Embedded Files
Bled
Bled is a picturesque town nestled upon a pretty alpine lake with a formidable castle on a rocky cliff-face, overlooking the emerald green waters. There is a small island in the middle of the lake with a little monastery in the centre, and with the Julian Alps as a dramatic backdrop and the vibrant colours of Autumn in the surrounding hills, this place was a photographer´s dream!
As we walked the 2km from the train station to town, we were greeted with warm weather (21 degrees), making the lake´s crystal clear waters extremely inviting. We began calculating the distance between the shore and the little island and wondered whether it would be possible to swim to it.
As we were checking into the cheapest hostel in town, we came to meet James, the crazy Aussie guy, who overheard our accents. Dressed in boardies, a shirt and bare feet, he began to tell us how he had slept in a construction site on his first few nights after learning that one hostel was charging 20 euro a night. He would arrive late in the evening and be gone first thing in the morning. Us being reasonable people quickly asked ¨what do you did with your bag during the day¨, to which he responded ¨I hide it up a tree!” Turns out James is an arborist who is travelling with some climbing gear and each morning scales a tall tree to secure his bag beyond the reach of anyone without a climbing harness... He sure has a Koala quality about him.
We mention the idea of swimming to the Monastry on the island in the middle of the lake and James explains he did so a couple of days back, and hence, we decide it must be done. Heading into our dorm we find a Canadian guy and after a brief intro we say we are off to swim to the island and ask if he would like to come... So now the 4 of us head off to test the water. His sister hears of our plan and runs down the road to join our little expedition. So Brad and Sarah get roped into our afternoon.
We check the water temperature and find it´s not QUITE freezing, which was a plus! As no one appeared to be the backing down type, we walked around to a convenient entry point , passing a few no swimming signs along the way and eventually deciding on a point about 300 metres from the Island. Straight in we go... Best not to think about these things for too long!
The swim was not too bad. Although cold, it was still enjoyable. We arrive in good spirits, although the Canadians were shivering too much for their comfort. A few island tourists strike up conversation, especially a few Aussies from Perth who had made bets on our nationality when they saw us in the water....and won!! The swim back was a little more painful and long, especially as we began to lose the sun, but we made it back without losing our sense of humor, and enjoyed a hot shower.
Strangely our new mate James didn´t choose to dry off on shore. Explaining this was his way of cleaning his clothes and he just need to run around a bit... He wore a wet T-shirt at dusk for the next 2 hours... might explain why he hasn´t been feeling great lately.
On the way back to our hostel, James suggests we go tree climbing... Um, OK sounds good. So on our way to dinner we head to a park with the Aussie Koala and his climbing gear. After a few minutes he has pulled himself up the tree with a harness, rope and prosecks. Down comes the rope for the first backpacker to connect. Although the plan hasn´t really been explained, James decides Mark should be first... So once attached it becomes clearer that James will try to descend from the top of the tree as fast as possible to counter-weight the person at the bottom and thereby catapulting them as quickly as he can. Not so awkward once you know the plan.
After the first couple of runs, James is not satisfied that it is fast enough and sets up a pulley system to allow the 3 people at the base of the tree to help hoist up the joyrider. This sure is effective, with Mands having the first flight and almost resulting in James free falling 10 metres to the ground... stopping about ½ a metre short. After a small adjustment, the ropes are set and we all get a turn of being hurled 15 metres up a tree as fast as the other 4 can manage. A bit strange for a random afternoon, but lots of fun. To add to the comic factor, James does a good job of trying to scare passing tourists with his impersonation of a growling tree monster. The passers-by, enjoying their romantic lakeside walks, were somewhat surprised by the acoustics. ¨Raaarrrr! HHAAEELLLOOO!!!¨ He sure is a character!
Thursday
The next day we hired a couple of bikes and headed to the recommended Vintgar Gorge. The narrow roads weaved uphill through a jumble of little farming huts and houses. The sun was out and the manure was fresh... A young bull had broke free from it´s chain and made us a little nervous with a few half charges. Otherwise, we loved out little ride through rural Slovenia.
We arrive at the gorge to find a wide canyon a couple of kms long, with 1600 metres of boardwalks over the clearest alpine waters. The only thing obscuring the bottom were the trout swishing back and forth in their endless search of a nibble. Hopefully the photos capture a little of our views.
After the Gorge we rode back down to lake Bled, downhill almost all the way. We stuck a few more kms on the trip before returning a little after our planned 5 hours before rewarding ourselves with a few beers and a pizza.
That night at our hostel was very rowdy. The hostel bar was busy with locals when we turned in. From about 2am thing got very loud with a lot of stupidly loud music and door slamming. Two leasons, firstly, cheap hostels have downsides, and secondly, don´t stay at hostel 1004.
Friday
We managed to motivate ourselves to get up early for a lakeside run. The scenery was something special! Afterwards we climbed the hill to the castle for breakfast... Pretty healthy going!
Upon checking out we bump into James. He shares a couple of crazy You Tube videos with us and provides a little more detail of the chaos from the previous night. Turns out the hostel management hosted a big birthday party for one of the locals. Fair enough... Unfortunately a few of the stupidly drunk party goers entered the backpacker dorms to crash around 2am. Not so bad except for the snoring drunks that couldn´t be woken... That is until they got up to take a piss beside the bed... but thankfully, quick thinking by one backpacker had the first one kicked out with only his fly down. The second punter however, was mid stream when James took offence someone peeing near his head on and punched him in the head... A minute of abuse in the dark followed while they tried to force him out of the room. They couldn´t understand his jibberish ¨imdaoooner¨ only the light being turned on helped when the hostel staff sleeping in the room was able to identify the drunk as a guest and his statement made more sense ¨I am the owner¨.... Quality! The owner pissing on guests in his own backpacker hostel. Half the hostel demanded refunds and checked out that day. So we were happy enough to leave with only broken sleep.
