Advertisement
Published: October 27th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Bled
Bled castle. Trying to get back to the EU (Slovenia) was a bit of a problem. There seemed to be only one bus per day to Ljubljana from that part of Croatia...at 6 am. It was my lucky day as that day the bus broke down. I had to take 3 local buses and instead of 3.5 hours it was now a 7 hour trip.
At the border the officer was investigating my passport really carefully again. He kept asking me if I was really Jan. "Yes... yes... yes... YES!!!". "But you look so much like a Russian"... That's new. I had gotten used to people in Europe asking me if I was from Poland (I have been addressed in Polish all over Europe), but now I'm promoted/degraded to be a Russian.
Eventually after he had checked all those cool 'security gadgets' on our Belgian passports, he let me go but said something in Russian and started laughing. Unfortunately my Russian is limited to: "yes", "no", "cheers", "beer" and "nice legs"... This would probably get me a long way in Russia but it did not help me to understand his little joke... And these are the people guarding the borders of the EU.
Bled
Church on the island Bled
After finally arriving in the capital, I immediately boarded another bus to Bled. Bled is a small town that seems to be taken straight out of a fairy tale book. A gondola is being rowed to the church on an island in the middle of the beautiful blue lake. There is a castle on the rocks on the bank and a dramatic backdrop of mountain peaks in the distance. No wonder Tito chose this place for his holiday house (one of many).
In summer you can swim and in winter the lake freezes over and there's ice skating. While I was there it was mostly sunny but already pretty cold in the shadow as I felt while walking around the lake. A crazy Oz guy wanted to go canyoning and was looking for people to join him to share the costs. Canyoning is basically
Descending a river in a canyon using natural waterslides, jumping in small (and not really deep) rock pools, and abseiling from waterfalls. Although the canyoning season was over for weeks and the river water was ice cold, 5 of us turned up and we had a great time. We quickly forgot about
the freezing water that found its way into our wetsuits. Definitely something I want to do again.
Bohinj
Just a short bus ride from Bled is the Bohinj valley and lake. As the weather was great again I went over there to climb some mountains. In the distance you could see the Triglav peak (highest mountain in Slovenia) but I decided to attack his little cousin Mt Vogel (almost 2000m). It was a nice walk to the top through some deserted ski areas with great views on the valleys on both side of the mountain. Unfortunately just before I reached the top, I got into the clouds spoiling the views.
After returning to the valley I walked around the lake where it the beautiful colours announced that autumn had really started even though the sun was still out.
The next day I was supposed to visit a gorge and another village but it was pouring down. After a couple of hours of waiting I got on a bus to Ljubljana for the last 2 days of my trip.
Ljubljana
In Ljubljana I met up with Bayless, the coolest Texan I know. I met Bayless in Sarajevo
Bled
a local and we had a lot of common interests and got along really well.
In Ljubljana we crashed on the floor of a Canadian girl's student apartment. The girl was out of town and we were squatting the place, trying to avoid the landlords.
Ljubljana is a real nice little town with a real 'cafe culture'. We tried to blend in so we spent quite some time on the terraces drinking tea and coffee.
We also went for a night out in the 'Metelkova area'. This is the 'counter culture' area I talked about before. I actually renamed it METALkova because of all the 'heavy metal' fans hanging around there. It was fun and I wished I would have had something like that back at home during my 'young and crazy' years (I'm just crazy now).
The next day we started around noon with some more coffee and tea and checked out the Old Town. Got a bit lost after climbing the castle hill. Saturday night in Ljubljana is really bizarre as almost no one is out and all places close at midnight.
My last day I went on a 'high speed' sight seeing tour of the city.
Bled
taking a gondola to the church Sunday morning there is a big flea market by the river which attracts a lot of people (shopping or watching from the cafe terrace). I climbed the Castle hill again and was luckier to find the observation tower open this time: great views over the city, the park and the mountains in the background. The park is quite unique. I had heard tales of travellers who went in there and got lost for hours and ended up having to take a bus or taxi back to the city. How can you get lost in a city park? It became clear when I saw it from the castle hill. The park starts a 3 minute walk from the city centre but it spreads out into the hills and mountains as far as I could see.
In the late afternoon I had my last 'burek' (local snack) before going to the airport. Arriving in Belgium was pretty intense. It was raining very hard with a lot of wind ('welcome home'). The whole plane was shaking and going up and down while we were landing. The first time I got nervous on a plane...and I wasn't alone as a lot of people
Bled
Crazy canyoning people started applauding when we were safely on the ground.
I had 4 great weeks in the Balkans. This is a perfect destination for me: a lot of nature, outdoor activities, recent and ancient history, culture, good food, nice people and good beaches to relax.
It will be a big tourist destination in the near future I'm sure.
Also September-October is a great time to visit: great weather but fewer crowds. I would like to fly back to Slovenia sometime in winter for winter sport. Wizz Air flies Charleroi(Bxl south)-Ljubljana for just 50 euro (tax included).
So my Balkans 'try out' tour went smooth and I'm now getting ready for the final leg of my 'travel year': New Zealand, Fiji and Australia. I've just been watching the Lord of the rings movies again to get in the mood. I'll fly out on Monday. I'll talk to you soon.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.285s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 18; qc: 108; dbt: 0.1165s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb