide from the Soviets when they weren’t happy with his soft version of communism (a repeat occurrence apparently), as well to vacation and host many other people of power from many other countries. In fact, when we rode up to the hotel yesterday, there was a pretty good sized motorcade exiting the facilities at the same time. Who was it? The staff at the hotel will apparently never tell.

Anyhoo…back to the day. We ran 4 miles around the lake where fisherman had apparently camped in their chairs all night awaiting the big catch. My friend Jason saw them pull one out of the lake while on his run and he said it was easily 3 feet long by 1-2 feet tall with some girth. Crazy big fish for a deep freshwater glacial lake but also explains why all of the people were fishing. The lake rules? Catch and release. So after a brief pic, that fish was let go for another fishing person to get it.

Lake Bled has hosted several World Cup rowing regattas – perfect venue for its lack of wind.

Back at the hotel it was a quick turn to get back to the buffet – apparently a can’t miss buffet (unlike the Hotel Eurostar the day prior in Ljubljana). It did not disappoint. Crepes. Fruit. Warm breads. Pastries. Cheeses. Meats. Eggs. Potatoes. Coffees of all varieties. Delicious. Then out to the route rap where the guides tell you all about your day ahead.

Paige gives the “Route Rap” Backroads style

On this day, we were riding out of Lake Bled, up through a village then it was very up through elevation climbing from roughly 2,000 feet to 4,600 feet over 8 miles and two big pushes up. The last big push we even passed a sign that said “18%” grade. It was probably not quite that but Slovenia doesn’t seem to value the switchback like we saw while driving up large hills in Croatia. I passed three other cyclists (we didn’t know although one looked me in the eye and said “Ciao” in a tone where I heard “good job” in there somewhere) and was holding my own against the e-bike mafia until about .5 miles to go where first Alex, then Cindy and then Tracy all roared by me with some small talk and maybe a push of that turbo button just to make sure I didn’t catch them back. I made it up one of the segments in 30 minutes to Tadej’s King of the Mountain (KOM) segment of 18 minutes. He ride up that thing almost twice as fast as I do!

This climb was pretty steep – but 18%? Hmmm…

Once at the top we met up with the Backroads van, got more water, snacks and sunscreen and headed down a long and very, very fast descent. Very bumpy too – apparently there’s a good bit of snow in this area in the winter and the roads showed some wear from it. We hit a bit of a valley and then it was back up some pretty steep pitches – these nearing the 20% mark. Seriously Slovenia! A switchback please. Then it was rolling along the ridge for a while until we came down a white knuckled descent down a really tough downhill portion until we reached river height where we basically followed the river into this big gorge with a very clear, very deep lake in the middle. Just in time for a long coffee stop before lunch in an area where cycling reigned supreme.

Seibert/Sutton photo op with cool valley in the background

We were atop that ridge less than a mile ago.

Coffee is down where the two big rocks almost come together (w/ a lake between)

After a nice break on a perfect day we rode another mile or two to lunch at a barn where a nice lady prepared barley soup, a nice salad, some fresh cow’s milk cheese and lots of meat and bread products. The air was dry and cool which made this stop almost chilly under the roof of the barn. The lunch was good – desserts, maybe missing a little heavy sugar which was fine because I mostly over ate compared to what normal lunches are.

Calf in the barn next to the hayloft where we had our lunch

From lunch – most people jumped in a shuttled and returned to Lake Bled by motor vehicle. Four of us proceeded to finish the last 12-15 miles of the day on this gorgeous bike rail trail next to a crystal clear river/creek and even a cool waterfall of two. I was riding with the group until I looked back and realized I wasn’t. This is a bit of my trademark on this trip – I should try to do better. But I also like a good pull when I’m feeling good. After a few wrong turns – it’s tough to read the Wahoo computer if you aren’t paying attention – I was able to eventually get back to Vila Bled roughly an hour past lunch with a bit of climbing on the way into Bled.

Sweet waterfall on the bike path back to Bled

Once at Bled we got a little downtime where Cindy and I strolled along the walking path next to the lake after spending a nice time chatting with Scott and Julie from Venice, Florida on the veranda. As one does. Scott’s slowly retiring from asset management while writing a book and Julie retired from being in guidance counseling in a cool non-profit for over 20 years. This was their 8th Backroads trip I believe.

The step from the walking path up to Vila Bled – many many short long steps

Dinner was a short bus ride to the castle on the hill we’d all be looking at for the time in Bled and it did not disappoint. Prior to dinner we got a nice little chat from a local historian who shared with us the storied history of Vila Bled, Lake Bled and the Castle. Actually I lied. Dinner disappointed when they offered a dessert from the pasty chef who apparently didn’t get the memo about the dessert that was invented in Lake Bled – the Bled Crème Cake – and instead served a nice dessert selection but a Crème Cake it was not.

Sunset from the castle looking toward the island church and Vila Bled (whitish building to the left of the castle)

The church on the island settles down each evening after a full day of visitors and bell ringing by people wanting to put in a good, but non-material wish. The old tale says the bell and wish is especially focused on fertility. The historian thinks maybe the local boat rowing “mafia” push this story hard to help drive demand for their services, a service that seems highly lucrative in the tourist season.

Boats to the island church – propelled by men in the boat mafia family only (or you can row a rowboat yourself)

September 15, 2025 by Jason

Day 4: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Eurostar hotel – weird communist dorm?

Buffet…just not the same.

