Day 67: Bled, Ljubljana day-trip

I love how within the small land mass that is Europe, there are so many different countries and cultures. This entirely contrasts with the fairly homogeneous U.S. And yet, with all their differences, there is still an overall "European feel".

Slovenia is apparently the size of my "home state", NJ, but with only one quarter of NJ's population. (NJ is supposedly the densest US state in terms of population though.) We've come to realize what helps Slovenes with their English -- American music and Slovene-subbed American T.V. shows are quite prevalent.

Today we day-tripped to Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital, which has a small population (for a city) of a quarter million. Our impression was a walkable city with a laid-back feel.

Ljubljana had one of the most spread out markets we've seen, meaning each 'stand' had a decent amount of space. It was also the tidiest market we've come across. Unfortunately, I read that touching the fruit and veges is rude here -_-


We did our usual walk all over the city, up to the castle, and back down the really steep path. We were looking for the less-steep of the paths down, but because of conflicting information we're not sure we actually found it. If it was the less-steep, it makes us wonder what the other paths are like!


In the town hall courtyard, we were surprised to find this Tongue Sucker. K and I couldn't help cracking up over it. It was before we read the description of why it's ingenious -- to help open the airway of an unconscious person before CPR, etc. Wow! Apparently we had walked in on an exhibition of some highlights from last year's Index Awards, a set of design awards with the theme of "improving life". Very cool. The low-cost Solar Water Disinfection idea was one of my favorites. One sixth of the world's population has no access to safe drinking water!

I tried to communicate with the landlord's mother today. The laundry room was open when we returned to our room today and it occurred to me that I should do our laundry here before leaving. I somehow managed to get our point across in German that we would like to do our laundry, but we didn't understand her response, which was not a straight "yes" or "no". Eventually, I got the funny idea to switch to Italian. It's strange -- I had a really difficult time producing any Italian at all, but entirely understood her. It turns out that the dryer was broken, so we'd have to hang our clothes up to dry after the washer. And since it was already late in the day, she wasn't sure that our clothes would have enough time to dry. Ah. We see.

Our final adventure of the day was in trying to pay. She actually had to call her son for this one. Absolutely none of the ATMs in Bled nor Ljubljana have worked for us. We'd tried every ATM in Bled to no success and were banking on Ljubljana to be different since it was the capital. Even though these ATMs displayed the Plus network logo, our Plus-network ATM card still didn't work. We must have tried nearly twenty ATMs in the last three days! Our backup was to do a cash advance on our VISA card and pay it off right away. But, in the end, our host was gracious enough to let us pay in half euros, half swiss francs ^-^

The path to our pension, in daylight ^-^...

Day 66: Bled, Vintgar Gorge

I didn't really know what a gorge was but I'd come across a couple of pictures of Vintgar Gorge and I convinced K to go. It was, absolutely, gorgeous!~

It reminded me of our walk down from Neushwanstein castle two months ago, following the path of the river. Similarly, this was a walkway following the path of the river but in an even more dramatic setting with a much longer path, super clear water, in the middle of rocks and greenery. The path even crossed over the river a few times ^-^

We passed by this one pair of Asian girls a couple of times. I envied the one who touted a G10 and wondered if she was using her built in ND filter to catch some nice water shots. But then again, with all the people walking on the shaky wooden bridges, it was probably hard to do. It's definitely one of those "you have to be there" places you can't entirely capture in a photo. K's glad we went ^o^




Strangely, we encountered a group of school kids on a field trip in the gorge. That, in and of itself wasn't strange, but they were all wearing helmets! We didn't think it was particularly dangerous, but I guess you have to be extra careful with the kids?

The tourist info office yesterday told us about the morning bus to go the gorge. It makes one loop around the lake and then heads over to the gorge. Then, it waits a bit (enough time for the average person to make it to the end of the gorge and back out) and comes back, making another loop around the lake. We took the bus there, but with our usual slow speed, we knew we probably wouldn't be able to make it back on the bus (it only makes the trip once a day). And we didn't. So the entrance booth lady at the gorge directed us towards where we might hope to catch a local bus back to Bled.

