Lake Bled, Slovenia - weeks 9

We made a smooth transition by train from Ljubljana to Lesce Bled (about an hour) and then by bus to Lake Bled, our next destination. The bus trip should have taken 15 minutes, but due to heavy traffic, took an hour too.  This area is in the Julian Alps and we expected cool weather.  However, Europe’s heat wave caught up with us here.  The first few days were in the mid-90s with pretty high humidity.  We focused our explorations in the cool mornings and spent afternoons in the apartment.  By late week, temperatures dropped into the mid- to high-80s…much more comfortable for all-day sightseeing.

Our AirBnB was just 10 minutes from the bus stop and 20 minutes to town.  We checked in early (about noon), got unpacked and then walked to town for a Thai lunch and a little exploring.  The lake is a beautiful blue, aquamarine color with a 3.5 mile walking/bicycle path around it.  Surrounding the lake are hotels, villas, restaurants and natural areas—a little more developed than we expected. There were no car-free areas and it seemed congested.  It felt like Tahoe…with lots of European visitors. 

Our compact apartment was on the first floor, maybe 400 sq feet, a dorm-room-size refrigerator, no microwave or coffeemaker.  But it did have a 2-burner cooktop and access to Netflix on the 52” TV!  We watched the new season of Virgin River while we were there.  

Our first full day, we took a bus to larger (7 miles around) Lake Bohinj just 18 miles away through picturesque, lush countryside and tiny villages.  We hoped it would be less peopled and it was, although only marginally so.  I expected pine and fir forests.  Instead, the forests around Lake Bohinj and Lake Bled are largely hardwood, deciduous trees with only a smattering of conifers.  Even though this is the “alps,” the elevation here is under 2,000 feet.  First we hiked to Savica waterfall (520 steps up), unique in the world as the water flow splits from underground streams and appears to spout directly out of the rock.  Then we walked around Lake Bohinj, getting off-track several times as we followed maps.me.  We definitely got in our 10,000 steps in addition to climbing many, many “floors” for the day on Roger’s FitBit.  We exceeded his fitness goal and he said he would have to readjust his goals upward as a result.  Hmmm!  

Our bus trip back to Bled was remarkable in that the driver was having a bad day.  A woman tried to get on when we did, but he wouldn’t let her on—a language barrier prevents our knowing more.  We think she wanted to go somewhere that he didn’t want to go OR that her method of payment (a card of some sort) was not acceptable.  We left her standing angrily at the stop.  At the next stop, a group of 22 French scouts (who spoke no Slovenian) with huge backpacks tried to board the bus.  Initially the driver (who spoke no French) said no (we think because there were so many of them), but then he relented.  He asked the first one how many tickets he wanted to buy.  The scout indicated with 2 fingers on each hand, indicating 22 scouts, but the driver thought he meant 4 and sold him 4 tickets.  When the 5th scout tried to get on, another “discussion” arose (with little understanding on either side) about how much more money was owed and who was going to pay.  Once everyone was on board, we all had to show our tickets before we could proceed.  About 20 minutes later, with backpacks and scouts stacked everywhere, we headed off.  It reminded us a little of that scene in one of the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies when Harrison Ford threw the bad guy off the blimp and told the other passengers it was because he didn’t have a ticket.

We returned to the apartment hot and sweaty after our 16-mile walk, looking forward to a shower, a soft chair and something to eat.  Instead, we found the lock to our apartment had been damaged—our key just turned around and around without undoing the lock.  Rog had his iPhone, but our reservation with AirBnB had been made on my iPhone which was in the apartment, so we had no way to contact our host.  Also, we didn’t have access to the apartment’s wi-fi.  So we gave the situation a think.  Soon our Czech neighbors appeared and said we could use their wi-fi.  We then connected with AirBnB through a chat asking them to contact our host for help.  They refused saying we had to send passport photos or some other government ID so they were sure it was us.  But all this was locked in the apartment.  Finally, I was able to contact our host by contacting him on Roger’s iPhone for information about a future reservation.  He understood the problem and said he would be right there with a locksmith.  Unfortunately, he was in Ljubljana and it took a couple of hours for him and the locksmith to arrive and do what was necessary to let us in.  New keys in hand, we entered our apartment at 9 pm.  A very busy day.

