How long did Katarina bleed for?

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T'was a heavy grey-skied morning, and a hung over, dehydrated Zeibura waddled across Václavák to hlavní nádraží pondering all the things he had forgotten to pack which might be moderately useful. The 7.16 to České Budějovice accompanied by the two carriages continuing across the border to Linz had been waiting on the platform for a long time, as when we reached it, it was already packed full. My heavy head resulting from last night's beerfest to celebrate my birthday had to be shaken off forcefully, and the exact completion of my 24th orbit around the sun (9:30am CET) was spent standing next to the toilet, dealing with a group of noisy and annoying scout kids gallivanting about the corridors. We then got a compartment with a couple of nice Czech guys at České Budějovice which we had to ourselves from the Austrian border through to Linz.

On the way through Salzburg and the Alps we livened the journey up with some wine, and retired to the restaurant car to enjoy the view through huge windows over a few glasses of Ottakringer. We got off at Jesenice, a strip of concrete buildings in a river valley which serves as the Austria/Slovenia border crossing, and went for something to eat before getting our fourth and final connection to Podhom, a village just outside of Bled. The hostel manager picked us up in his car, and gave us a very informative talk on the things we can/should do before leaving us to crash and lull before going for a sleep as long as our journey here had taken. We needed it. And apart from the lack of kitchen to make breakfast in, this hostel has been very good for us, so if you're not bothered by bringing cutlery (or, in Vicky's case, spreading peanut butter on to bread with your fingers), we recommend Hosteller on Partizanska Cesta.

After getting some food the next morning and in mine and Jessica's case, pondering words that looked confusing yet familiar to us in the Slovenian language, we set off for Vintgar, a massive gorge located on the edge of Triglav National Park. It was beautiful, the apparently "untypical" non-summer weather was clearing off and the sun lit the amazingly clear water a delicious shade of turquoise. Occasional fish and the visible absence of any dangerous looking rocks made me feel like just plunging head first into one of the deeper pools from the wooden path. But the catch is, the water is freezing. A good cure for pins and needles in your feet, and delicious as drinking water, but not much else. This was the river Radovka, one of the first (dis)tributary streams of the Sava before its Alpine source, and it was hard to believe this belonged to the same river which became that enormous grey confluence in Belgrade, which I remember from nearly a year ago.

We walked onwards, running into two of Vicky's former workmates along the way and arranging to meet later tonight for dinner. At the other end of the tourist-filled gorge path there was a second cash desk and café, where we stopped to have a snack and a drink, and write postcards. Rather than walking back, we went onwards, following the advice of our hostel manager who told us we could return in a circle, walking past a "Sv. Katarina" church, and through the next village along, Zasip, rather than back through Podhom. We followed the sign to "KATARINA BLED", wondering how long Katarina had bled for and whether she had survived, and endless corn fields later, we ended up in the middle of a village called Blejska Dobrava, signalling that we had missed a turning somewhere. The man we asked told us the quickest way back to Bled would be to walk along the main road.

Luckily, we noticed we were standing right next to a train station, which I remembered as the stop before Podhom on the train from Jesenice. Rather than walking back the way we came or over the main road, we simply waited an hour, staring at the gorgeous Julian-Alpine backdrop over the sidings and passing the time with word games. After a shower back at the hostel we were off to meet Vicky's friends in the town for something to eat. The food in Slovenia is, like in Croatia and elsewhere in former Yugoslavia, somewhere between Middle Eastern and Italian, though here somewhat more Italian. This suits me perfectly, and everything I've tasted among all my short visits to Slovenia as well as this longer one, so far, has been very good.

We then went for a walk around the still lake at night - and by this I mean that the water was still. The atmosphere was not at all; the local preferé of horrifically cheesy 80s ballads could be heard blaring across the lake from one of the many huge hotel buildings on the other side. We walked past the castle, lit a deep orange by a halo of fairy lights around the keep, and kept going for a good 20 minutes down the apparently endless lakeside before realising we should turn back to the hostel and save the rest of the lake until daylight. It was too dark, too cold, and we were too sober - the time to test out the local sl(j)ivovica had not yet arrived. We walked back up the hill, and Cassiopeia guided us north back towards the mountain ridge and our hostel. We were all pretty tired, even after such a long sleep the night before. But I was glad to finally have spent more than a day in this country.

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Photos

Welcome to Slovenia!
One thing I remembered about Ljubljana last time I was here was the masses of swastikas graffitoed all over the place - so this was a nice welcome at Jesenice.

Vintgar
and Jessica and a big waterfall

Word games
Jess and Vicky telling stories at Vintgar station

Alps
The view from outside our hostel