Slovenia Part 3...Bled, Ljubljana, castles...

(Wed. Dec. 16th- Thur. Dec. 17th)

More adventures. More driving. Small towns that Tiffany had been to before and wanted to revisit/show to me. We started out with a small town on a lake, called Bled. Quite a picturesque little place- mountains around, a nice lake right there, and a castle on top of the hill. So we went to see it. And with the snow and stuff, we almost didn't make it up the road to the castle- thank God for manual transmission. Tiffany wasn't enjoying that part of the drive though- felt like we were gonna slide back down!

This castle wasn't very big, but what the heck. Its a castle. Bled castle ("grad", as in Leningrad, Stalingrad, etc.)

A view of the lake from the castle's overlook. There's an island out on the lake, with a small boat that takes you out there. There's a CHURCH on the island! Tiffany said a lotta people get married there, she thought it'd be cool to get married there.

Someone (not me) had built a tiny snowman on the ledge. Someone also (me) stuck a nearby cigarette butt into the snowman to complete the "package".

Back inside, there was a little donation thingy, and someone had dropped money in from Moldova. Tiffany's dad was living there so we thought that was- notable.

Inside the castle, it was almost totally a museum about local artifacts found there from past peoples. I found it to be kind of boring, but some of the displays were cool:

Again- great wood shelves and glass boxes. I'd like to make shelves like this one day.

Another little glass box.

OUTside (like I said, inside not very interesting) here is the main square contained within the castle. Great views of the town.

And the stairs down to the entrance. I liked how it was like a tiny amphitheater.

View of the town.

View of the corner of the castle.

The entrance through the castle wall.

Blah blah blah. Castle pictures.

Our rental. Yeah they hadta switch it out on us cause there was a recall on some part on the other. So we got downgraded. Part of the reason we almost didn't make it up the slippery road. Little Renault Clio was a four-cylinder. But still manual. They don't really do automatic transmissions in Europe. Good for them :)

Here is where we parked our car while we walked around- across the lake from the castle. There it is up there... and a church off to the right that we checked out also.

Here is the aforementioned church. Small. Quiet. Pretty. We sat here for a minute and warmed up. And thought.

The church was kinda at the end of what small amount of "town" there was. So we were walking back, and found this Goose Parking Spot.

And a large chess set inside of a glass box.

And Tiffany's stepmom's favorite restaurant, a place called Okarina...

...that apparently Paul McCartney liked as well! Too bad it was closed, or we were gonna eat there.

Instead we just kept walking down the street. Quiet town. Especially when its cold and snowy. But I found a couple cool buildings worth taking pictures of :) This one I just liked the red. But something about it looked interesting anyway, the way the windows were, the balcony railings, the skylights.

Another good one. Its sort of an abstracted classical villa- it feels very classical even though it has a flat roof, plain windows, and simple white forms.

This one I like a lot. I guess I just like wood. It was a small campus of some business school, only a couple buildings.

They must have had a party or happy hour last night. But someone left their wine outside. I thought it looked kinda cool there in the snow.

Back to the lake. These swans were actually kinda mean. But I think they just wanted food, as most animals do that are used to humans.

The castle on the hill really looks pretty awesome.

This was another Tiffany special. She's weird like that. Hey, at least I had shaved a couple days ago...

Awesome! This house was right next to the lake too- it was huge, and maybe a hotel or something, but ALL that black, covering everything, was vines. Could you imagine it in the summer? It must be amazing...

We got back to the car after a while more of freezing fingers. Time to warm up for a bit. And drive to our next destination, our final one for the night- this tiny town a ways outside of this not-so-big town. I can't even remember the name. iPhoto just tells me its a National Park. That's how small the town was. And this is what all the surrounding countryside looked like- tall pine trees, lots of snow, foggy mountains. OH, here it is- it was called Srednja Vas.

Here's the town. Nice little houses, most of em were multiple stories, with little attached garages or barns- many of which we found out housed their livestock all winter until it was warm enough that they could all go graze... Pretty cool little stream cutting through the town.

The interesting thing about this and the surrounding towns is how everything was organized- I've never seen anything like it in the US. We were driving on the one road that cut through these mountains, and there were successive towns laid out along the road. The weird thing is, that the towns were so close together and yet separate and distinct from one another, and very tightly knit.

This town we stayed in had probably 50-60 houses total- yet the photos make it look pretty dense, because it was. You would see a small sign with the name of the town, the population (anywhere from a couple hundred to like 40 or so) and then immediately would be houses, after driving past open snowy fields. You'd drive for maybe a minute or two down the road with houses on both sides, addresses starting at 1 and going up until there were no more houses- for example, we stayed at house 38 or something- that was it for the address, cause there was ONE road through town :) Then you'd see another sign, near the last house, saying that it was the end of the town, and then maybe a couple hundred yards down the road, past open snowy fields, you'd see the beginning of another town. And it was like this for miles. Tiny town after tiny town. Quite remarkable.