The next day, we took an e-bike trip to nearby Vintgar Gorge.  The e-bike part of the trip and the walk through the gorge were fantastic.  However, no one told us that there was a very steep trail out of the gorge and back to our e-bikes at the end…although we might have deduced that if we had thought about it long enough.  On our way back from the gorge, we biked around the upper part of Lake Bled, returning our bikes to the tour company about 4 hours after we picked them up.  

We returned to the apartment for a shower and lunch.  We tried our key in the lock and found that someone had jammed a toothpick into the lock and broken it off.  It was clear now that someone was sabotaging the lock.  Once again, however, only Roger had his cell phone.  I didn’t take mine because I reasoned that this situation couldn’t happen two times in a row, right?????  And I hate to carry my phonhe with me everywhere.  We were able to connect with our host much faster this time (after all, we figured out how to get around AirBnB the day before, so we could do it again).  Our poor host drove up from Ljubljana and had a locksmith remove the toothpick while we had lunch in town.  He explained that other owners of apartments in the complex didn’t like that he was using his as a vacation rental.  He suspected who the culprit was and had a friendly discussion with him about the “old people” who spent 4 hours sitting on the floor two days in a row waiting to get into the apartment.  He guilted them into leaving us alone for the rest of our stay.  I don’t know if future younger visitors will be so lucky.  Sometimes it pays to be old.

The following days, we climbed to the castle perched high above Lake Bled.  It is my idea of a perfect castle—well defensible simply by its position and with lots of fun room and spaces.  My favorite castle so far.  We swam in the lake—the water is crystal clear, deep and pleasantly cool.  We walked the part of the lakeside path that we hadn’t done on the e-bikes, explored the little town and treated ourselves to Lake Bled’s famous cream cake.  To our relief, the keys opened the apartment door for the rest of the week.  

On day 7, we packed up, took the bus back to Lesce Bled and boarded the train to Austria.  It was crowded with scouts due to a jamboree.  (That’s probably where the scouts on the bus from Bohinj were heading eventually.)  The conductor took pity on us (probably because we are old!) and let us sit in 1st class—very comfortable.  Our destination is Villach, a town of 60,000 jam-packed with Austrian flavor.  The scouts remained on the train for a later stop.  Maybe we’ll meet up with them in Vienna.

Ljubljana - Week 8

Ljubljana (280,000 population) enchanted us from the very start.  It’s a beautiful city—compact and dedicated to being green (both in terms of trees and plants which are everywhere and ecologically).  The city sits on both sides of a bend in the Ljubljanska River with coffees shops, restaurants and stores lining a promenade along the river.  It’s relatively quiet during the day.  But it comes alive at night with locals and tourists walking the promenade, stopping for dinner or a coffee or an ice cream…enjoying one another and chatting the night away.  

No cars are allowed in the city center, but there are lots of pedestrians, bicycles, scooters and such.  Also they run a free electric shuttle (like a large golf cart) to get disabled or older people around.  There are lots of bridges to cross from one side of the river to the other, so good connectivity. Ljubljanans are very serious about recycling.  They have 4 categories: organic waste, paper, glass and packaging.  It’s really easy to separate into those categories…and the “drop boxes” for the items are conveniently located on every block.  It is all free except for non-recycled stuff—you pay for that, as it should be. The water is great and free drinking water fountains (and bathrooms) are everywhere.  Under the drinking spigots are bowls for pets.  The city has received numerous international awards for being pet, pedestrian, bicycle-friendly, as well as green.  While tourism is important in Ljubljana, it is also the largest city and the capital city of Slovenia.  Crowning the town is a fairytale castle, flags waving.  It’s such a lovely place!