Daydreaming of the Dubrovnik Hilton breakfast buffet

Today we hopped out of bed with focus. See as much of Ljubljana as we can in an hour and fifteen minutes. We saw 10 square blocks and a lot of old buildings, parks, rivers and very, very quiet streets. Aside from being REALLY glad about the auto suggestion whenever I type the letters “Ljub” which gives me the correct spelling for this town, I was pretty excited to get a taste of Slovenia’s biggest city. I think it holds 250k in the city limits. Charlotte circa 1995? It was lovely – especially all of the bars, cafes and coffee houses along the River which was very, very, very far down from the street level walkway. Someone explain this to me please. The highlight of the walkabout? Probably listening to all of the bells from all of the churches (there are a lot) summoning people to mass (mostly Catholic region) at 7:45am – 15 minutes before it starts. The irony? Fewer Slovenians than ever are going to church. But it’s still really charming for the visitors and kind of bold of the church to do – as if to say, “I promise you, and our history backs us on this, that we’ll outlast your stubborn Sunday morning ways.” Apparently they try again at 9:45am too…in case you are a heavy sleeper.

Upon arriving back to the Eurostar Hotel, we took in the breakfast buffet. I’m not sure why, but it made Cindy and me sad. Like the hotel, it was perfectly serviceable but maybe the packed dining hall feel, the insistence on my room number even after Cindy gave it to them literally one person ahead of me, or the meh food (plenty of options just so-so in presentation) or maybe the lack of Prosecco, it just didn’t have the same pop that the Dubrovnik Hilton had the last few days. I’m telling you – Hilton, you’re doing something really right in Dubrovnik. Perhaps bring some of that mojo stateside? We me our first Backroads guild, Paige from out west (California?) in the lobby where she got us all excited about the trip. Nothing too crazy, just some spoon feeding on where she’ taking us over the next 2 hours. On the bus that we took to Kranj where the bikes and such were located, we met Ryan the other primary trip leader and Janna the local guide from Slovenia (there’s typically someone from the region on these trips. All three, as we have totally come to expect, are top of their game trip leaders. In the hotel lobby and on the bus we met the other 10 people on the trip with us. 2 folks from Charlotte (Tim/Becky(?)). 2 folks from Mt. Pleasant . 2 folks from Hendersonville (formerly Jacksonville – Paul/Besty)), 2 folks from Park City Utah (Wendy/Ella) mother daughter) and 2 folks from the west coast of Florida (Scott/Julie). The bus ride to Kranj was quick, maybe 10-12 kilometers with a short walk from the bus to where the bikes were all staged. We got some fittings, a little information and a small overview on Kranj, the oldest Slovenian town. Plagues, wars, dictators…this place outlasts them all.

One of the enchanted forests we rode through. Slovenia is Maine-like in many ways

Lunch at a restaurant started by the 2 famous polka artists (brothers)

Bee tour after lunch. So. Many. Bee. Facts! It was an amazing 30 minutes. This guy has been raising bees and pollinating plants across Slovenia and the EU since he was a small kid. He is the fourth generation to work this bee farm. He’s one of 200 bee farms in Slovenia and they believe they have the best bees in the world. The dude knew bees. He started with the basics:

– There are 3 kinds of bees: workers, drones, queen.

– Bee workers are useful. They care for the queen, keep the hive in order, gather food, mate with other queens if asked, Never get bored and never waste time. They are meaningful to the bee community or hive.

-Bee Drones – not so much. These are the “stoners” of the bee hive. The queen doesn’t like them. Doesn’t need them. They are hanger-on-ers. They can’t mate. They can’t sting. They don’t do much work. They just fly around and take up space and eat stuff. Truly useless.

-Bee Queen – this is the show. She is one of the lucky. She gets chosen by the community as one of the 30 larvae dropped by the last queen. She makes her case for being the boss and if people like her fermones and what she’s selling, then she’s the boss. Bee queens can also be dropped into Queen less hives by bee keepers and they will eventually be accepted as the queen – it takes from a few hours to a few days for this acceptance to occur. Bee Queens are the biggest. They mate exactly once in their lives but mate with up to 30 work bees from a hive outside of her hive. Never within the hive. That would be weird. She travels a long way to mate and when she does, she bring eggs back from all of that mating and deposits them in the honeycomb that the workers have diligently built.

-When bees sting – venom continues to flow for up to five minutes after – take the stinger out fast and the venom stops flowing.

-The beekeeper mails queens all over Europe. Takes a few hours to acclimate them into a new hive – “eventually the other bees realize they die if they don’t have a queen.”

– Bee workers carry pollen on their legs back to the hive – helps feed the colony.

-Bee Keepers have devices to scrape the pollen carried by bees off of their legs and can make that into bee products. We tasted this stuff – it tasted waxy and like weak tea.

-Bees have special bee “juices” that help protect the hive like disinfectant.

-He moves the bees at night in pollination season. He marks the queen bee with a color from the year she was born (yellow for this year) – he also numbers her after Luca Doncic (#77). He makes honey from fir, chestnut (bitter) and many other flowering plants.

Bee talk – this guy has the best job ever

I ate a lot of honey – where is this dude’s honey sold?

After bees, we took a short brisk ride to Bled where we climbed some punchy, punchy hills. Several 11-20% grades (no exaggeration) and then flew down into Lake Bled and the town of Bled a huge clear lake with a castle way up on a hill and a 1000m rowing course. The view from our window was next level.

No lie – this is the view from our window

Interesting fact – the rowers of the tourist boats on Lake Bled are all from the same family. They are literally a mafia – you can only row if you have ties to the family. They row standing up and facing forward pushing the paddles/oars towards the back of the boat with their legs and upper body by leaning heavily forward. Some of these boats can carry 12-15 passengers. We had a cocktail hour and dinner with the group after introducing ourselves to each other. Dinner was a scallop soup, fish on risotto and this awesome vanilla cream cake that was invented at the Hotel Park here in lake bled – basically a light pastry with powdered sugar on the top layer, a ton of thick heavy cream and another light pastry layer on the bottom. So, so so good!

