FROM INNSBRUCK TO BLED
Well, the journey to Bled in the Julian Alps region of Slovenia was definitely interesting. After jumping on and off trains at various tiny stations through the south of Austria (sometimes with only minutes to spare), we found ourselves, 6 hours later, at a tiny train station in the mountains, overlooking a beautiful lake. Unfortunately, it was about 4km to the town and our hire car pick up place, and not a taxi in sight. By this time it was about 5:30pm on Easter Sunday. Karina finally convinced the scary station man to call a taxi in return for 1 euro. The taxi finally came and we were very relieved to find ourselves at the
Europcar Office in Bled. Until we found out that it was closed and there was no one there. But after a few phone calls, and thanks to a few very friendly Slovenians, we discovered that the lovely man from
Europcar had driven to the
other station in Bled to pick us up and had been waiting there! So he came back, and we got our car, so it all worked out in the end.
REKA HISAWe drove to our lovely little guest house right on the river, called
Reka Hisa (River House), run by an English man and Filipino lady. From our bedroom window we had a beautiful view of the river. Every evening we had a fabulous home-cooked dinner, sitting around the big dining room table with all the other guests (3 other couples, comprising 3 Australians, a French girl, and English guy and a South African girl). The hosts were also amazingly helpful in helping us plan our time in Bled. If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, you can`t go past
Reka Hisa for hospitality.
WHAT WE DID AND SAW
The first morning after we arrived, we drove through about a million impossibly narrow streets (or maybe they were actually just footpaths) through lots of little villages, to get to the breathtaking
Vintgar Gorge. The Gorge had a beautiful crystal clear river running through it, and we spent an hour
walking along the footbridge through the Gorge.
We then drove down some even narrower country roads, in to the middle of the Julian Alps. The mountains were just beautiful, still lots of snow around, we saw lots of skiers, and Karina and Simon helped a guy to push his car out of the snow where it had gotten bogged. We spent the afternoon in Bled, which is becoming a fairly
boutiquy resort town, and was full of Italian tourists who had popped across the border for the Easter long weekend.
We had lunch at a restaurant called
Okarina (where Karina thinks she saw Heather Mills), and took a boat trip out to the island in Lake Bled (and passed another boat full of people singing in perfect harmonies) to have a look at the old church (where Simon`s inner child had great fun ringing the church bell).
The next day, we drove to the less touristy Lake
Bohinj, and went for a big walk, then had a giant platter for lunch by the lake, with one of the couples we were staying with at
Reka Hisa. In the afternoon, after pushing another van out of some gravel that it had gotten bogged in, we braved the (very tame) rapids of the
Sovec River and went white water rafting. It was just us and the instructor, so it was a good introduction to rafting, and we hope to do it again some day with a bigger group and bigger rapids! Simon jumped off a bridge 7 metres above the river, and we both went swimming in the water which was FREEZING.
FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA
On our last day in Bled, we sadly said goodbye to
Reka Hisa, and drove the car on to a train for a journey through the mountains. Out the other side, we drove through the vineyard area of
Slovenia on the way to see some caves, but when we got to the caves, we decided to ditch that plan, and headed for the beach instead!
So we had seafood for lunch in
Piran, got our first glimpse of the Mediterranean, and pondered the fact that we had left snow and the mountains only 3 hours earlier. After an ice cream, we hopped in the car again and drove to Ljubljana (
Slovenia`s capital).
After the stress of getting rid of our hire car, we went in search of a nice bar for a calming drink. We found ourselves on the bank of the Ljubljanska river with all the hip and happening people of Ljubljana, all enjoying the beautiful afternoon at the many trendy bars. We managed to snaffle one of the high tables right on the river wall, so had a fantastic vantage point to people-watch.
Our two nights in Ljubljana were spent in an old military prison that had been converted into a very colourful youth hostel and art gallery. Our cell had a double bed above the door and two small, barred windows looking out over a sea of graffiti. On our first night we enjoyed an excellent pizza from their cafe, and we both coped with the first shared bathrooms of the trip (although at 3am, we coped less well with the noisy bar next door).
For our first full day in the city, we we walked all over the inner city, looking at all the sites on the tourist map. We saw a pink church, the Triple Bridge, the Cobblers Bridge, the Mother-in-Laws' Bridge (officially know as the Dragon Bridge), Ljubljana Castle, the open markets, and generally soaked up the atmosphere of this fascinating city. Karina also got to finally go shopping!
That evening we went on a river cruise, and then loitered around a wonderful river-side restaurant until a table became free. The next morning we checked out the National History Museum, the Natural History Museum (or 'Bug World' as Karina had been calling it), and the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum, before hopping on our train to Croatia.
