Right before Christmas break I decided that I had not traveled as much as I would have liked during the first part of this program. So, the night before I left for the states, I booked a trip for Slovenia. Why Slovenia? To be honest, the flights were rather cheap, and I was looking to go somewhere different. I haven't ventured very far East yet, mainly sticking with Spain, France, Italy, and the UK. So, when I was searching through all the cities for flights, Ljubljana was the one that stuck.
On the EasyJet plane, I read that there were buses every hour from the airport to the city. We touched down at 12:55 pm, and so I missed the one o'clock bus. I asked at the tourist desk just to make sure, and also picked up several brochures and a map of the city. The airport of Ljubljana was tiny, and there wasn't much to see or do for an hour. So, I decided to wander outside and just look around a bit. I walked over to a bus stop to read what kind of locations the buses went to - odd names like Kranj and Bohinj. As I was looking at the timetables, a man who drove one of the other shuttle buses walked up to me and simply said "Ljubljana?" I nodded my head and asked how much it cost since I thought the shuttle bus would surely be quite a bit more expensive than the real bus, but it was only a euro more. I followed him back to his shuttle, and he rounded up more passengers for his van, and soon we were on our way to the city.
I opted to walk around a little bit before checking into my hotel. It was a short walk from where the shuttle dropped us to the city center. The first thing I noticed was how empty the streets were in Ljubljana. Here I was at the center of the old city, and there were only a handful of people walking along the sides of the river. I walked down the length of the pedestrian streets alongside the river, and every restaurant and store seemed to be as equally deserted as the streets, if they were open at all. Unfortunately, one of the few people I did see happened to be an elderly woman. I say unfortunately because when I saw her, she was falling down. Her foot hit one of the uneven cobblestones and down she fell. I was right there and saw everything, but she seemed very wary of me helping her, and I didn't know how to ask if she was all right. I just tried in English, and she sort of brushed off any help I could have given her to stand back up, and then she started speaking Slovene, I assumed she was trying to explain what happened and brush off the accident.
After walking around, I went back to my hotel to check in. I don't know if I'm still adjusting to all of the time changes I experienced over Christmas, but I was exhausted and opted to take a nap. Afterwards, I went out to dinner, back to one of the restaurants I had noticed during my walk that looked like it might be good. I took a rather roundabout way of walking there, but it was good to see more of the city. The main part of Ljubljana is quite small, and it's easy to walk nearly everywhere. When I arrived at the restaurant, which appeared to be quite nice, I was shocked to see that it was nearly empty, with only one couple eating. I was seated, and since it was an Italian pizzeria with lots of Italian pastas and salads as well, I opted for the cannelloni with potato salad. However, what I was served was different from any cannelloni I've ever had. It was the same basic idea - a stuffed pasta - but, the stuffing was some sort of mystery meat with a type of cheese, and then it was fried. While it was very good, it was not what I was expecting and it was a bit difficult to get past it. I then had the tiramisu for dessert, which I will say was yummy.
The next morning I went to the tourist center to find out some more information about Ljubljana and to find out if there were any buses or trains that could take me to Bled. Prior to going to Slovenia, I had been trying to get into some sort of tour that would take me all over to see some gorgeous sights, but none would be running while I was there. I decided that Bled was the city that looked like it would be most worthwhile to go to in that situation. I was happy when the person helping me at the tourist information center told me that there were indeed buses that went to Bled regularly.
It was still rather early when I left, and the castle above the city didn't open until 10. I opted to walk down to the Dragon Bridge to get some photos before heading up to the castle. The bridge has four dragons on each corner. The dragon if closely associated with Ljubljana because of Jason and the Argonauts. Jason is one of the first people that reportedly went through Ljubljana, and it was there that he slew a dragon in a nearby lake, which is know marshland. However, the dragon's on this particular bridge are supposed to be associated with St. George's dragon. I was told later in my journey that there is a myth about the dragons on the bridge - if a virgin walks across, the dragons' tails will wag (especially because virgins were their favorite snacks). I didn't know to test this theory out when I was there, so I guess I'll never know if I would cause the tails to wag.
Instead of walking up to the castle in the chilly weather, I took the funicular to the top. It was quite fast and simple, and put me right into the middle of the castle. I bought my exhibition tickets and made my way to the watch tower where there was a panoramic view of the city, as well as a show on the history of Ljubljana. The view from the top was quite good, and it was wonderful how one can see the mountains from the city. After the watch tower, I went to an exhibit on the history of the country of Slovenia. I meandered through, and I must say, Slovenia has put a lot of money into their attractions. The screens were motion activated, so they didn't turn on until you were standing in front of them, and then you could touch the screens to choose your language and discover how much or how little information you wanted to about the history during a certain time period. I also played some of the kids' games - there was one where the character went around painting over propaganda posters and the aim was to paint over as many as possible and avoid being seen by the police - oh what we teach our children!
