ljubljana,  Slovenia

September 1, 2019  

We left Portland two days ago; it took us 22 hours to get here. Slovenia is beautiful! I had no idea that we'd see such beautiful mountains, but Robin explained to me that they were the Julian Alps. Anyway, we rode to the hotel with a female taxi driver about our age that was texting while driving. She also must have said "Jesus Christ!" ten times on the drive to the city center... and she wasn't saying it because she was religious.

Because the whole Old Town area is a car-free zone, she dropped us off a few blocks away from our centrally located Best Western.

It was quite hot, so we immediately changed into shorts and headed out for food. We both felt quite groggy, Robin got maybe an hour of sleep and I (miraculously) got about three and a half. (Since when did I start sleeping AT ALL on planes?) So we split a burger at one of a thousand outdoor cafes.

About Ljubljana... love it! The buildings are very old, with cobblestone streets running in every direction. Plus it’s extremely clean.

Although we had every intention of heading back to our hotel to sleep after dinner, we ran across an outdoor concert. The band was from Israel, with a cellist, guitar player, a drummer and a lead singer that sang in Arabic. I loved his voice; I could have listened to him all night. We sat there in the dark with hundreds of others far longer than I thought we would considering we'd been traveling for 22 hours.

September 2, 2019  

The breakfast at the hotel was amazing! It was far better than the crappy breakfasts included in any Best Western in the US.

We wanted to get an early start because Robin had read that it was great to get out as early as possible to get pictures of the streets and buildings before the thousands of people showed up. We did, and it was well worth it! Many of our photos didn't have a single person in them.

After our photo shoot, we had planned to walk up the hill to Ljubljana Castle before it got too hot. Unfortunately, it was already too hot for me. At the top, I had to sit for a very long time to cool down. Although it certainly was a nice view, I felt it hardly worth the climb to the top. 

At 10am, we did a free walking tour. Here are some of the things we learned:

• Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia consisted of six different languages, six different cultures and many different religions. They even had different alphabets.
• Almost all Slovenians voted for independence in 1991. Thankfully, their Balkan War only lasted 10 days. However, 67 people did die in those ten days.
•  In 2016, Ljubljana was named the green capital of Europe.
• University is free.
• Government is center-left.

After a massive 1895 earthquake, Ljubljana was rebuilt in Art Nouveau style. This famous pink church was actually red; it’s just faded now.

I love this building! It was one of the few buildings that didn’t get destroyed in the earthquake. Not sure the style...?

This is called the Triple Bridge. Originally, the middle bridge was for cars and the bridges on either side were for pedestrians. But since all of Old Town is now car-free, all three are pedestrian bridges.

A very expressive sculpture of an anguished Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden.

Ljubljana is known as Dragon City. There are many theories about why. (Too many to list)

This door at the Ljubljana Cathedral tells a story. The very top was about the visit from Pope John Paul. Underneath the three men you can see the people with their backs turned. This was about the dark history of the 20th Century with two World Wars and the Balkans War.

Oh no!! No farmers market today... how will Robin survive?

Part of the market is housed in a very, very long building that has many stalls. You can see that this particular stall sells horse meat.

This is how long the market building is... and I couldn't even get all of it in one photo!

After the walking tour, we had an excellent lunch at Robba.

The wooden boat cruise was a bit lame. Ten euros each for a 45 minute cruise down the Ljubljicija river. They didn’t narrate a single word. The best part was that there was a nice cool breeze to end a very hot day.

Lake Bled, Slovenia

 September 2, 2019
          We were running too far behind to take our $8 bus ride to Lake Bled, so we ended up having the hotel order a $55 taxi instead. We had a very talkative nice-looking young guy that drove quite fast. We weren't ten minutes into the drive when he wanted to talk about Donald Trump. He said that every single day they talk about Trump on the Slovenian news stations.  He said all the Americans he's driven around  hate Trump, except for only one man. Our driver also dislikes Trump because he only cares about his money and he doesn't care one bit about the rest of the world. Apparently, the majority of Slovenians don't think much of Melania either.
           We weren't able to check in to our guesthouse yet since we arrived so early. Because it's supposed to be stormy after 1pm, we immediately headed out to walk around the lake. Robin wanted to first walk up to some very high viewpoint, then walk back down to the lake (4-mile trip) then another 25-30 floors up to the top of the castle. All before 1pm. Thankfully, I nixed the viewpoint because 15 minutes after we barely finished the castle walk it started to pour.

The lake is an absolute idyllic paradise! No motorized boats are allowed, so tour companies row the tourists out on wooden boats. The church on the small island has a bell that rings constantly; supposedly it brings good luck.

The path up to the castle was another grueling walk, mostly because of the 85% humidity. Thankfully, the sun wasn't out or else I would have keeled over.

However, this time, the views were definitely worth it!

View out the gift shop window!

The land views were equally amazing.

Afterwards, we stopped at a lakeside restaurant minutes before it started to pour. We huddled under a giant umbrella trying to eat lunch and not get too wet. (See how red my face is still from the walk). Thankfully, we brought umbrellas in our backpack. On our way back to the guesthouse, we passed many people that were soaked to the bone.

Because our room still wasn't ready, we walked down to an indoor coffee shop that supposedly has the best kremma rezina in Lake Bled. It's a very light cream cake that Lake Bled is known for, and you absolutely cannot leave town without trying it. It is quite light and airy!

