Slovenia

Overview

I hadn’t heard a lot about Slovenia from others. I mainly wanted to go for that reason, and also simply because I had never been. It is sometimes considered a Balkan country, sometimes not but closeby the region nonetheless. After doing some research I also saw information about Lake Bled and I was really curious to see it. Once I got there I realized all the things there was to see but didn’t have time for anymore. It definitely is an underrated country.

6-7^th August

We arrived early in the morning in Ljubljana. After dropping off our bags we went to see the town a bit. We wanted to eat but it was still too early so my friend decided to go back to the hostel and sleep as we had had a very short night. I, on the other hand, went to visit Ljubljana. I first went to the castle. Although very interesting what really caught my eye was the view from it and during the walk up the hill. The castle itself isn’t very big but it is in pristine condition. After that I went back down, walking around in small streets back to the hostel before we went to get food. We went to a local restaurant which was really good, before I kept on exploring the city and he went back to sleep. I also found a nearby park. It was huge and I only saw a small part of it. My friend kept on sleeping so after resting for a while I went to get some ice cream (some of the best I’ve ever had!) and then went to the Metelkova Art Center, an alternative music and art centre with someone from my hostel. I didn’t know beforehand but apparently it is a very famous spot for street art and food. We didn’t really find any food but the tags were awesome and absolutely everywhere. We were clearly the odd ones as everyone had more of a punk rock vibe and we were just 2 tourists walking around. As we didn’t find any food there we went to town to get something to eat before making it back. I barely saw my friend all day but visited a lot of Ljubljana.

The next morning we made our way to Bled, my friend having seen nothing of the city. He still wanted to come with me to the famous lake (I met later a Slovenian who told me there are much nicer lakes around which doesn’t surprise me but they seemed hard to access in public transport, apparently not so much). We missed the first 2 buses because of breakfast and a mix-up but we eventually got there. We went straight to the lake. We wanted to go to the castle but ended up on a small trail going behind and around the castle instead. We still made it to the castle but the trail took us to one of the best views of the church and the lake. After visiting the castle we continued to walk around the lake. Halfway through the tour of the lake there is a path quite steep going up to a view point. We got there and it was breath taking. The view was really something, but unlike our previous view point it was a bit more busy. Right after we got to the top and took some pictures my friend wanted to go down, whereas I really wanted to stay longer and take it all in. After that we split up, he wanted to go swimming and I’d rather keep on walking so he offered to meet back at the hostel instead of waiting. Coming back from the lake to the hostel I enquired about a horse riding tour I had seen to do the next day. The times would be a bit annoying but they had a tour leaving in 50 minutes with spare place, so I hurried to change and grab a bite before going horse riding. The ride was absolutely gorgeous and quite unexpected. We went by a lake and in the forest. It was very peaceful. We also had a stop to drink schnapps (someone brought it to us on a tray, we didn’t even set foot down!) and later to see a bear? We were all very surprised. The bear was there and we saw it climbing the fence with surprising ease. I did the tour with several tourists among which a Dutch couple who invited me to have dinner. They had spotted a very good local restaurant and so we went. I tried to find my friend to offer him to join us but couldn’t find him anywhere.

8^th August

We got a very early morning, which I think was not my friend strong suit. I asked if he was okay to go early to the Vintgar Gorge to avoid the crowd and he was, until it was actually time to go there. Due to how early we went we didn’t see the green hues of water instead it was bright white and blue. It was beautiful not what either of us had expected. We walked from Bled to Podhom, where the gorge is, which was only about 45 minutes. We were among the first ones, right at the opening time and could walk the trail almost alone. At the end there was also nice waterfall. Walking back we passed by a church on top of a hill with a view of the mountains around.

We had planned to stay the rest of the day in Bled but it started pouring down and we thought we might as well go back to Ljubljana early instead of staying cooped up in Bled. In Ljubljana my friend went around, admit very quickly, has he hadn’t had time to visit the city yet before our bus to Zagreb. I stayed at a café with the bags.

To Croatia

What happened next in Croatia.