We found our AirBnB quickly and moved right in.  Anybody interested can check out our place: River View Apartment in the Historic City Center.  It was without a doubt the best place we have stayed as yet in terms of location, comfort, kitchen supplies, bathroom—everything was super nice.  While it didn’t have a/c, the old stone building was cool inside and we had fans.  We opened the windows to cool air when we returned each evening from our day’s activities.  See view from our window below.  The boxes in the foreground are the recycling bins which connect to huge receptacles underground.

The highlights of our week in Ljubljana are several.  On the day after our arrival, we experienced the Open Kitchen.  Dozens of restaurants set up booths in a square near the farmer’s market and provide every kind of food imaginable, from Argentine steaks to Spanish paella to Thai fried noodles to African stews.  All this was complimented with wine and beer booths as well as dessert options.  We were in “hog heaven” as it were.  We sampled several dishes, sharing each other’s plates.  This happens every Friday throughout the summer from 10 am to 9 pm…a really nice tradition.  We should think about organizing something similar in our various home cities.  (Open kitchen and farmer’s market pictured below.)

Then we decided to buy a tourist card that gave us free entrance to several attractions.  Of course, Roger wanted to get in as many of the attractions as he could within the 24-hour time limit.  First we took a guided city walking tour, which included a funicular ride up to the castle.  Next, we took a tourist train, exploring sites a little farther than we could go on foot.  Finally, we took a river boat cruise along the river just before sunset.  The next morning, we picked up bicycles at the Tourist Information Center (still on the card because we were still within our 24 hours) and rode to the huge city park, finally finding the bicycle trail that encircled the entire city.  The 20-mile trail is called the Trail of Remembrance and Comradeship.  It is essentially a bike and walking path through overhanging trees, gardens and parks.  In WWII, the city was surrounded with barbed wire by the Axis powers to prevent partisans from leaving (we were assured that they got out anyway)—the trail reflects where the barbed wire used to be.  While we crossed car roads in places, usually there were no roads in sight. It was a wonderful 2 days “living on the card.”  Pictures below are our boat ride down the river, overview of city from castle, and bike ride.

A couple of days later, we had a walking food tour where we tried the local foods.  Our first stop featured fried sardines and another even smaller fish.  The latter were like small potato chips even with the heads, bones and all…crunchy.  We took more care with the sardines by removing the little skeletons.  Both were good.  Next we had a charcuterie plate of ham, prosciutto, olives and cheese followed by a traditional Slovenian goulash with 3 meats instead of one.  We were told that one the meats had to be wild.  Ours was beef, lamb and wild boar…they couldn’t find a bear that day.  The next stop was traditional sausage with horseradish and mustard sauces and bread.  Finally, we had a local dessert…a choice of chocolate or white cake.  It was a great way to spend the afternoon.  At each stop, local wines were paired with the food (of course!).  I’m getting a little tired of processed foods like prosciutto and sausage, but the local guides assure us that they don’t use nitrites and other chemicals.  This food actually comes from the farm.

Finally, we spent a day walking around Tivoli Park, a beautiful 1,200 acre park extending right into the heart of the city.  It was formed in the 1800s by combining the grounds of several mansions.  There are treed paths crisscrossing the hillsides of the park and we got lost several times.  But fortunately, with Roger’s maps.me (ugh!) app, we found our way home.  As a treat for all our hard work, we had an iced coffee just outside of the park.  It was the “best ever” iced coffee, in the words of our grandson.

Interspersed with all this activity, we managed a few days of quiet to read, cook and wash clothes.  It was a heavenly week.  We love Ljubljana.  

