Enjoying Slovenia

This is the second time I’ve been to Slovenia, and the second time I’m vowing to return. There’s lots of beautiful scenery here — the Dalmatian Sea, caves, lakes, the Julian Alps — and I’ve only scratched the surface. I’m very pleased with my decision to come here rather than spend so much time on trains to visit Poland.

I’m in Bled, which is in northwest Slovenia. It’s actually closer to Austria than to Slovenia’s capitol, Ljubljana, and not far from Italy. I’ve heard lots of languages spoken here — obviously lots of Slavic languages, which my ear cannot distinguish from each other. Also a fair bit of English (from native speakers), Italian and German. And smatterings of Spanish and French. Getting here from Innsbruck took four trains, and just before the last one I met a nice couple form Colorado and it was fun to compare travel notes. 

More specifically, I’m at about 10:00 on Lake Bled (if you pretended it’s a round lake which it definitely is not). The view from my patio is amazing, and I’ve taken way too many pictures from here at different times of day. 

The lake is beautiful. Turquoise water, generally very calm. Lots of boats and paddle boards from mid-morning until sunset each day. And lots of people swimming. Although I haven’t gone swimming in the lake, I did touch it (it’s warm) and successfully skip a stone. 

The very touristy town of Bled (think beach town or ski town) is at about 1:00. I walked there and back on Sunday — walking the mostly downhill 2.7 km to the delicious restaurant that my lodging recommended wasn’t too painful, though it was about double the twenty minutes the hotel staff suggested it would be. However, the uphill return trip while hearing thunder was less than pleasant and even longer (I did walk a back route further away from the lake that just so happened to have a geocache on it). 

The hotel. I rarely talk about my lodging, though I do consider lodging to be be part of the travel experience. I obviously didn’t read the online info in enough detail as I was surprised to learn there’s an indoor pool — the first time this trip I’ve used my bathing suit. I swam both Sunday and Monday evenings and plan to take another dip as soon as I finish writing. The hotel also provides breakfast, and not just a “make your own waffle” meal — it starts with rolls and condiments already on the table and continues with a menu. My cruise companions will be amused to know that I’ve availed myself of the poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and the fruit plate. And of course, the patio with a view. I should also mention that it’s the first land hotel of the trip to have hair conditioner.  For the record, this is far from the most expensive lodging, but this is, after all, Slovenia, not the UK, Switzerland or Austria. 

On Monday I walked the other way (“anti-clockwise”) around the lake, thus effectively completing the circuit by walking about 4.1 km to Bled.

My big tourist experience of the day was taking a traditional boat, or “pletna” to the island Each flat-bottomed boat holds about twenty people, with the oarsman standing on the back rowing with a motion that’s hard to describe and appears to involve more effort removing the oars from the water than the part of the stroke that propels the boat forward. The tradition dates back to 1590, and apparently the people who received less favorable farmland had the right to be oarsmen on the pletnas, with the tradition handed down from generation to generation. 

While on the island, I ascended the 99 steps from the dock to the top but — no surprise here — resisted the urge to (pay to) enter the church. Instead I enjoyed an incredibly tasty chocolate with orange sorbet which is now probably the leading contender for the best sorbet of the trip. 

I was clever enough to take a bus back to the lodging, though couldn’t figure out where it stopped in downtown which meant I had to walk about a kilometer to where I knew there was a stop. A much more pleasant way to ascend to the hotel.

Today I was even more clever, I took a bus “up” to the nearby castle (there might have been a cache there, but I wouldn’t want to incriminate anyone). After admiring the views but not paying to enter the castle, I walked “down” to Bled for more caching activities. I decided to pay for the little tourist train that circles the lake (more or less), and ended up staying on it for about 1.5 loops before getting off near my hotel. 

The plan for the rest of today is to finish some computer chores and organize luggage so that if all goes well I won’t have to open my suitcase again until I reach Berlin. Hard to believe that i have only one more “on my own” stop — Regensburg, Germany — before visiting a college friend and his family in Berlin and then heading to Heidelberg to hang out with “cousins.” And yes, I expect to take more sunset photographs from the deck and perhaps more sunrise pictures tomorrow — I will definitely be awake as I have an early train to Germany. 

Yes, I need to return to Slovenia again, just not sure when that might happen.