Category: Slovenia

Our plan for today was exactly the same as yesterday, but hopefully with blue skies. But, when we woke it was just as foggy as yesterday so I was worried. Ton looked at the BBC weather and said that the sun was going to come out around noon so we should just relax until then.

Ton took her own advice and relaxed for a while and then got up and made a nice soup to warm us up as it was a little cold this morning. So far we have made it the whole trip without running the heater in François despite almost every day having a high in the low 60’s and a low in the low 50’s. But this morning we were tempted, as it has been damp the last few days and it would be nice to dry things out a bit. Tonight will be a test as the low is supposed to get down to 42.

The BBC was right and about noon the fog began to lift, and we could see signs of blue skies thru the fog. So it was back to the lake for us.

When we arrived at the lake front the skies over the town were blue, but looking towards the island there was still some fog on that end of the lake.

While we were waiting for the fog to completely lift we decided to head to the church in town as it featured prominently in a lot of our pictures. It was a short but steep climb to reach it. But we both liked the art in the interior so it was worth it.

When we left the church we debated whether to climb to the castle on the rock. I consulted Google and it told me it was only 450 meters to the castle from the church, but the elevation change was 150 meters which is almost 500 feet. That led us to pass on that option. We then discussed riding out in the boat to the castle on the lake, but it would have cost €36. So we decided to just repeat yesterdays walk and contrast the views between the foggy day and the sunny day.

The trails around the lake were a lot more lively than yesterday when the majority of hikers were tourists. Today the good weather brought out a lot of local families to join the tourists. There were a lot of 3 generation family groups on the trail. There were fewer fisherman out today than yesterday.

The first half of the walk went quicker than yesterday as we were looking into the sun which made the photographer in the family unhappy, so there were fewer photo opportunities. We reached the halfway point in about 40 minutes.

We stopped in the same coffee shop as yesterday at the halfway point. It was much more crowded than yesterday and instead of sitting inside we opted to sit outside in the sun, and I added french fries to our order of coffee.

The second half of the walk had the right lighting for Ton so we were just as slow as we were yesterday. The views were amazing again, and we kept seeing things today that were invisible yesterday which was fun.

We completed the walk in about 4 hours today including our coffee break and the side trip to the church. But it was another great day and we enjoyed seeing Lake Bled in the sunshine.

As we were walking back to the campground the road leaving town was completely jammed with cars and tour busses. Everyone who had visited for the day was heading home, we were glad that we were staying put for the night.

Lake Bled in Slovenia was on our list of places to visit before we left home. It is listed by many as having the best fall colors in Europe. But our unplanned diversion into Tuscany and Umbria almost knocked it off the list. But our last day in Umbria we looked at the logistics and the weather and decided to go for it.

The weather forecast today was not great, heavy clouds. The drive over to Bled from Ljubljana was easy on a good freeway and we arrived at our aire within 45 minutes of leaving. The problem was that the town was pretty will socked in with fog.

As we were walking to town from the aire I told Ton we could always extend a day as the weather forecast for tomorrow was supposed to be better. She answered me with a skeptical we’ll see.

When we reached the waterfront, Ton took one look and said we should stay tomorrow. The lake is beautiful and the fall colors are in their prime.

We decided to wait to visit the island until tomorrow hoping for a little clearer skies. When there is a hike involved in our plans I usually get a lot of questions from Ton about, how far, how long, how steep. Today I didn’t even propose we hike the lake, she just took off.

This is one of the best walks we have ever been on. To walk around the lake is 6 kilometers ( about 4 miles), and is said to take about 90 minutes. It took us over 5 hours including a coffee break half way. Part of the reason is we are slowing down a bit in our old age, but the main reason is that it is an incredibly beautiful walk that frequently brought us to a halt so we could take in what we were seeing.

Ton was in heaven. She took so many pictures that she nearly killed the battery on her phone. About half way we had to connect her to the portable phone charger we carry for just these sort of emergencies.

Not only is the lake photogenic, but it is a pleasure to walk around. For most of the way around it is pedestrian only, there are no roads anywhere near the lake, and with no motorized boats, and no road noise the only sounds you hear are natural.

There were a lot of very well equipped people fishing as we walked. We stopped and asked one of them about the fish. He said there were pike, trout, and carp in the lake. Some of the pike were over 3 feet long, the trout were about 2 feet, and he said he once caught a carp that weighed nearly 70 pounds.

While this is a popular, and pricey vacation destination the crowds today were not too bad. It is a popular stop for tour busses as the aire we are staying in is next to the staging area for the tour busses and there were always 10 to 15 in the lot all day. But the trail itself was not super crowded.

