Cycling out of Schengen

How small is Slovenia? Well, from capital Ljubljana you can ride your bike to each of its neighbouring countries in a day.

Part 2: Croatia, 72 kilometres
Check out the route here: https://www.strava.com/activities/388403226

The elevated landscape of the Bloke plateau and neighboring Lož Valley resemble a green sea where meadows and forested hills come in waves. In the fields small settlements float like ships, their walls painted white and roofs red. It’s a vast green landscape where the wind whispers through the trees and the time seems to tick slower than elsewhere.
The area has been inhabited since prehistory but since the Middle Ages the settlements stopped growing. The old market town of Stari Trg is the biggest settlement with 842 inhabitants. Here and there abandoned and decaying houses stand along the road enhancing the impression that human presence here is, despite its long history, marginal and temporary.
One road connects the villages leading over the undulating fields, through the forests and over the hills. It slowly rises towards the south to its highest point of 772 metres, just before the border with Croatia. It’s already past noon on Wednesday when I pass the border by bike and ride out of the Schengen area.

The Prezid Schengen border between Croatia and Slovenia on Wednesday 9 September 2015. Not all Schengen border crossings in the South of Europe are swarmed by refugees.

In front of the empty buildings of furniture maker Finvest Corp in the Croatian village Prezid stands a machine. It seems to be out of order and that’s all I can tell about it.

Toni Bar in Babno Polje. Sometimes a car passes by, sometimes a tractor, sometimes a truck, sometimes a motorcycle and sometimes even a cyclist. But most of the times, nothing.