Blogs from Piran, Istria, Slovenia, Europe - page 2

Day 254 Wednesday 28th September 2016 – Ljubljana to Divaca Been sleeping in a bit lately so it was a bit difficult to drag our bums out of bed at 6am, but we had a bus to catch. Had a 20 minute walk from our apartment to the bus station which was a good heart starter first thing and got down there at 7.10 where we met Traudy who is just so much more on time than us. At 7.30 our bus arrived and no hassles getting underway, we were soon zipping through the beautiful Slovenian countryside. The scenery around here is just so amazing you really do feel as if you are looking at an oil painting and it is as if the whole place has been manicured. Arrived at our destination Divaca ... read more

Tänä viikonloppuna päädyin bussilla rannikolle. Niemen nokassa oleva Piranin vanhakaupunki osoittautui muodostelmaksi keskiaikaista arkkitehtuuria ja kapeita venetsialaistyylisiä kujia. Kaupungissa on useampi historiallisesti merkittävä nähtävyys, kaupunki on myös säveltäjä Giuseppe Tartinin syntymäpaikka. Tältä viikonlopulta en halunnut juuri mitään sen suurempaa, kuin vaihtaa maisemaa, kävellä rauhassa ja vähän kuvailla. Mielikuva siitä, että olin paremminkin Italiassa kuin Sloveniassa, vahvistui viimeistään, kun ruokailuani sävytti yhtäkkiä terassin täydeltä ahtaneet italialaiset. Kaikkea sitä eläytyvän puheen sorinaa ihastuneen huvittuneena seuratessani, tunsin olevani kuin päähenkilö yhdestä puhkikatsotusta elokuvasta (terveisiä vaan Sintulle!). Hostellissa neljän hengen dormissa nukuin maagiset yhdentoista tunnin yöunet. En edes muista milloin olisin viimeksi nukkunut niin... read more

I was surprisingly perky the next day. I could even eat. Walking through Ljubljana to the train station, I noticed that the city was awash with school kids who all had their faces and arms smothered in graffiti. Dule had told us last night that yesterday was the last day of the holidays so perhaps this is some kind of Slovenian freshers ritual. Anyway, we caught a train to the small town of Divaca, the closest town to the Skocjan Caves. We were a bit lucky on arrival - there was a free bus waiting to take us to the caves. It didn't get us to the caves fast enough for the 2pm tour though unfortunately, so we had about an hour to kill. To kill it, we started walking up a path that circumnavigated the ... read more

Piran The trip from Pula to Piran was a bit compliated and included two trains, a stop at the Croatian-Slovenian border where we got told off by a police man for wandering off over the invisible border, an hours wait in a dead-end town for a train that turned out to be a minibus and we were the only people on, a drive to Koper in a thunderstorm, an hours journey on a public bus to Piran, which we reached at a beautiful moment- the receding storm clouds over the sea with the rays of the setting sun peeping through. Piran was love at first sight. Second challenge was finding our way to the hostel, at night, no map, but again Matt's uncanny sense of direction won out and we found it no problem! No one ... read more

Today we headed off for a look at what is apparently Slovenia most popular tourist attraction, the Postojna Caves. These caves are about an hours drive southish from Ljubljana (a little longer when you factor in the road works and traffic time). The caves themselves are massive and are apparently the largest in Slovenia, at 20km long, although not the largest in the world which are located in the USA and are over 500km long. The tourist section of the Posotjna Caves are only 5.7kms long. The only problem with visiting these caves is the fact that they are sooooo popular and that you can only get into the caves if you can take a guided tour, and the tours only leave every hour. We got there at 9:08am which meant that we had to wait ... read more