sLOVEnia is very cute, interesting, and compact. I would like to return and climb Mt. Trig, drive more of the dirt back roads exploring small towns and fishing, hang out an extra day in Ljubljana, and time it all so I could catch the night train to Budapest. The wine at the guesthouse really was the best, and I would go back and stay there just to drink it again. BUT, as you will see, it turns out that we really really BudaLOVEpest!
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Wednesday 18 July The morning light is soft on the lake and the church on the island glows. I must have taken a hundred photos. A great breakfast later we are ready to hit the day. As of today we have only two weeks to go on our trip. I went over to ride the luge down the mountain. After a few fast runs down the twisty metal rails I got Gail and we drove on to Radovijica, yet another cute old town (this one with an abundance of vowels. It is really hit or miss in this country). Not much there, a church and square, one main street (and of all the towns, I lost Gail here and spent an hour sitting, waiting for her to return). So we got in Punta for our last little ride together. We dropped the car at the airport and took the shuttle into Ljubljana, which Gail informed me, in addition to being the capital of CutieLOVEnia, is the safest big city in the world. I am doubly not impressed with Thrifty/Dollar car rental here. There was not even anyone in the office to hand over the car to, we asked next door at the EuropCar place and they said to just drop the paperwork and key in a box. I am sticking with EuropeCar or auto Europe next time. Never any question or screw ups with them. The shuttle dropped us at the train station and I tried to buy our tickets on the night train to Budapest. Unfortunately the night train, which on the official web site runs only on Saturday and Thursday (tomorrow)), in reality only runs Wednesdays. That is today. I am triple-bummed. So now we are forced into a nine hour day train tomorrow, second, I still have not had the fun experience of sleeping on a night train with dining car, and third it cuts a day off our stay here in Ljubljana. Crap. We end up for lunch at the oldest building in the city, a restaurant called Abecedarium. Something about the first book published, old library, oldest building... Anyway it was ok but nothing special. We spent the afternoon and evening cramming in two days worth of wandering, which forces us to skip out on all the fun café sitting, wine drinking and people watching. It is a beautiful little city, with a very interesting and colorful town center. There are three pedestrian bridges right next to each other in a fan shape, leading from a main square surrounded by churches and cool old buildings, and leading to a wide street and the other main square with an obelisk, huge cathedral and more impressive buildings. The bridges span a canal lined with tall, colorful buildings and weeping willow type trees, in a way it sort of looks like a mix of an Amsterdam canal with a Seine river boat coming down it. Lots of statues and public art everywhere, little squares, every kind of cafe from old to modern wine bar, very pedestrian friendly area with shops. And, as you would expect, there is a castle overlooking it all. We ended up eating dinner at a nice wine bar (no tables after we showed up, and so people just sat around on the steps of the piazza.) where we had a couple tapas, a couple glasses of wine, after which we were fortified to wander the streets at night. We listened to a few street performers play, admired the lights, then headed off around midnight:thirty. Tomorrow we head to Budapest. Tuesday 17 July Slept great last night; the first cool evening of the trip and it is so dark and quiet here. We have a hay meadow and creek out our window, the meadow is surrounded by dark green fir and pine. There are deer in the meadow this morning. I took a walk and noticed the beehives are painted up all cute, turns out it is a Slovenian tradition. I went down to drink coffee while Gail got ready, then we had a great breakfast, including muesli and jogurt again! Our friendly innkeeper sent me off with another half litre of red wine, poured into a hastily emptied water bottle. I will have no trouble with my blood today! Today we will be driving back roads through the hills and mountains of Slovenia, hoping to cross the pass by Mt. Triglav. We set out OK but after an hour we are on a dirt, one lane road, bumping along some really beautiful places, but I'll be damned if I can find these one house "villages" on Google maps. We are way out in the country now, going slow on what is like a dirt logging road but is signed 604, so I about know where we might be. Sort of. This is turning into a cool adventure. Over a one lane bridge, up and over a pass, then winding down, down what is like a logging road. After an hour we drop into a town, admire the river, stand on the bridge watching the fishermen, grab drinks and follow a paved road again, going on. So we head kind of blindly north, eventually crossing the road we want, then following the amazingly smoky mint-green Soča River. The valley starts wide but narrows until