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Bled

Like Alice I had stepped into a fairytale; plunged down the rabbit hole into a world of magic and wonder. After yet another sleep in a train station (this time Ljubljana), I arrived in Bled and what a sight I saw. A deep turqoise lake, so clear you can see rocks metres below. The water was almost unbelievably calm and placid as if it had never even been touched by the forces of nature. This lake was surrounded by mountains around the horizon on all sides; towering above with its grey peaks and lush green forests below peacefully leading up to the lake's edge. Right on the edge of one side of the lake stood a hill the whole way down the side, and in the middle of this hill was a steep stone cliff, and perched at the top of this precipice like an eagles nest was a medieval castle with grey/white stone walls and orange, circuler and pointy roofs. As if this wasn't fairytale enough, right inside the lake was a tiny island, and this tiny island was completely used up by a tiny but beautiful church. As soon as I walked to the shore, I couldn't help but say "whoa". I mean, a serene lake surrounded by mountains is great to start off with, but what about a castle on a cliff on its edge? Or even better yet, a small island with a church?! See? Fairytale fantasy.

Bled was awesome just to walk around the lake and take in this picturesque scenery. However, beneath this beauty the evils of commercial tourism lurked in the shadows. The town itself was quite ugly and uninteresting; covered with ugly 70's style hotels. But knowing how I much I dislike such invasions, I avoided it all and just explored the lake and surrounding areas; so I was not disappointed. After walking around the lake (which took A LOT longer than I expected), I walked up the steep path to the Castle, which has a museum in inside. The inside of the castle and the museum were at the most uninteresting, but the view over the Bled Jezero (Bled Lake) was astounding as you can really see the island and the church right in the middle of all the water. To complete an exhausting day filled with just over 6hrs of walking altogether, I went to see Slap Vintgar (a waterfall) that I was told was astounding. It really was not astounding at all as you will see from the picture. But the walk there was really serene and beautiful as the path winds along the tree-lined gorge face, with the clear turquoise river spreading out narrowly, dashing amongst the rocks below.

It is amazing how small the world really is. In my hostel, right in my dorm (one of 9) was a guy from Finland. And not only from Finland, but he lives in Turku! We were both quite amazed at the coincidence of our visit to Bled, in Slovenia of all places. His name was Tim (very short for Timo) and he was a champ of a guy and we got on really well. We went hiking (one of the many times I went or attempted hiking) the next day on a mountain next to Lake Bohinj; near Bled. However, the summit did not offer a good view of the lake and the surroundings so we didn't spend much time there. And for the 2nd day in a row, I had walked for just over 6hrs... I was kinda exhausted by now! With nothing to do on the next day, I went canyoning. I had never heard of it before, but upon hearing of its description I decided it was a goer. In effect it involves travelling through a gorge/canyon created by the river. As I mentioned in my Rome journal, I have a strange phobia of crashing into rocks, and after hearing from Joel that our rock diving in Positano was some of the best fun he had during our travels, I decided it was time to cure this fear. So to cure my fear of crashing into rocks I decided to go canyoning and crash into rocks. Despite my initial fears, it was incredibly fun, but probably not worth all the money I paid for. But jumping off rocks metres high above crystal clear pools, sliding quickly down natural water slides made of rocks at relatively high speeds and rappelling down rock faces with the river flowing and falling right next to you was a very unique experience.

After this I still had some time left during the day so I decided to do more hiking on a mountain to get a good view of the lake. On the map the hike looked very easy, so I came ill prepared in thongs thinking it will be a walk in the park. Big mistake. I found something that looked like a trail and so I began to follow it. This "hiking trail" was obviously not a hiking trail at all. As soon as I started the trail disappeared into trees, leaves and dirt. Not only this, but what I thought was the trail was incredibly steep. Still I ploughed through effectively just creating a trail for myself, slipping everywhere due to my inappropriate footwear, grabbing onto the roots of trees to keep myself from falling all the way down again, using rocks as footholds to rush to the next rock or grab the next root or stand behind the next tree. My hands and clothes were covered in dirt. Sweat was pouring from my face like the waterfalls I had witnessed earlier. I was heaving and puffing. My general unfitness may largely be a result of beer consumption, but this was clearly a result of the mountain. This energy sapping, exhausting climb lasted for at least 30min, resulting in me being very, very tired (especially after the total 12hrs of walking I had done in the previous 2 days!). I had thought this one would be easy! Near the top I had to rock climb for about 5m to get to the top, but all my efforts were rewarded with simply stunning views of the lake. And as I mentioned the world is very small. About 10min after I had been sitting quietly at the top taking in the scenery, an English guy came up as well who had actually lived in Perth for 3 years (in Subi). Fancy that. Unlike me, he was well prepared with a map (and shoes) and told me the correct way to go down. So on the way down I followed the trail I had tried to find, and ended up at a totally different place to where I began. Fun adventure!

