Blogs from Slovenia, Europe - page 64

As always, we started the day out with breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast we boarded the bus, bound for various sites in the Alpine region. Lorie wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed in Bled. Our first stop was Skofja Loka, Slovenia’s oldest city. We strolled along 800 year old streets, layered with cobblestones. After reaching the highest point in the city, we toured the museum and castle. Portions of the castles have been restored through the years, most notably by Joze Plecknik, Slovenia’s most important Architect. We continued our tour by stopping at the Elan Factory outlet. We shopped briefly then continued on to Bohinj. We had a late, light lunch at Restavracija Zlatovcica (the size of our group apparently overwhelmed the very lightly staffed restaurant). After lunch, we strolled around Lake Bohinj - Slovenia’s ... read more

“Dober dan!” Hello! After having breakfast at Hotel Bled, we headed out for the day. The tour today includes a trip into the Kras Region, near the Italian border, a little east of the area where we toured yesterday. This region of Slovenia is the World’s original “karst” area and is where the term karrst topography originated. The area is riddled with limestone outcroppings and sinkholes and an extensive underground lake and cavern system. The fist stop was in Lipica. Founded in 1580, this is the site of the original stud-farm for Lippazan stallions. A classical riding school was founded after WWII. Our tour of the Farm took us through the training area and stables. We saw where the mares are stabled, yearlings that still had their dark coats, and the older Stallions that were completely ... read more

After a long day of travel, we were happy to arrive at our hotel in Bled. From the plane, we had a sneak peak of the Alps and of Venice. On the drive from Venice to Bled, we enjoyed seeing family vineyards and the Italian countryside. From the room at Hotel Park, we have a beautiful view of Lake Bled. Directly across the lake, atop the hill is Castel Bled. A beautiful old church sits on an island in the middle of the lake. With little sleep but lots of energy, we are off and anxious do a little exploring. ... read more

It happens every year. In the last half of November all the old friends keep in touch and decide where to spend New Year's day. The tradition of going somewhere abroad has been going on for a while now and it all started in 1999 when we went to Prague. This year was doomed by indecision: someone wanted to go back to Spain, after the great experience of last year in Madrid. Others were opting for somewhere closer, since everybody was lacking time and I was the only one on a long vacation. Umberto had this brilliant idea: Ljubljana, the capital of neighbor Slovenia. Unfortunately only three of us made it there: myself, Umberto (Umbe) and omnipresent Claudio (Gillo). Getting there from Venice is really a piece of cake: about two and a half hours driving. ... read more

We decided to celebrate our final days in London by going on 'Our last Trip' to Ljubljana, Slovenia. It had taken us about three months to get our tongue around the pronunciation of the word and had no clue on what to expect!! Apart from a war with Yugoslavia in the early 90's there was not alot we did know about the place! In actual fact our Europe guide book had all of three pages on Slovenia which does not necessarily give the sense that there is a lot happening!!! After arriving mid afternoon we decided to go for a walk to the city centre. The city centre was spectacular with its Christmas decorations and snow falling! The decoration consisted of all the planets, comets, the sun, the moon, stars and angels hanging over the streets, ... read more