Much walking, a few more inquires of locals, and several unsuccessful hitchhiking attempts later, we finally found a bus stop and caught a bus, an hour after leaving the gorge -_-

The rest of the day was pretty calm... dessert, lunch, and a trip to Lesce Bled to buy train tickets. K's foot has started acting up again (pain in the top part of his right foot) >_< So with that and my knee, we decided not to make the long hike up the castle that overlooks the lake. Maybe next time?

Day 65: Bled

Bled is a town around and near a lake, Lake Bled. And it was the perfect day for being there, nice and sunny with blue skies and warm temperatures. We spent the day walking around the lake, which did, in fact, take the *whole* day. Of course, we stopped a bunch along the way. During the day, we encountered lots of people taking strolls around the lake, like us, and also just hanging about, swimming, picnicking, suntanning, etc.

It was our first encounter with a luge ride. We took the chair lift to the top and met a couple of Slovenes just hanging out and enjoying the wonderful view over the lake. They were at the lake for their annual SAP conference, which has been held at the lake for the past few years. There was also an American and a Canadian, same conference -- lucky guys to have an all-expense paid trip to Slovenia! The Slovenes were especially friendly and spoke perfect English, like the Slovene we met on the train yesterday. We spent a while at the top, chatting with the small group. And then eventually, we continued on to what we went up to do -- ride the luge. The Slovene told us to ignore the all the "use brake" signs along the track and just accelerate the whole way. Despite being too chicken to follow his advice, it was still super fun! ^o^ If we were to ride it again, we both decided we would have used the brake less though.

Rowing to the island in the middle of the lake is one of the perfect leisure activities. We even passed by some people swimming to the island! Since there was only a single pair of oars, K did all the rowing. I felt bad just sitting there, but he did look super cute. It reminded me of those silly romantic comedies and that one scene in Summer Scent (but no cellphones got wet and yay for not tipping!). Docking at the island and getting off the boat was a little rocky, but we managed to disembark without any incident. A bunch of steps lead up to the top of the island, where there's a church with a bell. Supposedly, couples will get married here, and the groom has to carry the bridge up the 90-some steps! I didn't make K go through that grueling task.

K also wanted to row around the island but the waters were getting too choppy for comfort and we were getting low on our rental time, so we just headed back to shore instead. And we made it back just in time, to the minute!


During our lake stroll, we bumped into this cute family of swans -- mommy, daddy, and four babies!

I really wanted to see the supposed-wonderful view at the Osojnica viewpoint, which required a short hike up. I knew I shouldn't because my knee already "gave out" during some uneven ground earlier in the day, but I promised K I would go slowly. Going up was ok, and we came out *really* slowly and carefully. Parts of the path wasn't really that well-maintained, especially the beginning portion, so we almost gave up going up, but we guessed at it and were well-rewarded with the view.


We only encountered three people on the path, a couple that was heading down as we were heading up, and a French guy on his own. The French guy said he was in Bled with a few friends, but they were all being lazy for the day. We saw this same French guy later in the day, and actually, we finished our stroll around the lake with him. He had some interesting observations about Americans vs the French. According to him, "Americans are like peaches; the French are like coconuts", meaning it's easy to initially become friendly with Americans, but once beyond that outside layer, it's a struggle to actually become close, whereas with a French person, it's the opposite. So, if you're "friends" with an American, it's hard to know what that exactly means. He used the example of it being easy to "meet" new people in a bar in the US, but it's nearly impossible to in a similar bar in France. We don't know if he's right about the bar example; we don't really drink. It turns out he travels quite a bit, especially preferring Asian countries. But then again, it's easy to do when you have eight (!) weeks of vacation per year, which is pretty average for France apparently.

By the time we got back to the start, the sun had set and it was starting to get dark. We ate out tonight, K ordering a Ljubljana-style pork, which turned out to be like Cordon Bleu but with pork instead of chicken, and me ordering one of the yummiest squid dishes I've ever had ^-^

It was interesting walking back to the pension after dinner, in near-complete darkness -- there were no street lights!