Here's the town church. They have their own church! That was the other amazing thing- these towns of like 100 people would have their own church, and often it was situated at the front edge of the little town, right past the population sign. Like their landmark. We climbed up to this one and they had their own cemetery up there, and the church bells donged every hour.

See, the town looks pretty populated. But it was seriously like 60 houses.

(The town even had its own Christmas tree).

We were staying in a three story house, with a couple bedrooms and bathroom on the top floor, the family (with kids) on the second floor, and grandparents and kitchen on the first floor. Here was the one restaurant in town. Literally. We walked around the corner from the bed and breakfast where we were staying, because they recommended this place. But where else could they recommend :) Tiffany was hoping for some authentic Slovene food, so that is what we were in search of.

Here was the wine and beer list- with "beer" in Italian, English, Slovene, and I dunno... German. OH- French, too, actually- five languages. The bold was Slovene :) Tiffany remembered a few of the beers she had when she lived in Slovenia (which uh, was in high school, but yknow, Europe...)

And here was the food menu. Also in four languages. But even without the English, its not too bad to figure out, after dabbling in Spanish and Italian and picking up a few words of French in Paris- lots of related English words, and food is something you see written a lot when traveling and eating :) Still though, while knowing WHAT was in the dishes, I wasn't really sure what they'd be like, but Tiffany seemed to know and assured me it'd be good.

The place was tiny and on this random weekday night, we were the only patrons aside from a couple people that were clearly locals and looked like cops or relatives of the people who worked there- regulars. Yet there were three people working there, so the service was pretty good :) We got some Lasko beers, which after a long day of walking, driving, and being cold, was blow number one.

Then we ordered this two-person platter of food. Tons of those big country-style french fries, some fried chicken and I think fish (I forget) and some mashed potatoes and potato dumpling things that tasted like pierogies but looked like big fries. It looked like a large but manageable amount of food for two people- like we'd be stuffed, but finish it. We were wrong.

Ordering all that food was strike two in knocking us out. SO FULL.

Still a lot of food left. Tiffany, usually with eyes bigger than her stomach, was not pulling her weight, and was even getting a bit combative when I tried to make her help me finish :) She was threatening throwing up :)

Like I said. Awesome picture though :)

This one- not staged. Like I'm sitting there kinda talking, kinda sitting, and she's non-responsive. Hello? Yeah she was out. Sitting up.

Then I woke her up a little bit.

I enjoy this series of pictures.

Oh look! Mistake number three! But at least we're awake again. The owner/waiter brought us homemade blueberry liquor. THE. MOST. DELICIOUS. DRINK. EVER. I should have asked him the name (but of course it was homemade, anyway) cause we tried finding it in Ljubljana. Couldn't.

And we were officially dead for the night. So we went to bed. I think we wanted a movie on my laptop first. Whether or not Tiffany fell asleep during the movie is debatable...or relatively certain.

The next day though we were ready to take it on again. They served us breakfast, which was great, aside from the fact that it wasn't until we paid, before we left, that we found out breakfast was NOT included, and that they were charging an extra 5 euro or so for breakfast. That was kinda annoying. But too late, since we'd eaten...it was weird because it was like meats and cheese for breakfast. So we made sandwiches for lunch later as well, which was nice of them to let us do. For breakfast we got to meet the grandma, who made a lot of the food, while we sat there and talked to the husband and wife that owned the place, who had their little toddler with them. They both spoke great English (in a town of a couple hundred people up in the mountains of Slovenia, can you believe that?) but the grandma spoke none- she talked to us a bit and Tiffany understand quite a bit of what she was saying. They had milk from the cow in the barn. And the stove (and basically the whole kitchen) was heated with a FIRE. It looked like a big old-fashioned stove, had a little door in the front, she opened it and stuffed another small log in. Wow. I couldn't believe it. That explains why it was freezing in there...

We spent a bit of time walking around the town during the day. The stream again.

Climbing the steps up to the church, this is basically the whole town.

Again- the whole town. And just behind it, nothing but open snowy fields.

The stairs were kind of a climb, and Tiffany is pretty lazy, and morbidly obese, so she needed a little rest on the ledge :)

Here's the cemetery. Interesting.

This is a composite shot of a bunch of photos. Picturesque, isn't it?

We said a little goodbye and thanks to the family, paid for the night, and the food >:/, and went on our way. We got to wave to the toddler out the window, who watched us go. I can't remember his name... It wasn't until we were well gone that we realized we had left our pasta, from Piran (my most tasty meal EVER) on the little porch upstairs so it would stay cold, and forgot it. I'm guessing they found it by now. Dammit. It was so tasty!

This is Lake Bohinj, the town around it, which is small but bigger than the place we stayed, is Ribcev Laz. Another place Tiffany wanted to see.

It was cool being able to stand out on these rocks in the water.

Ribcev Laz's church, around the edge of the lake . Unfortunately, locked. Nice view though, glassy lake.

