Half an hour ago at a campsite near Bovec in Slovenia a couple walking their dog gave me an enquiring look as I was putting up my tent. I smiled a hello. “You are a long way from home,” they said in English, pointing to the GB sticker on the back of my motorcycle. And it was true, I was feeling a long way from home in more ways than one. I crossed the border from Slovenia just five hours ago and I already feel overwhelmed by this place: by the sheer beauty of it, by the slow and easy pace of life here and by the unaffected kindness of the people. After the interminable commercial landscapes of Northern Italy, I was completely unprepared for this. I've spend the last three days in Udine, in the Italian province of Friuli. This was unexpected, an enforced break following a minor accident on the bike in which I cracked a rib. I don't think it's a serious injury, but it was painful, and while the muscles around the bone were spasming it was dangerous to ride. The spasms haven't entirely stopped, but they are a lot better and this morning I decided to carry one with the journey. I headed east, across the valley floor towards the distant mountains on the Slovenian border. I had no idea until now that mountains could be so varied. These borderlands are a world of near vertical crags and steep-sided valleys, so quiet, it was like entering a fable. All the stresses of the last few days began to dissolve, as the peace and silence of these mountains sank deeply into me. At some point on this journey, I crossed the Italian-Slovenian border. The border here is an entirely social entity, existing somewhere into the law books of various government bodies and in the minds of the modern robber barons they represent. It is marked in physical reality only by a sign that welcomed me, in various languages, to Slovenia. There were no guards, no border post, nothing - just a sign. At first, the slow pace of life here was not apparent as there was no one to be seen. The grassy meadows and sunny hillsides, the towns and roads were entirely deserted for kilometer after kilometer. The only cars I saw had Italian registration plates. And I saw only one old man on a motor mower. And yet the effects of human ordering of the land are everywhere. When at last I did at last arrive at a town, a mountain-sport centre with a heady buzz to it, full of outdoor types, brimming with health and fitness, it came as an almost physical shock. It was here, that I realised that in crossing over an unmarked border, I had taken a further step outside my comfort zone. Leaving England for France required only minor adjustments. I can get buy quite nicely in French. Italian poses few problems for someone who knows English and French and learned Latin as a schoolboy. But with the change from a romance to a slavic vocabulary, a change I had anticipated but not prepared for, I was lost. Nothing was familiar, and my few words of Russian were of little use. For someone like me with serious allergies who has to know in detail what he is ordering or buying, that makes life complex and potentially fraught with difficulties. My new smartphone with its translation ap, was a useful though tedious tool, helping me to understand ingredients labels on processed foods, but I got through this first social problem thanks, rather, to the natural friendliness of the people. On explaining my dietary needs to the owner of a bar serving food, she told me that unfortunately they could not be met. All her sandwiches came pre-made with cheese. (The Italian influence in this border town is still strong.) But then, to my surprise, she then suggested that I take a trip over to the supermarket opposite, buy something to make some sandwiches. I could then bring everything back to the bar and assemble and eat it at her tables – an offer I duly accepted. Without being asked, she then produced a pair of scissors, so that I could open a packet of smoked salmon, I’d bought. Such eager and unforced kindness is something I’m frankly not used to. I was moved to mention it to her when I left and offered her my appreciation. I'm beginning to understand just how dependent on the kindness of strangers a solo traveller actually is. ‘Oh it’s just my job,’ she said with as laugh, which is true, of course, but the same is also true of bar owners the world over who might learn a thing or two about regaining the human values the commerical motive has crushed out of them. She added though, “And I like to talk and be kind’ which I suspect came closer to the underlying reality. And it was a truth I found to be repeated several times more in my short time here. As the mountains grew higher and more elegant by the minute, and the beautiful and empty twisting roads of Slovenia drew me further into this unexpected land, I had several other encounters of this kind, from the shopkeeper who offered me a naïve kind of temporary friendship for ten minutes when I went to buy a bottle of water in his shop, to the camp-site attendant, who returned to me unbidden several times with bits of useful information because he wanted to make sure I had a good night. There is a kind of grace to people here that I have not met elsewhere. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. The cracked rib has had unexpected consequences. It made me slow down. I've always understood that all journeys really take place inside, but I now know that to make a journey it is not the same as to travel. Staying put can be part of the experience too. 'No hurry; in your own time' seems to be a common phrase here.' I've always been slow to do things. I need to recognise that is my pace and be true to it.