It’s pretty incredible to be a part of something like this were friends from many cities across the US come together and hand out with some bike riding in unreal parts of the world. And Slovenia. Just skip it. This place is the worst. They actually want us to say that to keep it from turning into Dubrovnik, Croatia. It’s pretty special here. And the cycling is next level.

September 14, 2025 by Jason

Day 3: Croatia (and Slovenia!)

This is us in the future in Slovenia – few pics on transfer day

In cycling terms, today would be called a transfer day. This is the day where you start in one city and end up in another. We hit the breakfast at the DH one more time and then it was off to the lobby to sign for our rental Skoda via Avant Car (like the Hertz of Croatia?) where a man on a moped arrived to sign us into the car. That process was going to take the time it was going to take. The guy was super nice and super thorough. He even through in the ability for me to drive for free. We spent a fair amount of time on the particulars and then with a little tour of the Skoda (basically a Croatian built car with everything in it from VW except for the engine and chassis). A fine and very roomy car. After a full inspection, we loaded up the bags, got in the car, Alex maybe spent some time adjusting lots of things and then we looked up to pull out and realized we’d been completely blocked into the hotel circle drive by a large bus. I went out to ask how we could get by and the man politely (because so far, everyone in Croatia are the politest people ever) said, “yes, yes. In just 3-8 minutes when I can move.” Welp…not much I could do with that so we waited.

Then we pulled out of the good ole Dubrovnik Hilton one last time (if you get to DBrov-this Hilton is not to be missed). I’d add the word for goodbye here in Croatian but I’m telling you, I’ve got a mental block with this language. I believe they find Ciao as acceptable. So…”Ciao” Dubrovnik. You were pretty great. Maybe a two day town instead of three but pretty darn great.

This is where we need a dream sequence or squiggles or a time-lapse video or something but you’ll have to just imagine some laughter, some reading, some pointing out of the obvious, some eating of Swedish candy from Felix and Paula, only twice did we miss turns (both my fault as navigator), lots of time to research whatever we wanted (more on this later), a border crossing and seven and a half short hours later we pulled into Ljubljana, Slovenia at the EuroStar hotel. Eurostar seems to be short for two-star hotel. Yes – we are hotel snobs. Ljubljana had a vibe. Lots of communist leftovers architecturally, lots of bikes (that’s what you do when you have 3 top 10 pro cyclists from your nation) and maybe a few parking issues as Alex can attest from a 45 minute bout with the Avant Car parking lot. The trip put us at the hotel with 20 minutes to spare before what we found out was going to be our second Michelin rated restaurant in as many days. Or what we reference as Saturday. Ha.

A few thoughts – driving in Europe has a lot of local flavor. Generally speeds are much lower and there are far more traffic and speed cameras. The roads are super-well maintained. They really, really, really value the tunnel. I think we went through like 20 tunnels from Dubrovnik to Ljubljana. Maybe more. And they mark the distance of every tunnel (some were 2-3 miles long!) and how much distance you have left in the tunnel. Rest areas on their roads aren’t as nice as the Florida or New Jersey turnpike but nicer than most other rest areas in the US. The EU folk really like their McDonalds. Like a lot. Cars in the EU can get 1100 km per 18 liter (15 gallon?) tank. That seems like a really long ways.

One of the things we learned about is there is something called the Dirty Dust Rally (see https://dirtydustrallye.de ). This year the Balkans version of this rally was from September 6 – 12 where people show up to not race, but drive a same set course each day in old or creative cars and do so to seek community with other drivers. They hold a car part swap meet each morning and have many stops where they enjoy food and time together on this tour through aggressive courses. The cars we saw were easily 20-30 years old, dirt covered, huge roof racks on small cars with metal boxes, and spare tires and car parts. They get the course sent to them each day at a gathering over coffee and tea at the start of each morning. It seems fascinating. We saw one guy in an old skoda in a gas station yesterday bugging his rear tire to see if it was going to stay on the car – while it moved more than rear tires should, he shrugged and seemed convinced it was good. Nonetheless, we drove off a bit ahead of him just in case. This idea should be brought to the US. Seems fun.

We crossed the border from Croatia to Slovenia on a small two lane road – a five minute affair. If you are Jason Bourne and running from the law and don’t want to get registered for a border crossing, the small two lane road is where you want to be. Yes, they looked over our passports. But they never looked in the car. They didn’t even stop chatting with each other. They didn’t really even look at Alex who did a great job speaking Slovenian to them. Running from the law (and to be clear, while we may have a few speed cameras who look to fine us, we are not running from the law), this is the kind of border crossing you want to do it at. Alex also informed us that a treaty passed in the late 1990s or early 2000s allows US Passports to pass freely from EU country to EU country – new fact noted. Name of the treaty he referenced forgotten.

While Alex spent 45-60 minutes making 38 point turns trying to park the Skoda, Cindy and I quickly changed and headed to dinner at Georgi’s restaurant where we had a Caci e Pepe foam turnip thing, some awesome eggplant Parmesan thing and an Octopus thing. All very tasty with bread and some local Slovenian wine. Pretty awesome prep and food. But also food that felt like we might need a second meal a few hours later (we didn’t). A nice experience.

Last stop of the night was to meet Jason and Julie for a nightcap on the Sava river that runs quietly through LJubljana. It’s like time stands still with those two – they are timeless and picking right back up with them is a simple as it comes. Tara, a new friend on the Backroads trip with us joined us – fun times before those who flew over yesterday (and yes, their arms were tired) were looking peeked – time to call it a night. Tomorrow we ride through the land of Slovenia on our way to Bled.

And yes, a day very, very light on pictures. Use this time to peruse your phone for knowledge of the local customs of Slovenia or Croatia or both. One note – they do a lot of agriculture and make some fine fine roads – especially those that they charge tolls for.

September 14, 2025 by Jason

Day 2: Croatia / Slovenia Vacation – Dubrovnik

Some of us slept better than others last night – as we do when we travel abroad. Cindy was up the majority of the night and I, while I felt somewhat restless and awake a lot between 2am-5am, apparently slept so well that there were thoughts of punching me awake to see how the other half of the Sutton’s live w/ sleeplessness. I swear, this is almost normal for us when traveling abroad and never have I been punched awake.

While I rose with the sun and was in the hotel gym around 7am, Cindy slept from sometime in the late sleeping hours of the morning (4am?) until approximately 8am when she was up and out to get more sunscreen than we ever really need on any trip. But today is boat day and when you get on a boat, you bring sunscreen. When you get on a boat with me, you apparently bring a lot of sunscreen. She was back in the room at 8:30 and we were back at our favorite breakfast in Dubrovnik, the Hilton Dubrovnik by 8:45. We sipped coffee, ate breads and Nutella, enjoyed fresh made yogurt with berries and nuts, had a bit of porridge and Cindy enjoyed a morning prosecco while I reordered a lot of various coffee drinks. Lovely. Then it was to the lobby for the boat trip.

The boat trip was pretty awesome. I’m always reticent to take a boat trip after our shenanigans in St. John’s with the drunk boat captain (aka the “custom’s swindler – dude actually tried to tell us we had to pay to go through customs to get back in the US after dragging his boat home with one dead motor. Bad time to seek a payoff bud. On top of that he was a big talker which after about 10 minutes of the 6 hours had run it’s course, but I digress. So my desire to get back in boats captained by people I don’t know is tepid at best. Life is usually the best teacher, right? Wrong. This boat trip was pretty great. A four hour tour. The option for four island stops where coffee, beverages, meals, swimming were all options. We took 3 of the island options and opted for a swim in some of the blue caves on one of the lesser used islands. They were amazing. The blue water in the dark caves turned nearly fluorescent blue and everything else what pretty much black. It looked as if there were lights in the water. Really cool. In other news, the Adriatic is salty. Very salty.

Our boat didn’t have a slide like this one did.

We were back at the hotel around 3:45 after Marco dropped us by the driver where we decided to sit back on the patio of the hotel and chat about with Alex and Tracy and our newfound friends Felix and Paula.

After a little downtime – again, it’s what Cindy and I do on vacation – pretty much nothing between 4 and 6pm – we headed back into old town seeking some pre-dinner gelato. Cindy loves the Stracciatella (vanilla with chocolate ribbons.

The Croatians are pretty great people. But like many old town areas, Dubrovnik had a tradition that borders on weird and was definitely impossible. There’s a little step above a downspout on the side of the building where if you can step up on it, spin around once and remove your shirt, you are destined to find love. The good news for me and Dubrovnik is that I’ve already found my love. The bad news for Dubrovnik is it seems that anyone who hasn’t yet found it, isn’t likely to after attempting this stunt. The only success one finds in this is picking up some of the human grime from the wall when you try. Good luck humans – love shouldn’t be that hard to find…

Dinner was at the Taj Mahal restaurant about two blocks off of the main drag through old town. This was not an Indian restaurant but instead a place serving Serbian food. Think stews, lamb, flatbreads, meat, soft/creamy cheeses, meats, fritters, meats and well, more meat in case meat is your thing. The fritters were outstanding as were the creamy cheeses (tart and tangy). This restaurant had won a Michelin star four years in a row! While I’m not 100% sure what that means, I think it means you run a pretty unbelievable kitchen, make pretty unbelievable food and pass a tough test of critics without really knowing when and how often you’ll be judged. Good on them – seemed worthy to me. We also celebrated Tracy’s birthday here with what seemed like a roman candle plopped in a piece of baklava.

We said our good byes to Felix and Paula and headed to bed around 8:45pm for what turned out to be a fairly not great night of sleep.

Working sundial – the time is 12:35 (obviously).

September 12, 2025 by Jason

Day 1: Croatia / Slovenia Vacation- Dubrovnik, Croatia

I think this is day 1. Or maybe it’s technically day 3. But the first 2 calendar days of travel are always a blur where you feel like you sit in uncomfortable chairs for too long and stand up way too little. Movement while traveling 6 time zones east? Almost none other than walks to and from gates in Charlotte on Day 1 and Madrid in the wee hours (Charlotte time) of day 2. Airport comparisons? Not even close. Madrid wins by a mile. Huge wide concourses, impressively architected building, very roomy jetways and even the moving sidewalks were nice and wide. Rarely did you feel like you were in the way or that others were in your way. And the pre-flight queuing…so orderly. Even when they tried to load us on the plane and had to divert us back into the terminal the 200+ people acted like they were in a library. No one ran up to the person at the desk to tell them how important this flight was to them or worse just yelled out loud about the inconvenience of the delay. The calm and sense that everything would be ok was almost unnerving to me. Credit to the Spaniards – they just took it in stride. So nice.