Day 64: Budapest => Bled

9:10am train out. I managed to spend our last 175 forints, on a pastry that was supposed to cost 195 forints ^-^


I saw this our first day but I didn't get a good picture of it back then. It's a metro map, with all the McDonalds marked out!

On the train, we sat across from a Hungarian software architect working on railway automation software and an elderly couple from Texas. The Hungarian got off at an earlier stop and actually gave us and the couple his business card with email address before leaving the train. The couple started by sitting in different rows, the lady sitting with the Hungarian, and her husband sitting in the next row.

My ears perked when she said to the Hungarian "we're senior citizen backpackers" as she joined him in the seats. I looked up and saw two huge suitcases. Curious. They weren't backpackers. Far from it. (Well, we don't really consider ourselves to be backpackers either.) They're staying in timeshares for a week at a time and renting cars for some of it. Plus, they have four (!) large suitcases, one of which containing food apparently, things like soup packets, etc. since their timeshares had kitchens. I almost wanted to ask if it was hard to buy groceries while traveling but kept my mouth shut. It's a different mentality. One of the joys for me is exploring the local supermarkets, groceries, produce shops, and markets, and visiting the butcher the locals buy their meat from (if we had a kitchen). Both were retired, one a high school science teacher, the other an engineer (30 yrs at NASA), and on their second marriage (they just got married in '03!). It's a different travel style, but at least they're out exploring the world.

They mentioned Delphi during our conversation. It seems I really missed out. I'll have to visit there whenever we visit Greece again. But if I had to pick all over again, I'd pick visiting E again, of course. Maybe I would have tried to add another day to our Athens stay though ^-^'

One of the remarkable things about traveling through Europe is all the different cultures within a comparatively small land area. We met some people from Holland who talked of driving back from Austria, a 10-hour drive. That's nearly how much D had to drive from his college in Virginia back home to NJ!

Our train arrived late at our connecting station, a little worrisome because we only had 30 minutes to connect and we still had to buy our tickets for the connection. It ended up ok, even though K had to run to the main station office all the way past the other end of the platform.

After all our train journeys so far on this trip, I think the Austrian countryside and suburbs are the prettiest.

Getting to Bled required *another* train transfer (and then also a local bus). At the transfer at Villach (still Austria), we went from a nice, comfy train with plugs in the compartments to a stuffy, crowded train with broken a/c. Thankfully, this last leg was only less than an hour of our 8.5-hour train journey. We sat in a six-seat compartment with four other people, an American currently living in Prague, a German currently living in Prague dating the American, an Australian, and a Slovene, all on their way to Ljubljana. All the cars were just as full as ours from what we saw.

To our surprise, the Slovene spoke English really well. He said it was actually pretty common for Slovenes, especially the younger generation, to be able to speak English fluently. After months of not being able to acquire a job overseas, the American had decided to move Prague on a whim and then found a job in her field, journalism, and had been there now for nearly two years. She said she had vowed never to date a German after her sister got married to a German, but here she was, with a German. When we got to talking about places in Europe, she said she hated Berlin the first time she went but it was ok after the second time (why do so many people not 'get' Berlin?). Also contrasting our own opinions, she called Rome her 'boyfriend', loving the dirt and grime, and men. The Australian was probably in her forties or so and traveling alone. With company and interesting conversation, the hour of intense heat passed quickly.

The local bus from Lesce Bled to Bled runs nearly every half-hour, except, of course, for the half hour that we wanted. We had just missed the previous bus and it was another hour until the next one >_< Everything seemed to be closed except for the two cafes near the small train station. We plopped down at one of the cafes and ordered a sandwich. And it turns out the cafe has free wifi ^-^

8:30pm. Our nearly 10-hour journey complete, we arrived at our pension. We were greeted by the mother of the owner. She handed us a sheet that told us all the basics of when breakfast was available, internet availability, etc. The sheet also said she didn't speak English but to try German or Italian if we wanted to communicate with her.

It was good we ate the sandwich at the cafe because the closest food places are all closed. We could go down closer to the lake, but we decided to just eat some of our emergency stash of fruit and nut bars instead.