This swan was mean- mean to the ducks around it, and when I was standing next to the water's edge, waiting for Tiffany to take a picture, it started swimming towards me and ducking its head, like trying to intimidate me- swimming fast, and looking like he wanted to bite my feet. I backed off and threw ice chucks at it. That's right.

Tiffany watched him slowly swim away...

Here's the bully picking on the ducks. More ice chunks thrown at swan.

We pushed a lotta snow off the top of the bridge because the ducks and fish were swarming thinking it was food.

The gravel by the side of the road, next to the church, was like greenish granite...really cool. Where the heck did this come from? I know they have a green volcanic-sand beach in Hawaii, but here? Green? Looked cool. I shoulda taken one. Did I? I don't remember.

This gives you an idea of what these towns were like. Us, on this one road, snowy fields, then edge of town, with cluster of houses- and you can even see the church steeple back there. This was just one of many towns we drove through in succession.

...back through Bled on the way back to civilization :)

The mountain building! We were finally gonna go see it!

Just a cool building thing near our hostel, as we were walking again.

This was next to our hostel. Dunno what it even was- just some cantilever.

Nice color.

YEAH. The mountain building. Very Dutch looking. This was across the train tracks from downtown, in a whole area of town that was very new, and there was a college of some sort there. I like the bright orange cube.

Backside of the orange cube.

Some little round glassy stations, sitting right there on the plaza. I liked them.

Past those buildings was our final destination of the afternoon, behind her in this picture- Tiffany's high school!

We walked right inside- tried to time it to when school was getting out. She saw the librarian she knew, and a couple other teachers, who told her that her old principal was still around and in the office. So we headed up there! It was an international school where all the students and teachers spoke English, so it was easy to interact with them :)

Her principal couldn't believe it had been ten years since Tiffany graduated.

The mountain.

We had evening dinner plans with Tiffany's first boyfriend from high school (no it wasn't weird). They hadn't really kept in touch that much but were Facebook friends and she'd told him we were coming- he was one of three of her high school friends we were able to see while we were traveling. He was engaged, and they were expecting. His name was Saso (with a hat over the second s, pronounced Sasho) and her name was...I forget. Crap. Saso was...Serbian, if I remember right, and we met up with them at the city's best Serbian food place. Apparently his mom makes great Serbian food too.

So whatever this dish was, Tiffany was excited to get it for dinner :)

Sas(h)o wanted to order a round of drinks to celebrate things, so we got some Serbian honey liquor kind of like the stuff we bought in the tiny bottles. Tasty. I think we ended up having two rounds of those ;)

And after a nice long (warm) dinner we headed back out- hadta see the castle. It was a bit of a walk up through a neighborhood and up a street to the castle, and it was cold, but whatever.

This is the central courtyard of the castle, clock tower behind the castle.

Nice view of the city- you can see where all the Christmas lights and blue are, is where all the touristy activity was that we were enjoying.

This was underneath the castle- they'd shored the whole thing up with steel and built a lobby kind of area for the new-ish tram to come into and drop people off. The steps and steel were built right into the rock.

Yeah- cool how they did this.

And guess where we went to warm up...yep. Cajna Hisa. Was starting to feel like home :)

I had a giant upside-down-coffee: milk with coffee. For two reasons- it was a large serving, and it was cheap. And warm and tasty.

That night it was time for an epic train ride. We were riding through the night, because the journey was long, the train was expensive, so we figured might as well not waste a day and well more than a hostel night's fare on a train when we could just take the train and sleep on it. Or so we thought...

We thankfully looked twice at our tickets, and realized they were kinda confusing...and asked about them before we departed- and found out that in the middle of the night we hadta switch trains in Salzburg. Switch trains!! In the middle of the night! So we had to set an alarm, we asked some of the conductors, as best we could. Thankfully they were good-ish about their English, but we were getting farther and farther from Romance-language-speaking people.

Here's Tiffany having a good snooze, when we were both stretched out on our seats, before we got to Salzburg and switch trains, and things got ugly.

Thankfully we managed this part of the journey okay, though I was bummed that we were literally standing IN Salzburg, but that it was the middle of the night and we didn't have any time to go see anything. So I've uh, *been* to Salzburg.

When we got on our new train though, it was a bit more full. We had "open" tickets meaning no assigned seats. And then we started hitting towns and the train started filling up. And we started having people fill up the seats, until finally some older kinda grumpy ladies took the seats we were in that they had tickets for(acting as if we stole them) and at that point we were out in the tiny little hallway next to the rooms, sitting on our bags or standing up. For a couple hours. In the wee hours of the morning. So we tried to shut our eyes a bit more, but it was pretty unsuccessful. And pretty cold out there in the hallway. So that was nice. There we have the one requisite "terrible train travel" story for the trip. At least I knew we were going to TWO great cities in one day, the next day...

Here was some Slovene euros (each country has their own stuff on most of the euros circulating locally, though of course its standard currency for most of Europe). We would wake up in the morning and have 8 hours to see all of Vienna :) Nuts!!