And indulge me for one moment more. Dear American Airlines CEO or anyone from your company who will listen. You’ve taken it too far. It’s reached the breaking point. Yes, you’ve mastered flying people through the sky in a metal tube and do so frequently without issue. That’s not lost on me. But holy hell do you ever make it uncomfortable. We sat less than halfway back on the plane and either I grew 4-5 inches since the last time I flew, or you’ve taken even more legroom out of the plane in favor of cramming what, 10-11 more people or 1-2 more rows into your planes? I could not straighten my legs and fit them under my seat. And when that unknowing 20-30 year old in front of me reclined her seat for an extra comfy 2-3 degrees of recline choose to do so, I had to sit even straighter up on my seat to put down the tray to eat. I get it…revenues. But you should know, I’ve reached my breaking point. I’ll be trying out other carriers, yes, even from your monopoly-riddled location in Charlotte just to see if they too have the same cramped seats. Comfort matters. Especially paying the money we paid to get transported through the air over the Atlantic. I’m actually considering taking a boat home. The budget airline we flew from Madrid to Dubrovnik removed such “luxuries” such as reclining seas and seat back storage but I could fit my legs under the seat in front of me and get up and down and in and out of the seat without the assistance of others to move around. You must have all of the passengers you’ll ever need because you just don’t seem to be trying very hard to keep the passengers who’ve stuck with you for decades in good stead and care. But also thanks. If I’m honest, you’ve done me a favor – the rest of the vacation is only up from here.

Day 1 – started for me at 6:30 am where I was up after a few bouts of restlessness throughout the night. The first bout was 4 hours into sleep just past midnight, when I was worried if I didn’t get some added sleep past that point that I’d be off cycle for nights to come. But I did. Another 2 hours with the same worry. Then another 2 hours where I was feeling it would be ok to wake except 2 hours later I actually woke up. Once awake, I’ve learned on international travel that exercise is critical to establishing a good sleep cadence for future nights. So a quick map of a run using Strava and out of the door into a gloomy day I went. And straight uphill and then downhill and uphill and downhill…you get it – coastal running in Dubrovnik is not flat. But amazing beautiful. After running through town with kids heading to school and lots of people heading to buses and their mopeds and small cars I arrived at a beachside community with an unbelievable seaside walkway built into the cliffs. It lasted for about three miles – a much flatter option with views for days. The views are of the Adriatic Sea, a ton of tiny islands, some inhabited and some not so much and lots of boats and cliffs. The water is a deep clear and clean blue, even on a cloudy day. Just amazing. A little like the coast of Southern France and Maine combined. It’s hard to not just stop at every corner and take another picture. Which I did for the photography of course – never because my old bones were tired. I swear.

Back at the hotel, I showered and did some shower laundry, which is a bit of a pastime in an early a trip where you have fewer outfits than days. In fact, my exercise outfits this trip are spartan – one pair of shorts and one exercise shirt – one too few shirts for normal packing. Then downstairs to a great European breakfast of cheeses, breads, fruits, nuts, fresh yogurt (pumped out of a metal vat like you do with Heinz Ketchup at Five Guys) and of course honey and Nutella. Speaking of Heinz, they had Heinz beans to make the Londoners of the hotel happy. Super tasty because they aren’t sweet the way we serve our canned beans in the US.

Then it was the donning of a rain jacket for each of us and out into the rainy streets towards Old Town Dubrovnik where we were warned to get out and beat the “boat lice” (not our words) – the people who landed into port overnight. Port is a ways away, so walking the block to the old town put us at a distinct advantage. We also found that once in the wall of the old city that you could put some distance on the crowds by heading up and boy does Dubrovnik have up. Stairs for days – all the way to the top of the wall – probably 4-5 stories high and directly on the ocean for much of it. Along the way you pass some unreal apartments – just an amazing place to live if you love stairs and maybe don’t need a lot of space and love cats. Cats in Dubrovnik are apparently a thing – they are everywhere. Cindy has taken a picture of every one of them. Seriously, maybe all of the cats of Dubrovnik are catalogued on her phone. I’ll spare you of all but this one.

After a quick hour tour of the city on our own and a nice coffee drink – not having coffee yesterday one time was a mistake for me that I won’t be making again today. In fact, I’m going to overcompensate almost for sure. By 9:40am I’m on cup number four except two were Americano’s which only count for halve strength coffees in my book. The old town is hundreds of years old and absolutely gorgeous. Yes, some touristy spots, but also tons of cool cafes and nooks and crannies. One of this is the Buza Bar where you can walk through the wall, to the ocean side and sit on a bar on the cliffs above the ocean. Pretty incredible – but for later given the rain of this morning. We wandered down to a small pocket marina in the old town and sipped our coffees while watching the people pass by and the boats rock around the harbor. Super peaceful. Super dreamy.

Back to the hotel to meet up with Alex and Tracy and their Swedish friends Felix and Paula. Delightful folks who Alex and Tracy met when Felix was an exchange student at…wait for it…Fort Mill High School! How crazy is that? They’ve kept up ever since and while we’ve heard of them, we’ve never met them officially until today. Great people. Felix may or may not be the head of all things law enforcement in Stockholm and Paula is a nurse working in several schools. They speak nearly perfect English – one of several languages they know. I’m very jealous of the multi-lingual people. I wish I even kind of knew another language. I can read Spanish and speak in various phrases with what is likely terrible, terrible verb structure. And in a moment when asked something in it, I’m as likely to freeze up and respond with “si si” as I am to say nothing at all and shrug. How is it America just can’t seem to value stuff like this enough to make it work for our citizens? Our driver from the airport knew FOUR languages!

We ventured out again, this time into an even heavier downpour where the water ran down streets and stairs like a waterfall. We found a bar and hovered inside waiting for a table to free up. As soon as the rain lightened we were lucky enough to find one. Then we walked, back to an open Buza Bar and then around the city where we had a lunch and another beverage and eventually back to the hotel where we took some needed quiet time. No sleep – still afraid of interrupting a full night’s sleep. We did what we do each afternoon of any vacation – just sat and relaxed with the hotel balcony door open and a nice ocean breeze blowing in with the 75 degree temperatures. Delightful.

