Distance: 167km
Elevation: 557m
Yesterday had been a planned break day to get some work done. I left my studio once for shopping and had a number of calls and worked on some projects.
While my brain was working, my body could relax a little. So the next day, I was eager to get into the saddle again. By 7:30am I was on the road.
It was about 8° and cloudy in the morning, so I was putting on all my layers of clothes. By lunchtime, the sun came out, the first time for four days it felt. It was amazing!
I was headed east to reach the Iron Curtain Trail. I had met this second longest EuroVelo already twice. Once 2021 at the North Cape, which is very close to the start of this trail in Kirkenes.
And in 2020 I followed this trail for almost 1.000 km from Boltenhagen by the Baltic Sea to Hof in Bavaria.
This trail follows the former demarcation line between the two dominant political systems during the Cold War.
The route was almost totally flat with one heavy climb in the first part. Here I had to push Rosinante uphill for 1 km.
Around 11am, I was ready for a break in Makole. I stopped by a little bar that would play traditional Austrian folk music. It made me smile. They only served drinks, so I had a good coffee. The owner spoke a little German and was very friendly. He asked about my tour. A little later, Joseph came by.
He was 80 years old, but looked 60. He had left Yugoslavia in 1968, a year before I was born. In order to get a passport he went to the army because that was the only way to leave Yugoslavia legally back then.
Joseph talked about how Yugoslavia under Tito was a dictatorship. There were pictures of the leader everywhere, and if there was the slightest suspicion that you did not worship or even damaged one of them you could go to jail for up to two years. that had happened to a friend of him, which was one of the reasons he had decided to leave the country. 
He had worked in Germany for 50 years in the area of Stuttgart. He talked to me about his life here and how it was to be back after so many decades away in a foreign country. Of course, he had become very German along the way. He was back for 5 years now and still found it hard to reintegrate. He found the horizon of his fellow citizens was smaller than he could stand.
For example there were talks about Slovenia leaving NATO amongst people in the village. He couldn’t fathom such a thought given the present circumstances of the war in Ukraine. 
I was sharing how I loved cycling in Slovenia and how tidy it was and how hard-working its people were. He replied “yes, but they only do it for themselves, not for the country.” 
He invited me to his home, but it was a bit too early for me and I had more miles to cover. So we said farewell and I cycled on.
A couple of kilometers later, I bumped into a cycling family. Romain and Clara with their three daughters Zoé, Lou and Maëlle. The youngest was 4, the oldest 9 years old.
They had been cycling for 10 months from Paris to southern Greece and were now on their way back. On their way up North they had taken the Iron Curtain Trail and I got some very helpful information about the road conditions to be expected.
They would cycle for 40 to 50 km per day and would also do homeschooling with their kids since they were not in school. What a great learning experience that must’ve been for all of them. 
They all looked so beautiful, healthy and happy.
They typically camped outside even in the winter. Romain mentioned that they had had some very cold nights of -8°. I felt like a wimp because I would look for a hostel to stay if it was below +10° and a bit rainy.
I would’ve loved to spend more time with them and chat. They were truly inspirational. As we parted ways, they gave me a sandwich. They had been given 20 or so the day before and had just too much left. I was very grateful and excepted that farewell gift.
For the rest of the day, I coasted alongside the beautiful river Druba. In the early afternoon, I reached the border to Croatia.
I cycled on to Varazdin, a larger town in Eastern Croatia. From here on, it became very lonely. I was now in the border area to Hungary and there were no more villages or major infrastructure.
I found a gas station to top up my supplies for dinner. I asked the owner for directions to a campsite and the friendly lady pointed me to a little lake a bit more south.
After half an hour, I reached the place. There were no signs and only with a bit of cycling around, I would find the entrance to the lake.
There were some trailers, loosely scattered around the shore of the lake. It all looked very self organized and resembled a similar campsite that I had found on Vancouver Island when I was crossing Canada.
I asked one of the campers if it was OK for me to spend a night here and if I had to pay something. We could hardly communicate with words, but with handsigns and a lot of goodwill we agreed that it was OK for me to stay for one night. They were very friendly and waved at me as they left for the night. 
The sun was already going down, so I hurried up to set up tent, wash myself and prepare dinner.
There were a lot of mosquitoes as it was getting dark. By 9 PM I was in bed.
What a great day that had been! Thank you, dear God, for these experiences.