Slovenia

Thanks to Mr. Christopher Colombus, we were able to take a four day trip to lovely Slovenia. For Americans, it's difficult to know the difference between Slovenia and Slovakia. Slovenia is the Northern part of the former Yugoslavia and is bordered by Italy, Austria and Croatia. We thought it favorably reminded us of the natural beauty we've experienced in Bavaria and Austria, both of which we love.

We found Slovenia to be quite charming. Check out the cute on the red sign.

This is Lake Bled. Above the lake is Bled Castle. Gorgeous.

Another view of Bled Castle.

Our lovely sidekick accompanied us on the trip.

Ducks!

Lake Bled is Slovenia's #1 tourist destination. In the middle of the lake there is a small picturesque island with a church and few buildings the church owns. Makes for great scenery.

The rock the castle sits atop seems to have been put on earth specifically for the purpose. It's amazing the kinds of pictures we get sometimes with our relatively simple point-and-shoot camera.

We climbed the hill up to the castle.

We walked all the way around the lake with Lucy, and managed to take pictures of the island from all sides.

Kristin poses from the castle with the island in the background. The little things that look like mosquitoes on the water are crew "shells," those really thin boats for rowers. There's a school that teaches rowing on the lake, and there are rowing lanes demarcated in the water for competitions during the summer.

The castle attempted a museum. They probably felt they had to, in order to document the archaeologic discoveries they had made on the site, but they really didn't need to. It's rare that we go to a museum and feel like it really wasn't worth it, but this was one of those times. This creepy looking manequin (on left!) was the most realistic-looking one in the bunch. Too bad he doesn't have a hand. We felt lucky the museum was part of the admission price, and not something we chose to pay for.

Ah- the picture of romance! Here I am, rowing my sweetie out to that cute little island behind me. I don't think I've ever rowed a row boat before this. Part of my morning workout routine involves a rowing machine. The motions for this were very different. But for dudes contemplating rowing your sweetie somewhere- you can do it. Easy. Although I probably wouldn't sign up to do this on the ocean or anywhere there's a lot of waves.

When we got to the island, we moored next to these guys, just out of the frame to the left. The guys that run these boats make a living by loading their boats up to the gills with people and rowing them around on the lake. Most of them are older than my Dad. One of 'em got really cranky when I pushed off and nearly bumped his boat in the process.

Inside the church. Kristin and I are pulling on the bell rope because there's a story about the bell where if you ring it while making a wish, your wish will come true. Don't know if we believed in the story, but we rang the heck out of that bell, just for good measure!

Here's Kristin taking a turn at the oars on the way back. I'm not authorized to tell you that she was rowing the wrong way.

Another spot in Slovenia down the road was Vintgar gorge. VERY pretty- it had a river running through it, and a beautiful trail that cut back and forth over the river and along either side of it.

Lu got to go on a lot of walks with us this trip.

While the water looks good enough to swim in, it was really chilly- no one was thinking about taking a dip when we took this picture.

A small waterfall marked the end of the trail, and we turned around.

At a completely different location- Savica waterfall.

Really pretty. Water just flows right out of the crack in a rock at this site.

The view looking the other way from the waterfall.

On the way back from the hike to the waterfall, We stopped to take some pictures at Lake Bohinj. Lake Bohinj is Lake Bled's next door cousin. It doesn't get swarmed over with tourists the same way Lake Bled does because it doesn't have a cute little island with a cute little church with a castle overlooking it all. Lake Bohinj is just flat-out pretty, though. Maybe we just caught it in the right light, or something, but I thought it definitely competed with Lake Bled, despite Lake Bled's more interesting architectural and topographical additions.

One of the best pictures I've ever taken of Kristin.

I like this one of her with Lu, too.

The only thing making a ripple in the lake was this vintage water taxi.

We hope you enjoyed taking a tour of Slovenia with us- this is another one of those countries and places we probably never would have visited if we didn't live here, but we felt it was definitely worth going to, as it had most of the charm and beauty of the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, at significantly lower prices throughout. A great place to relax, take some nature hikes, and enjoy good food and good hospitality.