Blogs from Slovenia, Europe - page 50

We arrived in Slovenia via train from Graz. While there is no border crossing as both Austria and Slovenia are members of the EU, there was one thing we noticed immediately - the change of language! Suddenly we noticed that we had no idea of what people were saying or what the simplest of signs meant. When we arrived at Maribor railway station I had to give in to a call of nature and found myself standing at two doors, one labeled "Zenski" and the other "Moski" - luckily I could understand the pictures below the names! From that moment on Lorenza and I suddenly invented a whole new language between us, with every word ending in "ski" - for example "do you want a drinkski?" or "do you want to take a walkski" and to ... read more

Ljubljana Scott and I arrived in Ljubljana around 19:15, we said our goodbyes to Minka and then we were met by Scott’s cousin Zvone and his partner Nusa. They took us for a lovely walk around the city of Ljubljana and show us the major sites to check out the next day. So we walked from the train station ( Zelezniska postaja ) to the center ( Center Mesta ) and down to the old square ( Stara Ljubljana ). Ljubljana is definitely one of the most beautiful European cities that we have seen in our travels. The city is very clean and even though all of the buildings are very different, the cities architecture was well thought out and planned. In the old square there are 3 famous bridges ( Tromostovje ) which were designed ... read more

Today I decided to take of the pension bikes and head out to Triglavski National Park to take a look at Vingtar Gorge. The lady at the front desk had said that the bike ride out there was easy, but slightly uphill. I decided that she was a little mistaken about the slightly uphill park when I came to a hill that I had to go down into the second lowest gear to climb. However the ride out to the gorge was just lovely. I managed to get some great panoramas on the way there. You have to pay to enter the gorge, but the money is totally worth it. The Triglavski National Park and the Vingtar Gorge are just beautiful. Once you enter the gorge you walk 1600m down from the entrance along the ... read more

Scotland to Kanal (Photos to follow when we can find a decent internet connection!) Leaving Scotland! I got back from work on Friday, much worse for wear thanks to a few drinks with a few folk from work. I was quite hungover and of the opinion that Slivovitza is not your friend. I also ended up with half my face missing for some reason, I had two scrapes on my forehead and one big one above my right cheek beside my ear, and behind my right ear was a mess. I can assure you when Penny saw my face she wasn’t impressed as the words “wedding photo’s” came to her mind. She had told me that 1 month before the wedding I wasn’t allowed to do any biking, hiking, rock climbing, caving or anything that could ... read more

Driving through Rijeka in the rain during the busy afternoon traffic was slow going, but at least Jac finally managed to load the credit onto her phone and we could communicate with the world again. It was not long after that that we came to the Slovenian border and passport control, and after a couple of quick questions we were into another country. With 20 273 sq.km and 2 million people it was one of the smallest countries we had visited (after Luxembourg) and as soon as we arrived we noticed the trees - apparently 57% of the country is forested. The weather had cleared and we headed for the short stretch of coastline and a place called Ankaran, just across the water from Slovenia’s main port of Koper. Once again the campsite was on the ... read more