Lake Bled

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I'd like to start this post off by apologizing. It's been a really long time since I've posted anything. Spring has sprung in Hungary, and with spring comes a renewed social life full of family dinners, weekends outside, and very little time in my flat. It's really been amazing here. I finally have a rainy Sunday, and it's supposed to rain for the rest of the week, so hopefully by the end of this week, I'll be back on track.

After Trieste, the girls (Darcy, Alicia, Kenzie, Cindy) and I had a few Wednesday night dinners together. A good way to catch up each week after our Italian adventure. One family dinner after my ski weekend, I stayed at Cindy's flat after everyone else had left. We realized there were a few weekends in a row with nothing to do, so we thought, "why not Slovenia?" Since I arrived in Budapest, I've heard a lot about this lake that I HAVE to see. I heard that it's unbelievably gorgeous, surrounded by mountains, and not very well known. A hidden jewel of Central Europe. After a bit of research, Cindy found a great AirBnb flat, and we realized it was a 5 hour road trip. Easy. We messaged the girls, and everyone was on board.

The next weekend we piled into the car at 6:00 am and drove off. Kenzie was the navigator for this trip, so Darcy, Alicia, and I were in the back with Bobby, Cindy's dachshund. It was a fairly uneventful ride filled with naps, Queen, and Bobby farting CONSTANTLY. And looking so guilty every time. It was sort of hysterical but mostly smelly. We stopped in Ljubljana to grab some food for a Mexican dinner. We ended up getting food for 5 for two meals for about $30. LOVE grocery shopping. We had heard from our AirBnb person that there was construction going on around the flat, so we had to take a detour. It was a bit grey and rainy, and the route to Bled was very similar to the route to Trieste. As we pulled off the highway into Bled, however, we were surrounded by beautiful hills covered in forests and farmland. Every so often we would drive by a turquoise river. Grey day. Turquoise river. What? Not even real.

The detour road to our flat was beautiful and terrifying. The dirt road took us through farmland, but it also dropped and turned in such a way that we weren't fully sure there was any more road until we were right there. The hills next to us were covered in fog, and the houses were gorgeous in a decrepit countryside kind of way. We made it to the flat, parked on what was basically a cliff, unloaded, let Bobby poop (again), and walked down to the flat with a bunch of construction workers staring at us.

The flat was cute with bunk beds, a trundle in the kitchen, and a queen bed in the bedroom. Perfect for the five of us. We didn't stay for long. Despite the rain, we went out to see the lake because that's why we were there in the first place. We walked along the creek (with a little waterfall) for only about 200 meters through construction. All of a sudden, there it was. By far the most beautiful lake I've ever seen.

With mountains rising up on every side in the fog, we stared at a small island that held a church. The lake was completely still, and the color of it is beyond words (but I'll try). It was green and blue and grey and clear and smooth. It was the kind of lake you write poetry next to. We had made plans to go to lunch, so we walked along the lake into town (taking a billion pictures). The trees were just starting to blossom, and the lake was greenest wherever a tree had fallen into the water. We turned another corner, and saw a giant fortress on a cliff. I had no idea that even existed. It was rainy and foggy, but we saw a mountain peek through the fog. Cindy and I both said, "Look! An Alp!"

When we got into town, everything was closed because the season hadn't started yet. We found a restaurant recommended by our AirBnb hostess, and went in. It was a cute little place, and I ordered seafood tagliatelle (Yay for countries that border the sea!). Unfortunately, there were some really obnoxious Americans who were clearly studying abroad behind us. You can tell who studies abroad in Europe because they order multiple rounds of mixed drinks while those of us who are working and poor drink water or beer. They were swearing up a storm and we asked them to tone it down because there were children there, and people do actually speak English. However, they just began to stay snide remarks behind our backs, so we ignored them an enjoyed the food.

Also, things that would never be allowed in the States: the table came with a cheese grater and a block of cheese to grate your own. I'm sure they reuse it for every table until the cheese is gone. Can you say health codes? SLOVENIA CAN'T. The food was amazing.

After lunch we went to a place on the water and ordered Krema, which is a really light cream dessert with a flaky crust that is absolutely way better than I expected. On our way out, we ran into some older American tourists, who of course happened to be retired teachers. We talked to them for a while, and they were super sweet.

Walking back to the flat, we took another million pictures. By the time we got back, we were exhausted. We all napped for a while. When we woke up, we made a delicious Mexican dinner (because what's more Slovenian than Mexican food?) and played a lot of Catchphrase. Here's how it went, for example:

Kenzie: It's blue and yellow and sells electronics.

Cindy: Sweden??

(Best Buy).

After dinner, everyone was tired again, but Kenzie and I walked Bobby to the lake so that we could see it at night. I couldn't get a good picture, but I wrote about it as soon as I got back to the flat in my little travel journal:

"The rain fell almost silently. Even in the pitch darkness we could see how clear the water was. The island in the middle was lit up with spotlights placed around the perimeter. The light was white, misty, and muted. Soft. When we turned the corner a cliff face appeared. White light danced in shadows and spots on the massive edifice. Sprawled on top, cast in a bright orange light was a beautiful castle fortress, overlooking the city, the lakes, the mountains."

When we got back to the flat, we went to bed. We fell asleep to the rain and the creek and the waterfall.

In the morning, Darcy and I got up first. We went on a walk to the lake. It was still raining, but still beautiful. We watched a busload of Asian tourists get off a bus and into a boat. We watched them for a while and then decided it was time to go back and get the other girls. When they finally got out of bed, we packed up and drove to the castle. We parked and walked up, but unfortunately it cost money, so we didn't go inside. When we peered over the wall we were able to see the whole lake and town, which was really cool. Afterwards we went back to the flat, packed, cleaned, and cleared out.

Bobby farted the whole way home too.

We were going to stop for lunch in Ljubljana, but we decided that we hadn't had our fix of lakes yet. We stopped on Lake Balaton in Hungary. If you look at a map of Hungary and see a body of water, that's Lake Balaton. It's HUGE. The color of this water is bright sky blue because it has a sandy bottom. We watched some swans for a while, but swans are assholes, so we didn't stay for too long. We had some really good pizza, and then headed back to Budapest the rest of the way.

In the summers, apparently Lake Bled is packed with tourists to the point where you can't move. I was really glad we went there in March. Even though it rained the whole weekend, we basically had the lake to ourselves. Another great road trip with the girls.



PS. There's a million pictures because it was too beautiful of a place and I couldn't choose.

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