After five thoroughly enjoyable hours we returned to the waterfront for Bled. I asked Ton if she wanted to walk thru the town, but she said no we could wait on that. So we headed back to François and had a hearty meal as reward for out efforts today.

Every time we come to Ljubljana it pores, I mean rivers are flooding levels of poring. We had thought of staying in our campground in Italy today. But last night it rained so hard it knocked out the electricity. When we got up in the morning the very nice owner delivered us a bag of bread and helped us get the electricity going again, but then informed us that the Po River we were parked next to was supposed to flood a lot of the campground over the next 24 hours so we decided to move on.

I checked the weather for the area and it looked like we had a 4 or 5 hour window to move between down pours so we quickly packed up thanked Rico the owner and headed for a town just in Slovenia which had a promising looking campground to wait out the storm. The 4 or 5 hour widow between rain didn’t pan out and while it didn’t rain the whole way we had a lot of rain and one down pour that had traffic down to about 40 miles per hour as everyone tried to see thru the wall of water falling to the ground.

We crossed into Slovenia and went from a Latin based language that we can often decipher to a Slavic language that while written in Roman letters appears to us to be nearly unpronounceable i.e Ljubljana or Cska. We are now completely illiterate. The only good thing is the young people here are taught English from a very young age and are not shy to use it, so if we are really struggling we just look for some one who looks under 30 and ask them for help.

The other thing that is interesting is we have gone from what Americans would consider to be European sirens on emergency vehicles back to the sirens we are used to at home, American sirens are for some reason favored in the old Communist countries of Europe. This is both part of the fun and part of the challenge of traveling in Europe.

Enroute we decided to switch our destination to a campground in the capitol city of Ljubljana so we could take a nice warm shower before hunkering down for the day. Last time we were at this campground the Sava River was at flood stage, this time it looks a little bit less threatening but still pushing flood stage.

As you can see from the photo at the top of post there has been a lot rain in the last few days. Last night we were talking about what to do today as the forecast called for more rain, particularly in the afternoon. Ton pointed out that we were here for 60 days so we did not need to go out and get soaked. So this morning we slept in. We will head into Ljubljana proper tomorrow.

We finally got up and moving about around 11am, and of course the sun was out, and it hadn’t rained in a few hours. We decided to head over to the nearest grocery so we could see what Slovenia had to offer for food. We were walking down a busy suburban street when Ton saw a couple of apple trees below us on a steep hill. We were talking about them when we heard a voice talking to us in Slovenian from the middle of the tree. It turned out to be an old gentleman who had climbed up the hill and was gathering some apples. He spoke to us in Slovenian, and Ton spoke to him in English, finally sign language prevailed and she got him to pose for a nice picture.

While we shopping in the grocery store Ton asked if they had any lactose free milk. Of course I have no idea what Lactose or free is in Slovenian, but one of the grocery store workers heard the question and volunteered that they did and took us to the milk where she explained all of the different options. We ended up buying a couple of liters. She then said if we had any more questions please come find her.

We have a challenge we have done since we arrived on our first trip to Europe. When shopping for wine in grocery stores we have a €2.99 limit on what we buy. Most of the time we get a very serviceable local wine, and occasionally a really good wine. Today we found a very nice Slovenian wine for €2.20 with the bonus that it was 1 liter instead of the normal .75 liters. It went really well with our French sausages from Costco and our Tabouleh from Auchan in France.

Actually the rain did not kick in in earnest until about 4 o’clock, so I felt bad. But once it did it really rained so I felt a little better.

The rainy weather continues to be an issue. Most of our trips during shoulder season we have pretty good weather, but alas not on this trip. Last night we were trying to make plans. We thought about spending a few days in Slovenia, but from what we read, outside of Ljubljana, most of the best activity is nature oriented. Unfortunately it is supposed to carry on raining for another four or five days, so hiking in parks and along beautiful lakes did not have much appeal. So Slovenia is going to have to wait for a future trip to get more of our attention.

We decided to continue heading south with a planned two day stop in Ljubljana as it is supposed to be a pretty city. As we were packing up in Salzburg the sun came out, and for the first half of our trip down the Austrian Autobahn we had good weather and spectacular views. A little bit of optimism about the weather crept into our discussion, until about an hour before crossing into Slovenia the skies opened up again.

By the time we pulled into the campground for the day, it was pouring heavily with occasional claps of thunder. The heaviest rain we have seen during this week of rain. Any thoughts of getting out and exploring today were dashed. Instead we hunkered down and did some planning for Croatia, and trying to figure out how to pronounce Ljubljana. As we were chatting we realized that Slovenia is our 4th country in 5 days.