More Buza – a bit like summiting Everest

Then we met up for at 7:30 dinner reservation at Posal (Posat?) – a seafood restaurant recommended by many. After being greeted with what seemed like a hundred hellos, thank yous, Caio’s, gratzi’s we sat at a table with a view of the lighted castle wall and turrets and a full size grand piano positioned over the stairwell entrance in the open air. The food was excellent – most fresh seafood but ordering was difficult. We all ate at 3-4pm and weren’t that terribly hungry. We asked the server to bring an appetizer they recommend and then help us with 2-3 meals we could all share. Instead, he heard make us meals that would feed six that we could share. The mistake? Several hundreds of dollars more than we thought the bill would be. Holy crap – that one sits with you a bit. Great food – but be warned, order carefully. One more tip – don’t skip dessert and if they have something with Almond or Hazelnut, get it. Amazing dessert chef situation here. So amazing I almost took pictures of our food – but that’s not what I do. Instead, I ate it. #hashTagTooOldToSnapFoodShots

April 26, 2025 by Jason

Day 4: San Ignacio, Belize (and Day 5 – travel day)

Sunrise-ish view on the return portion of my run

I’m writing this entry from the 2nd flight back to home, a trip that started at 8am this morning with a seamless 2 hour drive from Ka’Ana Resort back to Belize City where our flights home started. Before the flight I woke and went for a lumbering 6 mile run down the Prince George Highway until I took my first right on a random gravel road where I ran up and down it in the fog until reaching a cool river view and a tied up cow where I decided to turn back. Along this route I passed several local heading to school and work by foot, by bike, by moped, by motorcycle and by car. My favorite, the three generations of local Belize folks heading to school for the youngest, and to work for the mom and grand mom. Or at least that’s what it looked like as the kid was loaded into a small van at the end of the gravel road (at the main road) and went one direction while the Mom and Grandmom hopped into a small car and headed in the other direction. That’s a part of Belize you don’t see on the resort. The sun was working hard to break through the dusty fog – and once it did the temperature seemed to rise very, very quickly from the low 70s to the low 80s.

From this flight, where we are traveling from Dallas to Charlotte on a plane that come in from Japan, we struggle to get WiFi, any way to listen to a TV show or movie and we enjoy yet another biscuit cookie and various liquids that American Airlines offers on every flight. Variety. Overrated. WiFi – completely optional. This flight is straight out of the mid-90s. C’mon American…a quick look at your competition would have you seeing WiFi flowing at great speeds and free of charge. You’d also notice real bars and snacks that people like. You might even get a little extra legroom and some seats that don’t feel like an elephant has spent the past 5 years sitting in it. But I digress with my first world problems. But seriously – I’m truly considering my options. Delta, United, anyone need a new frequent flyer – I can be bought.

But back to Day 4 of the vacation – once again our last full day in Belize. We made the most of it. Back to Breakfast but this time Loretta didn’t serve us. She must have had the morning off. Dear Ka’Ana Resort – give Loretta a raise – she is really good at what she does – we enjoyed seeing her each morning at breakfast. We ate mostly the same stuff. A combo of oats, fryjacks, yogurt, coffee and juices (we like what we like).

Then it was downstairs to meet Carlos, our guide for the morning on our trip to do some cave tubing and zip lining. Carlos was nice enough. Informative, but not too talkative. A good driver and definitely concerned with our safety and security and happiness. It’s clear that the guides get to keep guiding based on two factors: happy clients and safely returned clients. He achieved both. He did sneak in a little bit of info that would have been nice to know prior to the trip, that the place we were going was about an hours drive away. Yikes. Charlie took one for the team again and rode shotgun on the way there. Cindy and I are expert at positioning before he had a say in his seat.

On the way to the site, Carlos laid some knowledge on us that we had yet to hear: 1) there are 9 red lights in all of Belize. I think we’ve put in that many red lights on Hwy 160 in the past 6 months! We encountered only one of them in our entire trip. 2) Instead of red lights Belize is committed to traffic circles and speed humps. Their speed humps are absolutely no joke. If you are going more than 10 mph over these, you’ll likely drop an axle. Carlos called these Belize’s “lazy police” or “tow truck bonuses.” 3) Amish – while not, technically the Amish, are Mennonite’s and here (Central America) to farm in warmer climates than where they are used to farming in the US.

Once there we were quickly whisked into the jungle, provided helmets, harnesses and gloves and found ourselves getting hooked up to the line and said a quick goodbye. We had two great guides for this part of the trip: Glenn and Elroy. Cool and funny and laid back and clearly good at what they did. Plus they were funny. And good picture/video takers. You be the judge. Not only that but they found a cool Toucan for us to see. 6 zips each and a little hiking and climbing in between with one of the zips hitting 35 miles per hour. Super fun time.

ZipCindy!

Not spearmint, Allspice.

ZipCharlie!

Then it was over to the tube area where they were quick to move us out on the hike to the start of the tube – about 20 minutes away and a few river crossings. It seemed like a big group from the coast was heading out so they were eager to get us into the water before that group landed and gummed up the joint. As a group of three, we’re thankful for this – a small reminder, we aren’t cruise people. Not on the ship nor around those who get off the ships. Just not the jam Cindy and I dance to. After 20 minutes we rambled upon a huge rock structure which turned out to be where the cave tubing started. A pretty wide river running underneath a huge mountain/rock structure for roughly 1-2 kilometers. Super relaxing but also not without its surprise. Carlos grabbed us three tubes and then spent 5-10 minutes tying them together. Not exactly what we expected. He also tied his little inner tube to a longer, sturdier rope. Seemed odd. Except when we looked around, all groups of all sizes were being managed the same way. The guide, Carlos in our case, was literally going to guide us through the river. Sometimes he walked beside us, other times he floated in front of us paddling us to the spots in the river he wanted us to be in with his foot, sometimes behind us just floating with us. He was pretty protective of where we were at all times but it was odd on this very slowly flowing river that we had this guide literally guiding us. But cool and peaceful and relaxing. Being in the cave was really neat too. Stalactites and holes and crevasses in the rock. Some holes reaching out to the sunlight and even a few beaches in the cave. Once out of the cave we were roughly halfway through the float and mostly shaded in crystal clear, greenish hued limestone water. We didn’t see anymore toucans but did see two Howler Monkeys sleeping on a branch with their legs and tails hanging over. Pretty darn cool. You’ll have to take our word – we left our phones in the car.

