Blogs from Slovenia, Europe - page 78

Hello all! I've arrived safe and sound!! It is so beautiful here... very lush and green and lots of mountains. I have yet to go exploring beyond the little home I am staying in due to harsh harsh jet lag, but tomorrow offers load of possibilities! Please pray a prayer of thanks for Simona and Mr. and Mrs. Pirih (her parents)... they are graciously taking care of me at this time and I am SO thankful for everything they have done for me! All my love, will post pictures soon! Mel.... read more

Today we caught the bus up to Bled, a tourist oriented village on the shores of a pretty little lake of the same name. The landscape is absolutely stunning: lush green forests all around, a lake of clear blue water, a castle-topped cliff rising dramatically above the town and a church on an island in the midst of it all. We spent a couple of hours wandering round the lake, chatting with ducks and soaking in the sub-alpine splendour. We'd picked up a few ingredients back in town and so had ourselves a picnic on the lake edge, watching the locals and their puppies strutting their way along in the sunshine. After lunch we made the steep climb up through the trees to the castle. It was unfortunately a little on the pricey side, but the ... read more

So it turns out that Ljubljana is perhaps even prettier than Zagreb. It doesnt quite have the same charm, due to the over abundance of tourists in a smaller area, but it is nevertheless still pretty charming. The castle is a wee hike up the hill but the views are neat. Lucky for us the fog had cleared and we could see the mountains all around as well as all the red rooves of the town below. Corb spat off the side, tsk tsk. The buildings around town are beautiful and there are churches of all different colours and shapes. Even the bridges are exciting, with Dragon Bridge obviously being the best; everyone knows that Dragons Rule! On the weekend there were all sorts of music and live drama type things going on in the central ... read more

I arrived in Ljubljana - which I still have trouble pronouncing, and spelling with all those consenants - mid-afternoon. I immediately went off to find and check into my hostel, the Celica. I liked the place right off the bat. As a former prison-turned-artsy-fartsy-hostel-bar, I was expecting something different from your average hostel and I was not disappointed. The place is really clean, has lots of cool spaces to hang out, and everyone is super-friendly. Within around 5 minutes of arriving at Celica, I was in my room - a 12-bed dorm unfortunately as all the smaller, prison cell rooms were already booked. I immediately met two blokes - 42 year old David from Whales and 23-year old Cathal (pronounced Ko-hal) from Ireland. We went down to the Celica bar where we drank a number of ... read more

I am going to jump ahead one stop to tell you about my time in Slovenia. (Budapest update to come later.) I'll start by saying this, "You should go!" In fact, go right now if possible. I found Slovenia to be brilliant. In the northwest it has the Julian Alps, in the east it has wine country, the southwest has a bit of coast (and you can always go to Croatia for more of that), and Ljubljana is a truly beautiful capital city. Ljubljana (lube-lee-on-a) has only around 300,000 people but boasts quite an amazing history and culture. There is more picturesque architecture than there is memory in my camera. Whether it's the hilltop castle, brightly painted churches, greening copper statues, pastels of fading paint, art nouveau residences, etc...LJ has plenty of pleasing visuals. In fact, ... read more