Bovec

Sunday is a bad day to be travelling in Slovenia. Bovec is a very small town on the other side of the Julian Alps from Bled, and since it was a Sunday it was impossible to get there. No trains go to Bovec, and buses did not run on Sunday. I didn't know this, so I got a rare train to Most Na Soci in order to get a bus. After realising that I was now stuck there, with no possibility of using public transport to get to Bovec, and with time running out until I went back to Turku, and still with lots to do, that left one option; hitch hiking. I had hitch hiked before briefly in Tunisia with Joel, and then Tim and I got the quickest hitch hike ever (within literally 5seconds) to get into Bohinj from a waterfall. This was a bit different. I had to hitch hike to 3 different places to get to Bovec. The first one (to Tolmin) was relatively easy as I only waited about 10min before a kind German couple gave me a lift. Arriving at Tolmin things got difficult. I ended up waiting 1.5hrs before I got a lift! 1.5hrs of pure boredom. Sitting by the road, holding up a sign that said "Bovec", holding my thumb out in a northerly direction, doing absolutely nothing else for 1.5hrs. After my initial excitement at the possibility of hitch hiking, frustration became clearly inevitable as car after car went passed. Some were kind of enough to acknowledge in the few seconds it took to drive past me that they weren't going to Bovec; but their attempted generosity failed to ease my tensions. It seemed that no one was going to Bovec. Eventually a Slovenian guy gave me a lift to the crossroads between Nova Gorica and Bovec where he said it would be easier to get a lift. And he was right, as less then 20min passed (a relatively short time compared to the other period of waiting) until a kind and joyful Slovenian guy with a family of 10 gave me a lift to Bovec. And so after much frustration and waiting, my first real hitch hiking experience came to an end finally! I feel like I'm becoming a full blown traveller now, sleeping in parks and train stations, travelling by the seat of my pants and now hitch hiking. Though I obviously still have a lot to learn, ESPECIALLY about hitch hiking!!!

There is nothing to do in Bovec except adventure sports, so adventure soprts is what I did. When I wasn't doing adventure sports I was doing nothing, which was pretty boring. I had been attracted to Bovec by its white water rafting down the Soca River, which apparently is very reputable. And indeed it is, though I came at the wrong time (the best time is in May). Nevertheless, I had a great time rafting down the river on Level 2, 3 and even one Level 4 rapids (level 4 is pretty damn crazy!). The surrounding environment was very beautiful. The water is out of this world; a bright turquoise so clear you can see every rock below you. Rafting during the calm parts was a beautiful experience. Though obvioulsy while down the rapids it's hard to notice the beauty when the water is canvassing wildly over a rock right in front of you. The river looked so inviting, but looks are like in many cases deceiving as it was biting cold; a chilling 10 degrees!

After rafting I went out for lunch, a beer and some games of pool with 2 of the rafting guys and finally had a bit of fun in this otherwise boring town. They were both really cool and it was great to get to know some locals. It was funny to hear from them how awesome it was to live in a little town where you know everyone, and therefore get unnaturally intoxicated at every single possible opportunity with them. Great conversations! One of them, Mathias, even gave me a lift half way to Ljubljana when I went there. Extraordinarily friendly people, Slovenians.

On my last day in Bovec I thought I'd try some more hiking, so I aimed to hike up this mountain (Rombon), but the trail was impossible to find (I just can never seem to find hiking trails). After climbing it for about 30min I stumbled around for about 2hrs looking for the continuation of the trail to no avail, so I gave up and came back down. Although disappoitned that I couldn't go up, my expedition of discovery was really interesting, clammering around and over rock faces, ploughing through bushes and forests and even trespassing on private property. I then tried to do some kayaking, but it was too expensive. Bovec like many places in Europe has caught on to the tourist trail, with about 4 different sporting agencies offering the EXACT same adventure sports on the EXACT same places on the river, plus the town teems with annoying German and ESPECIALLY Italian tourists. So combined with the town's lack of non-adventure activities I was a bit disappointed with Bovec. But I did what I came here to do (white water rafting) so in the end it was all not in vain. But my time in Slovenia was not over; next stop was the beautiful captial, Ljubljana.

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