eventually the Soča is roaring through a narrow slot canyon, but it never loses that amazing color. The Slovenia flag has a three peaked mountain on it, with three way lines at the base. The wavy lines are this river, the mountain is Mt. Trig. Through little towns, each with cute little church steeples, cute houses with cute red roofs set in cute fields... in fact, Slovenia is just so damn cute everywhere, it makes my eyeballs hurt. We need the sound of music soundtrack. One valley we head down and see a sign, the world famous Lipizzaner stallions are bred here. Huh. We stop and look, see just goats, but just as we walk back to the car, on cue, some magnificent white horses walk out of the woods to pose for a few photographs. Suddenly, on cue, they all gallop away over the hill. As the river narrows, there are these suspension bridges across it, we stop so I can go out and bounce on one. Eventually we start to wind up the mountain, the valley has narrowed and now we are heading out the head, switchbacking up the face of Trig. The switchbacks pile up on one another, you can look back down on three, four, five of them; the corners are paved with cobblestones for traction, and every switchback is numbered and the elevation noted. One thousand metres, two thousand, switchback number 33, 46… there are fifty all together. We top the pass and, of course, there is a café (hut) on top so we park and admire the views over a glass of wine and ham & cheese panini. Eventually we wind down, down through more cuteness, more single rack hayracks, happily painted beehives, green forests until we see the signs for Lake Bled, our destination. Lake Bled is the single most visited destination in Slovenia, so it really must be something special in a beautiful country. Slovenia tourism ads capitalize on the middle letters, like this: sLOVEnia Oh yea. I LOVE Slovenia. We sLOVEnia. But then again, I also croLOVEatia and turLOVEkey and monteLOVEnegro. So, we get to Lake Bled and it is like a fairy tale. There is this church with massive steps on an island in the middle of the lake. There is a castle on a cliff high over the lake, and a white, tall-steepled church at the base of the cliff. There are a few beaches around the lake as well, and the town, motels and pensions are all clustered at one end. We walk the four or five kilometres around the lake (nice path) which takes us past sunset, then we go to dinner. It is a great dinner: Gail's vegetable platter was beautifully done and tasted great, while I had breaded trout (from the lake) and pork in mushroom sauce. Gail had a half litre white wine, I had a half red, and we wrapped up the evening with dessert: fresh blue, rasp- and strawberries! Maybe I do sLOVEnia! Monday 16 July The sun is out, a stiff breeze off the ocean, it feels good to walk in the rising sun before breakfast. Breakfast today at the hotel was fantastic. "Jogurt" and granola, eggs with cheese and bacon, prosciutto, ham, fruit, juice, croissants, unlimited coffee and cappuccino. We are off to a good start. We head out of town for a day in the hills and karst country. First stop: Skocjan Cave. It is famous because it has the largest underground canyon in Europe. It is pretty amazing, not for any particular stalactite or formation, but just for the sheer size of the cave. A big chamber leads into a huge chamber leads into gigantic chamber leads into the largest chamber you can imagine! The next chamber holds the canyon and river and I call it the "OMG" chamber. I mean we cross a bridge waaaaayyyy down in this chamber that is still about 150 feet (50 metre) above a waterfall that in the river. Standing at one end of this chamber the lighted path goes on and on, down and up, around curves, clinging to sheer cliffs halfway up the chamber until it just kind of fades away and disappears in the distance, what? a kilometer away? Also amazing is to see the ruins of the first bridge, steps and platforms, all hand built with rock by torchlight in the early 1800s. Flowstone and stalagmite wise it is not great, but the size is breathtaking enough to be another UNESCO site. Next we went to Predjama Castle, a castle built into a cave mouth. We have seen a lot of castles the past three years, and are a little jaded, but this was pretty interesting and spectacular just for the "gee whiz" factor. Enough so that we decided to take a break from hustling around and sit on the café patio with a glass (or two, once we find out the price is €1 per glass) to enjoy the view for an hour. We were fascinated by these tree seeds that twirl like maple seeds, but more like helicopters because they can even fly up in the breeze. The seed itself hangs from a flat leaf above and they just fly by. After we stirred ourselves from our reverie, we drove 10km to Postojna Cave, famous as the largest and most visited show cave in Europe. They put a train in it in 1872, and we got to ride it 2km into the deep interior of the cave. This cave was the best I have ever seen as far as the formations. Now that is saying something. Think of the devastation caused by building the railroad, running in diesel trains, building 5km of concrete trail with drainage, putting in all the