After the rafting we grabbed a local lunch at the depot. Lunch was the traditional “Sunday Lunch of Belize” – rice and beans and chicken for the meat eaters (plantains for the non-meat eaters of which there might be two in this country) with cokes and Orange Fantas. Schweppes and Fantas are everywhere in Belize. Coke nation – we saw almost no Pepsi products. After a quick change into dry clothes and several attempts to make change for a $20 (harder than it should have been) it was back to the Toyota SUV for the ride back to Ka’Ana. At lunch Carlos told us of a pretty terrible travel story he had with our US Customs visiting a friend in the US. While he was allowed in the country, it has him hesitant to make another trip back anytime soon. Sad way to treat people who want to visit our country. Trust me, not a single episode of anything but the kindest people handled us from the start of our trip through the end. What makes us think it’s ok to do that to people who want to visit our country? Shouldn’t we be kind? Welcoming? Proud of where we live? I just don’t get it.

After some relaxing by the pool – a much quieter pool and resort than the prior few days – we readied for our last dinner here – this time at the Guava Limb in San Ignacio. Good food and service. Slightly Americanized – we even saw a family we flew from Miami to Belize with sitting a table away. Truly a small world. After dinner, back in the Chery Tiggo (turns out it’s a hybrid) and off to the resort and shortly after arriving to bed where we finished the second half of a soccer movie we started last night. Another really good day rounding out what was a really great trip.

We failed to take many pictures after the zip lining…so you get this random river picture.

A word about traveling as a threesome. You do feel like you are missing two other important people. But we three are pretty darn good travelers together. I give credit to Charlie – he is a chill and flexible guy who is pretty happy in a variety of settings. We tried to respect his space while making sure we included him in anything we do. Cindy and I travel well together – it’s always been this way – but we aren’t all action and go, go, go. We have a nice flow and Charlie does a really nice job just meshing in with us. He’s a pleasure to spend time with and growing into a kind and thoughtful and fun and funny man. I’m grateful to have this time with him and glad we get to pay him back a bit for dragging him along to all of the events that he was pulled along to when he was much younger. We are really fortunate – something I promise to do more to honor as I age.

A few more pics from our cooking class to finish out pictures from this trip.

The casssava is so grating (can’t get enough of this joke)

Until the next adventure. But for now, back to work.

April 24, 2025 by Jason

Day 3: San Ignacio, Belize – Cooking Class, Cahal Pech

Sacred Mayan Tree spotted on my run down the George Prince Hwy

Today was our day of no planned excursions. A day for kicking back and relaxing. I started it by running 3.5 miles uphill to San Ignacio proper thinking that I’d be bold enough to take a left or right and make a loop back on local roads, but alas, I chickened out. I was the only dude out for a run – that dude shoving my white privilege in the faces of the hard-working locals. While I wanted to run and was happy to be doing it before it heated up, it also felt odd. It’s as if you are running through the local’s town and forgot to put your pants on. Everyone stares and many do a double-take – I couldn’t make out if it was a look filled with “of course you are out for a run” or a look of “why have decided to leave your spot and willingly run somewhere.” Or perhaps: “vacationing cliche.” Either way, I got over it and continued on for roughly an hour but was also glad when I wasn’t the spectacle running down the side of their busiest two-lane highway. I did get a new country on the list of countries I’ve run in. I should write those countries down someday.

When I returned, Charlie was already up and ready so I quickly rinsed off and we left Cindy behind in the room and went for our breakfast. Another morning of oats and a smoothie for me. Charlie got pancakes and wished he had just ordered the FryJack (masa filled with eggs and ham) again. Lesson learned – when in Belize, eat as the Belizian’s do. Masa over buckwheat. I slowly enjoyed the awesome Guatemalan coffee and then asked for another French press of it. Delightful. After breakfast, me and Browner took a slow stroll over to the organic garden where the majority of the veggies for our meals were being grown. It was much larger than I thought it would be. Vegetables of nearly every kind. Apparently the resort grows 95% of their own veggies with only garlic and olive oil being brought in from the outside. Pretty cool and sustainable way to be Ka’Ana.

After our walk, I met Cindy for breakfast and sat with her and enjoyed yet another cup of awesome coffee as we talked about what our day would bring. Mostly up to us – we could make of it what we wanted. Just the way I like my vacations to be. Some schedule is ok. Too much schedule is not ok. We decided to postpone more decisions until we could get over to the pool for some more relaxing. We also performed a bit more science by recording bird sounds and sending them to Cornell again today. It’s nice to be a scientist. More Melodious Blackbirds and a few finches for the sake of science.

From the pool we decided on taking an off-resort adventure led by only us. First to Bennie’s for a lunch of local Belizian fare. Charlie had some kind of beef steak and rice, Cindy some kind of chicken and rice and tortillas and I had beans and rice with plantains and a tostado-like bean mini-pizza. The place was under a roof with about 20 fans blowing air everywhere and of course every flavor of Fanta imaginable plus your Coca-Cola and Coke Zero – never Diet Coke. Branding here isn’t like it is at home. ‘Merica likes their “diet” branding more than the rest of the world.