We had not yet decided where to go next. We agreed to call our preferred hostel in Ljubljana (a converted prison) to check availability. If it was not an option, we would head to Bohinj for a bit more outdoor action. As the hostel was fully booked until Sunday, we jumped on a bus to Bohinj Jezero.
Bohinj Jezero (Bohinj Lake)
We arrive at tourist info and arrange an apartment for 33 euro per night. Not a bad rate, despite the recent massive currency slide. Damn capatilism. We find our place a few hundred metres from the lake... A couple of rooms, kitchen, own bath, balconies and satellite TV. Great value! Link to Bohinj apartment video: http://picasaweb.google.com/market.mark/BohinjApartment#5262650688117608514
We head straight to the supermarket to stock up for 3 days of kitchen facilities. The prospect of food the way we like it has us salivating. Unfortunately the little shop has very limited supplies. We do find enough ingredients to make a few tasty options and settle in to our little holiday home in the Slovenian mountains. We even lash out on a couple of bottles of wine!
The first morning we enjoy a massive omelette before heading out for a walk around the lake and up the mountain side. The lake is literally teeming with trout who seem desperate to gobble every morsel thrown their way. Somebody give me a fishing line!!! The water is incredibly clear with a mineral water tinge. Very tempting even though it is very cold.
Our little walk ends up taking most the day and we return back to our apartment after 5pm for a Pesto pasta with mushrooms and prosciutto. Knocking of the last of the wine, we ease into our 2nd night.
The third day started with talk of a run to the shops. But the heavy fog in the valley kept us thinking about it until we get distracted by the need to update the website. You may be surprised how long this can take when working in tandem!
We hit the free internet in tourist info and install Picassa and load all our photos on their system. So the update is possible in reasonable time....
We break-up the internet time with a 8km walk to a local cheese making shop... Well, turns out to be a house selling cheese from their garage! We entered to find one type of cheese in 6 different sizes... Hmmm... We will take the smallest one for 6 euro please. After a chat she pulls out a couple of other local types... Not sure about the ¨Pencillin” stinking feet number, but we did pick up some cottage cheese for dinner.
Finishing out internet update and feeling good about our the outcome, we hired a canoe and headed out on the pristine lake, grabbing a couple of beers on the way. After an hour of paddling, splashing and Mands swimming about, we return to shore.
We end our last night in Bohinj with Mandy´s delicious pasta with the remaining supplies we have picked up of late.
Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Having booked into the converted prison hostel – Celica - we were surprised to find the price of two dorm beds to be greater than the whole apartment in the mountains.....damn capital cities! Further than that, they were charging for internet – the 1st time we´d experienced this! The hostel had certainly been renovated extremely tastefully, with a number of communal areas and some cafe´s downstairs, but we had been hoping to stay in an actual cell....instead we had a very neat and clean room for 4 people, with private en suite. It was very funky, but not worth the money...
We spend the first afternoon strolling about town. The castle was free to enter, but not very interesting. So we headed back to our hostel, via a local cevapi joint selling six spicy sausages in a breadroll. This ends up looking like a chubby cooks hand deeply fried and covered in a bun, strangely appealling to us ominvores, but still feels a little weird and canabilistic. Not that we have stopped eating them...
The best part about our hostel was it´s location. Prior to Croatia´s war of independence in 1991-1995, when Yugoslavia broke up and it´s ethnic Slav states claimed independence from the majority Serbs, this was the site of an army barracks and prison. Celica took over the prison....supposedly as a non-profit organisation (though we do wonder about that...) and the rest of the military grounds were left empty. It didn´t take long before a bunch of squatters took over the complex, mainly artists comprising painters, sculptures, carpenters, writers, etc, who have now been living in this commune for more than 15 years.
The whole place is pretty cool, with creative structures added onto the buildings, sculptures set about the place and awesome street art on every surface. Basically, they accumulate other people´s crap and have turned it into a living art gallery! By day, they open up their galleries to sell their wares, including jewelery, clothes, sculptures and paintings, as well as operating a cafe with free internet access!! By night the place is transformed into a pumping venue with various bars and nightclubs, each with their own genre. Check the photos for the ghosts and care bear.
We headed over with a couple of Aussie guys - James and Adam – who were keen to check the place out, and we downed a few beers over the course of the night. We also met a German guy named Kye, who was a busker who played guitar on the streets, every time he needed money. He comes to Ljubljana every year and stays in another squat nearby - a deserted warehouse that he had been given a key to. He invited us to stay there the next night and we were considering it in order to save a bit of money....but in the end we left Slovenia with hangovers that were not deserved based on the amount we drank.
I, Mandy, blamed the antibiotics I as on.....or maybe it´s their national beer – Lasko! You see, while in Ljubljana, I had the misfortune of having to find a dentist as I had a pretty bad tooth infection that had been causing me problems for a couple of weeks. I was pretty stoked to find the surgery only one block away, but was a little nervous about what it would cost. When I finally got to go in and explain the problem, she told me I would need to come back 3-5 days in a row, as well as getting antibiotics!!! You can imagine my concern about this cost, but finally learned that the bill was only AU$40 and got progressively cheaper each time so that my 3rd and last visit was actually free! Now I´m not sure whether it was because I had a male dentist ... but I certainly wasn´t complaining!!
After a couple of days in town seeing the bridges and contemporary history museum, we head off to the train station to get to the long awaited Croatian coast.
Google Sites
Report abuse