Rovinj - Week 7

Our northernmost and last stop along the Croatian coast is Rovinj.  We finally found the small town we have been looking for—population of just 15,000, in the heart of a wine region and very Italian (we are just 166 miles from Venice which you can see on a clear day from the church bell tower.  Laid back, quiet, yet full of energy from mostly European visitors—this place is a must for your trip to Croatia.  In fact, I think you could rent a place for a month here, explore the region, take an overnight to Venice and be very happy.  Rovinj is located on the Istrian peninsula.  Istrians think of themselves as different from the rest of Croatia, in part because they have been ruled by so many nations.  In fact, our tour guide mentioned that his grandmother was born, lived and died in the same house in one of the Istrian hill towns.  Yet she “lived” in 4 different countries: Austria, Italy, Yugoslavia and now Croatia.  Istrians have learned to ignore who is in power and just do their own thing.  

We spent our first full day here touring the Old Town of Rovinj, buying a few groceries, and taking a swim.  Yes, our new AirBnB has a swimming pool (see listing at website “Rovinj Apartment with Big Balcony and 2 Pools).  As part of our tour of the city, Roger sacrificed himself by climbing the bell tower (192 steps up and another 192 down) of the signature church and took several great shots of town.

The following day, we took a wine and food tour (naturally).  We feel that the local foods and wines really speak to the culture of a region.  Our driver picked us up and drove us to 3 small wineries, 2 of which were in the countryside.  We loved it.  We tasted 5 wines at each stop, learned about each wine from the owners, and ate from beautiful platters of food (primarily salamis, cheeses, olives, olive oil, bread, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, dried fruit and nuts).  Our friendly guide, Alan, knew a lot about wines and shared stories of his childhood in one of the hill towns. He also made an observation about Americans (he had lived in the U.S. for many years): he said “Americans live to work. We here in Istria work to live.”  We thought that was a telling remark about our two cultures.  Fortunately, there were many miles (and time) between each winery when we could metabolize the wines.  Istrian wines feature the Malvasia (white) and Teran (red) grapes.  We returned home grateful for the driver and not eager for more food that evening.  Quite a day!

 

   

We took a couple of days to visit the nearby small coastal towns of Porec and Pula by bus.  Porec is a few miles north of Rovinj, about the same size, with a medieval Old Town.  It has a 5th century church that had Roman, Byzantine and Catholic features that were added over time…and it had a bell tower that both of us climbed.  It too would be great to stay for a month.  We had a fish dinner for two (that Roger has been yearning for since we’ve been here) that was huge—two whole fish, a fish fillet, tiny octopi, sardines, shrimp, squid, mussels all atop a bed of spinach/potato mixture.  Roger loved everything.   I was a little pickier.

 

  

Pula, in contrast, is a larger community with huge cranes (to unload shipping containers) on an offshore island totally destroying the ambiance of its beautiful coastal setting.  They shine different color lights on the cranes at night in an effort to make them palatable, but it doesn’t work.  Pula did have one feature that attracted us: A Roman amphitheater, the 6th largest in the world and one of the best-preserved.  You could easily imagine yourself among the other 25,000 people watching gladiators fight one another.  In fact, they have a reenactment a couple of times a week…so you don’t have to imagine at all.  This venue also hosts a film festival starting on July 16.

Near Pula (a short bus ride to the tiny coastal community of Fazana) is Brijuni National Park, an archipelago of 14 islands just offshore.  A quick ferry ride took us to the main island where we spent several hours touring the sites.  This was the summer residence of Marshal Tito, the leader of communist Yugoslavia.  There is a commemorative museum of Tito’s life.  Most people our age remember Yugoslavia as a member of the Soviet Bloc.  It most decidedly was not.  Local armies forced the Nazis out of the country and made their war hero Tito its leader.  He actually formed a Bloc of non-aligned nations, including India, Egypt and 120 other countries.  Interesting man!  He also created a zoo with all the animals given to him by foreign dignitaries.  Remnants of the zoo remain today—a lonely elephant, zebras, Istrian donkeys, pheasants, emus, one llama, and exotic birds.  The zoo also rehabs injured sea turtles.  We took the ferry back to Fazana, took a swim in the Adriatic (sadly, our last as we are moving inland next) and bused back to our AirBnB—another interesting day.  