lighting, staircases, thousands of people a day for over 150 years now, tourist facilities (even bathrooms and a café), all that destruction and still the formations are amazing. There are too many to believe. Oh, and they have this silly rule about not taking photos (which everyone, I mean everyone, ignored) as if, after all I mentioned above, grabbing megapixels is going to cause irreparable damage? Really. It's about the money. Anyway it was an excellent cave. So around 18:00 we headed to our lodging, a working farm (agritourismo). What a great room looking over a green meadow with creek, bordered by pine forests and backed by mountains. I could live here. For €66 we get the room, breakfast and dinner tonight. Dinner was fantastic, beef so tender I did not use a knife, cauliflower soup, veggies, bread and cake. The red wine was one of the best I have ever had, and we were given an extra half litre to take to our room. Our host explained that it is the best wine. "The father of my husband, he has a litre every day. He is of the 89 years and has no trouble with the blood sugars or the badness (cholesterol). Here. Drink!" I like this family. So I make sure to follow the “litre-a-day” advice. Turns out she and her husband have ten kids. In summer they help with the farm, other times they hire help. His parents live in one house on the farm and still work, his mom is 87 and survived Ravensbrük camp (In fact I run into her out at the beehives the next morning, tending her bees. She showed me the sting marks when she gathered honey). The hell of Ravensbrük to here, a little slice of heaven. I can see why they never left. What a fantastic day. Sunday, 15 July 15 July, 2012. Today I turn 53, a milestone for me. My dad died when he was 52. All year I have thought of that, and today I am happy to report I have outlived him. A relief. Well, it will be after 9:00 when it officially turns into the 15th in California. Better stay safe till then. To top it off, yesterday I found the holy grail of truffle pasta. There it is, one of the major accomplishments of my life. For some reason I am not very hungry this morning, so a cappuccino alone does the trick. I dump the remaining kuna paying for the apartment, so we are heading out broke. It is surprisingly easy to get to the Slovenia border. It seemed like our little mountain town was way inland, but we were by the Adriatic in about ten minutes, at the border ten minutes after that. Leaving Croatia they barely glanced at our passports, waving us to keep rolling on even as I was attempting to stop. But, half a kilometer later, Slovenia was very strict in comparison; I actually had to stop at the stop sign and wait all of five seconds while he stamped it. As far as checking them as ID he did glance at the cover. "Mr. United States, welcome!” I wanted to point out that perhaps they should inquire if I stole the car? Or perhaps look to see if we had a kilo of drugs in the trunk. Weapons? But no, we were waved on in. At this point I am wondering how it will go when we re-enter the US. "So, I see you departed Croatia but never actually entered, is that correct?" I can only hope they don’t turn to the page with the Albanian stamp on it… I’ll have some ‘splainin to do. Piran is just over the border, an old town on a narrow point sticking out in the ocean. You can actually see the buildings in Triest, Italy from here. It is all so close. We drop our stuff at the hotel (A real hotel today, big, all the fancy amenities and stiff price, curiously no WiFi, but a great shower to make up for it, and none of the quaint, personal service we love. It reminds us why we love the little pensions and guesthouses we stay at.). As we walk, it is windy, cool, dark and cloudy. Rain? But it is just a tease, by noon it is sunny and hot. Green noodles with salmon and gorgonzola for lunch. We start to plan for the beach when storm clouds blow in and everyone empties off the beach, so we go hike up to the church and castle (great view) where... the sun comes out and wind dies. We head down to the beach, but as we round the last corner we are almost blown off our feet, the clouds gather, huge waves crash in... and so it goes. We never end up at the beach, but we do discover a lot of little nooks and crannies in town. Up onto the old fortress walls for a great view over the city, then winding our way down through covered walkways in town. Out to the point of the town, where a church with an octagonal bell tower guards against the waves, whimsical figures carved into the stones of the breakwall. We pass a pleasant hour at Danoi Bar, drinking wine and using the free WiFi. Later we find a hidden square, small corner cafe, just the sort of local hide-away place we love to eat… and have the worst meal of our entire trip. Ugh. Just plain awful. We have had such good luck with these back alley places too. The sad part is, I can still smell the truffles from yesterday, like the oil has permeated my nose, or skin. Gail says I smell like truffles too. So we sat on our little patio, watching the sun set, and I had a beer and pistachios as we watched a movie on my iPod, and the people walking by. |
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