Finally, we were able to check into our fantastic guesthouse. Because it was rumbling in the mountains and the sky was black, we stayed in our room for a few hours. It was really kind of nice hanging out in this very unique 300-year-old farmhouse. We actually have two bedrooms, a hallway, a dining room table, and a large patio. Everything is made of wood. I really enjoyed having the windows and doors wide open with the smell of rain drifting through.

The larger bedroom with the dining table.

The smaller bedroom.

This was our outdoor patio. Unfortunately, we never used it because anytime we were at the guesthouse it was raining.

             ​ It turns out the lock on our door was broken, and they had two workers in our hallway trying to fix it for well over an hour. It never did get fixed, so we are sleeping with no lock tonight, as well as leaving it unlocked while we are gone all day tomorrow. But Slovenia is supposedly one of the safest countries in the world. Robin and I walked around several times last night in Ljubljana through very dark parks with hooded silhouettes on park benches. But instead of being nefarious characters, they were older couples and families with kids. God knows it is scary enough walking through a public park in Portland in the daytime, let alone at night.

We ended up just walking around downtown Lake Bled after the rain finally quit. The town has a strong Bavarian influence. Not a lot to do, but the restaurants were quite packed. There is some extremely important forum going on here today.

There were police on many corners directing traffic while several black Mercedes escorted by multiple police cars and sirens went flying by. This happened several times with several different motorcades. Apparently, it's the Prime Minister of Slovenia, as well as other presidents from neighboring countries. While it seemed a bit light on tourists today, the little town hasn't been light on people.

Both bedroom windows overlook an outdoor kitchen. There has been a single chef out there cooking all night for a packed dining room inside. They'd be using the outdoor patio below our window if it wasn't drizzling. The menu is prix fixe and quite expensive. I doubt we will be eating here at all, but it's nice to have the smell of food right out our windows.

Here is what the kitchen and the patio looks like in the daytime.

Because it was raining, they used this indoor seating area. I took this photo in the morning when it was set up for breakfast.

Triglav National forest, slovenia

September 3, 2019
          A wonderful day! We met our guide, Mitja, at 8am for our 7 Alpines tour. Luckily, we were the only ones on the tour. Mit was in the 2018 Olympics as a biathlete (cross country skier and sharpshooter). He did a great job for us; my only complaint was that his small car was not conducive to seeing scenery if you were the person in the backseat. Because Robin tends to get carsick (at one point we did fifty switchbacks), that person was me.

We spent the majority of the day going in and out of Triglav National Park. We learned some interesting things... No camping, no campfires, and no picking flowers. Also, no drones in Triglav because Chinese tourists were causing problems with them. Our first stop was at a valley with fantastic views. As we were walking up, a herd of cows ran toward us. Just when I was taking a picture of them one decided to mount the other.

One of my favorite places we visited was Pericnik Falls. To get there, we walked up a very gnarly tree-rooted path with slippery gravel after last night’s downpour. You can walk behind the falls but you will get wet. The water is so pure that you can drink it.

During the course of the long day, we stopped at many different streams and lakes. The reason that the water is so aqua blue-green is because of the limestone underneath. Even though these various bodies of water were hours away from each other, the water was always the same blue-green color.

Robin ventured off into the grassy area to get a photo. There was NO way I was going because.....

Poisonous snakes!

Does it get more gorgeous than this?

Nothing special about this lake, except we had crossed the border and were now in Italy.

We stopped for lunch in a small town.

At the time of this photo, I had no idea that the entire rest of the trip would be filled with schnitzel and potatoes!

I'm not really sure who this woman was that filleted Robin's fish.

The road we traveled throughout Triglav Forest was built by Russian prisoners from WWI. Approximately ten thousand of them died in the process… either in avalanches, by disease, or other accidents. Because so many died, they now have have a Russian chapel along the road to honor them. The cobblestone part of the road is the original road.

Throughout the afternoon, we came across what they called mountain “huts". These large buildings are similar to hostels and can accommodate up to 180 people. While there are some private rooms available, most people sleep in very large rooms with multiple beds. Only one hut is open year-round because the high mountain road is closed in the winter. Time to use the bathroom!

Our next stop was a gorge with a river running through it.

Many people were enjoying the warm September day.

A very bouncy wooden bridge.

The last stop of our 8-hour day was ANOTHER blue-green limestone lake.

We thoroughly enjoyed our long day with Mit on the 7 Alpines tour!

After we were dropped off, we had enough time to take one of the boats out to the church on the island. Not one person is looking at the beautiful scenery.

Of course, more stairs!

For dinner, we had salads and cheese bread so we could save room for dessert. On the recommendation of Mit, we ordered another favorite Slovenian dessert called prekmurska gibanica. It was downright awful and we ended up ordering a completely different dessert since they were both only $3. (One thing about money here... I feel like prices are all over the map. Transportation is hugely expensive, like 50 euros. Our lunches have been nearly $50 bucks. But then we went to the grocery store and bought 3 coke zeros, 3 sparking waters, two large flat waters, crackers, cheese and dental floss and it was $11!)

September 4, 2019  

Had a very simple breakfast at our fabulous guesthouse of meat and cheese with very hard rolls. Probably our only complaint about this wonderful guesthouse was this too-simple $9 breakfast. Now on to Sarajevo!