It was a busy 8 days in Rovinj.  Lots of great meals, ice cream, walks, and sightseeing.  This is our favorite place so far.

Zadar - Week 6

Every journey has its high points and its lows.  Zadar was both for us.  

The Lows: During the 2-½ hour bus ride from Split to Zadar my stomach became queasy.  Once we arrived at our AirBnB and had a light dinner, it was worse.  By bedtime and through the night, diarrhea really hit. I, of course, thought I was going to die.  Roger assured me I would be okay…eventually.  We wasted the entire next day with me tired, weak and on clear liquids.  Okay, that was the “low.”  As you can tell, Roger was right: I did survive to write another blog.  

The Highs are many:  Zadar is a very special place…maybe that’s because Rick Steves doesn’t mention it in his Croatia book. In contrast to the other towns we have visited, it has fewer tourists and is a functioning city of about 75,000.  Like the others, Zadar has an Old Town on a peninsula with narrow stone lanes, lots of restaurants and cafes and souvenir shops.  Outside Old Town, Croats go about their everyday lives little affected by the burgeoning tourism industry.  No cruise ships until our 4th day there, and it was a small one.  The terrain is different from the other cities too.  Zadar is on the flat with room for lovely parks and promenades.  On one part of the promenade, an artist has created a “sea organ” (see holes in the concrete in the 2 pictures below). This instrument plays music by way of waves (more waves, different notes) and tubes in the concrete steps.  It really does sound like an organ.  Nearby the sea organ is the “Greeting to the Sun,” a large circle of solar panels in the concrete that power a light show at night—quite a sight.  Adults and children walk over the panels watching the show.  One evening we took the barkajoli, a traditional Zadar row boat, from outside Old Town to the Old Town peninsula to watch the sunset, said to be the most beautiful in the world.  Indeed, it was gorgeous—but no “green flash” (for those of you who see “green flashes” as the sun sinks into the water).  We strolled to The Greeting to the Sun and listened to the sea organ.  A very romantic evening.

One evening, we enjoyed a wine and food pairing dinner with 8 other visitors, including a yacht chef, 3 U.S. Air Force women currently stationed in Germany and a young couple (he a hydrolic engineer (which he had to explain to me) and she a grad student taking a course in Rome on Renaissance and Baroque art.  Outstanding food and wine, excellent conversation.  One of the best “food” tours we have experienced.  

Croatia is becoming known for its wines.  They are winning awards at international tastings.  Hundreds of varieties of grapes are grown here.  Over 120 are indigenous to the area.  Plavac mali is the most common red grape we have tasted in Dalmatia; and Posip is a common white.  Of course, the wines made from these grapes vary according to the soils in which they are grown and the tweaks of the winemakers.  We have had fun exploring all the unique flavors while at the same time learning about the Croatian people.

The highlight of our trip to Zadar was a visit to Plitvice National Park, known for its 90 waterfalls and 16 clear, turquoise lakes (think Lake Louise). The waterfalls are formed when algae splashed with the river water captures calcium carbonate crystals and over time builds up as rock (kind of like stalagmites in caves).  The park is a wonder.  While it was crowded, it was well worth seeing.  Don’t miss it if you visit Croatia.  Five hours in the park is really not enough.  Were we to do this trip again, we would spend a couple of nights at a nearby hotel, get up early in the morning and walk the boardwalks before the tour buses arrived.

The AirBnB was the best yet.  (Check out the pictures on Airbnb.com for Zadar “The Park Apartment with The Garden). In a quiet residential area adjacent to a park.  Nice sitting area in the garden outside apartment.  No stairs except at the threshold.  Very modern and clean inside.  Comfortable bed. Netflix.  A washer.  We did not suffer.  We left Zadar thinking we could have stayed longer…maybe just one week in Split and 2+ weeks in Zadar in retrospect. But you don’t know until you’ve been here.  When we made our plans for Croatia (after several years of no traveling due to covid), I forgot our normal “prime directive”: go to small, out-of-the-way places.  I’ll remember next time.