After Bennies it was back to San Ignacio up to the very topmost point where we took in Cahal Pech – a local Mayan ruin from roughly 1200BC. A ruin with several plazas and a massive, albeit small in comparison, stepped ruin. This ruin was once a small city and gathering space for a relatively elite class of Maya. The ruins were pretty cool. Maze-like at times and some of the rooms or dwellings were ridiculously small and tight and others being vast and expansive. The plazas were also massive but differing in size suggesting that different activities were set for different plazas. We also learned about the ball games that the Mayan played where sometimes the loser was sacrificed, but sometimes the winner was – both considered a high honor in Mayan culture. Probably the most amazing thing about it all was how humans piled up rocks hundreds of feet high that lasted the test of time and now you spend $10/person to walk amongst it. A pretty good deal and a nice way to spend a breezy 90 minutes in history.

Afterwards, it was back to the resort and more poolside sitting and maybe some light napping. Charlie didn’t join us for this afternoon. We later found out that this was due to his fairly severely burned belly. He clearly underestimated his paleness or the sun’s strength or the power of sunscreen when used.

The triangular archways…so very Mayan, am I right?

Then, the highlight of the day. A last minute cooking class that we signed up for at the resort. We’ve done a cooking class before. But within minutes of arriving for this one we realized it would be legit. Two Mayan women, both sisters one was the oldest of their 6 other siblings and one was the 4th. They clearly liked each other and they had also clearly done this class a few times. What did we cook?

We started by taking a fistful of masa and dissolving it in water. Completely dissolved, no lumps. Then we poured that into a hot caldron over an open fire on a clay-built stove (called a Fugor?). This was constantly stirred as it quickly thickened to a porridge and then covered and set aside off of the heat (but near it).
Seasoned beef mix – we took fistfuls of this beef mix and put it into a pan of hot oil and cooked it fully and then added the juices it marinated in and cooked it for another 15-20 minutes. This was then set aside to be used in the tamales.
Next we mixed the vegetarian items (tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, cilantro) and cooked them briefly in hot oil. Setting aside for the veggie tamales.
Then we took another large fistful of masa and added it to water dissolving it again. Once dissolved, we salted and cooked over heat until thickened. Before it set, we took it off the heat and added in the veggies to a portion of the mix. We then took heaping tablespoons of mix and placed into plantain leaves, shaped into a rectangle and then folded the leaf over the mix, rolled tightly, then pinched an end and folded it over, then the other side but adding pressure to the center mix like you squeeze a piping bag or toothpaste tube. That was then set carefully into a pot of very warm water with the other tamales.
We repeated the above until the veggie masa was used and then again for the beef mix – adding to masa, thickening and then rolling in plantain leaves.
Once the tamales were rolled we put them all in the warm water pot, covered and brought it to a light boil where the tamales were slowly steamed. This took 20-35 minutes.
Next we shredded cassava root with the small holes of a grater and then stirred in salt and pepper and added a touch of oil and water and mixed into a ball. We flattened the cassava on a plantain leaf with another leaf over it and pounded it flat and roughly into a round shape. Each was placed on a hot metal sheet (over fire) and cooked until lightly golden on each side.
Lastly, we took masa, added just a little water and worked the dough into a thick, moist ball (not too moist, not too dry). Then we took a pinch of the worked dough (roughly two tablespoons, lightly rolled it and then placed it on a plantain leaf or small plastic circle where I used my left hand to keep the edge neat and shaped and my right hand to slowly press and flatten the dough. This made a tortilla that was about the size of the palm of my hand. They were placed on a flat sheet of metal over the fire and cooked until they looked done. 3-5 minutes per tortilla per side.
Dinner came in four waves: 1) Masa Porridge where we were asked to chew on a molasses cube prior to sipping the porridge out of a clay mug. 2) Appetizer of small tortillas with veggies and Mexican cheese. So, so, good! 3) Tamales! Absolutely amazing. Better than the Johnny Burritos which were the best I had ever had. 4) Rice pudding. Rice and milk with again, that taste of the molasses cube prior to each bite.

Rice going in the pot. Marinated meat bottom left, masa porridge right pot.

These ladies were pretty incredible and shared a nice look into their lives by telling us about their families and what meals mean to them and how happy they are to celebrate their Mayan culture while living in a country as relatively free from conflict as Belize has been in the past many years. They were also very kind and accommodating to us, despite the fact the first few minutes they were much more comfortable addressing Cindy directly than me and Charlie. They warmed up to us over time – but it was an interesting note. A very cool experience – equally as awesome to me as the ATM cave tour but for very, very different reasons. And I got to learn how homemade tortillas are made! You know I’ll be trying this when I get back home.

Belize is interesting. A country with a ton of pride. A country that is very hard working. A country that doesn’t seem to be driven by the attainment of wealth as a singular focus. The distance between rich and poor is small. A country that puts family first. A country that values the heritage of food and its connection to earth. A country that accepts indigenous culture to live alongside cultures of people who immigrated here. Does it shove its poor to the side? No. Are they connected to politics and have differences amongst themselves. Yes. Do they look up to the US? It doesn’t seem as such. We haven’t run into one person here who had plans to visit the US. Not one who complimented us on our model. And we definitely heard stories where they will choose to visit many other countries ahead of the US. This isn’t an idea that formed in the past 4 months either. There are a ton of Chinese-made cars we don’t see in the US here. Most of the large stores are run by folks from China or India. Most of their food does not come from the US. Nor their clothes. The idea that we run the world, simply isn’t the case here. There’s no political bent intended in my words, it’s simply a perspective. A big reason why we travel. These perspectives help you grow and respect more about what you see in the world. A nice privilege. Also some amazing lessons.

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