I ate at the castle's restaurant for lunch. It seemed that the majority of people at the castle and at the restaurant were people who lived in Slovenia. It didn't feel like they were there as tourists, more that the castle is where the go for Sunday afternoons. I got into the restaurant early, but after me they were turning people away because of the tables had been reserved for lunch, which to me indicates that the people who eat lunch are not tourists.
After lunch, I decided to try to go to the zoo, but honestly there wasn't enough time. In walking in that general direction, I walked to see the old roman wall instead, which was marked by a pyramid shaped passway. I wandered more after that, and made my way onto a street with several gorgeous buildings. There was one in particular that I had to pull out my camera to take a picture of, but I didn't realize until after I took the photo that it was the US embassy!
Later in the afternoon I went on the boat tour of the city. I was quite impressed with the man that gave the tour, if not a little bit offended. He spoke very quickly and even did different accents in English, which impressed me, but he also liked to make off-color jokes. I couldn't tell if he was wanting us to laugh at the or not, and I was only one of three people on the boat. In the end I just listened, and enjoyed the float down the river.
The next morning I went to Bled. The bus ride was about an hour and twenty minutes due to stops along the way, and there were very few people on the bus. As I was watching the countryside roll by, I got to thinking about my trip. The country is so empty, it's almost as if Slovenia is untouched by the outside world as of yet. Ljubljana is the capitol city, but it felt like visiting a small town. The majority of people speak English, and they have done a lot to the typical attractions to make them very tourist friendly, but the people haven't come yet. I really wonder if the country will become a place more people will visit or if it will remain in the shadows for a while longer.
On arrival in Bled, I was a bit thrown off since the tourist office was closed. I wasn't too surprised since there were so few people, but I had been relying on stopping in to get my bearings. Luckily Bled was tiny. I easily wandered down to the lake where I was greeted by ducks and swans. There was a couple with a baby trying to take pictures of the baby with the swans, and the mother was feeding bread to the birds. When I walked down near them, several swans came up to me and one of them tried to eat my coat! I apologized for not having any food, and walked away. Luckily they stuck with the woman giving them bread.
In Bled there is a castle on a cliff and a lake, and in the middle of the lake is an island with a church on it. From my very little research, I had seen a view of the island with the castle in the background, and I surmised that this photo must have been taken across from where I was, on the opposite side of the lake. I started to walk around and soon saw a sign that said it was about 6 km all the way around the lake. Definitely do-able, so I continued to walk. The path took me past villas and cottages, slides and pools, all deserted and evidence of summer fun to be had, but this was not the time of year to be there.
For the sake of my photos, I was worried whether the view would be worth it once I reached the other side of the lake. It had been a dreary day, cloudy and cold and gray. I had read that sometimes the morning mist will burn off as the day progresses, and by the time I reached the opposite side of the lake, the morning mist had turned into afternoon clarity. My breath was taken away with the view. I snapped way too many photos going around just because every time I looked at the island, the castle and the mountains it was more gorgeous than I remembered it to have been with the previous glance.
All of the people that were walking by me were locals, so I finally mustered up the guts to ask a woman walking her dog if she would take a photo for me with the view. It was seriously difficult to even look away from the beauty that lay before me. I continued walking, though, and soon I had made it all the way back around the lake. I thawed out and had pizza for lunch (much closer to Italian than the cannelloni had been), and then I decided to look into taking a boat across the lake to the island.
The captain of the boat was very nice, and he was very talkative. I learned quite a few things from him, including the fact that soon the entire lake will be frozen over and there won't be any boats to the island again until May. Apparently then people will be able to walk across the lake to the island.
The big attraction on the island is the church, of course, but the church is famous for it's bell tower. Legend has it that a widow who lived in the castle at Bled had all of her silver and gold turned into a bell for the church. When the bell was transferred to the island, the boat was overturned killing all of the men on the boat and the bell sunk to the bottom of the lake. The widow then went to Rome and entered a convent. After her death, the Pope sent another bell to the island. Now, those who ring the bell to honor the Virgin Mary will have their wish come true. When I was in the church, I am fairly sure I rang the bell (I say fairly because there were bells ringing in the city as well, but I think I heard the bell on the island ring). Now, we'll see if my wish will come true!
I also asked the captain of the boat how to get to the castle and whether it was worth a visit. He said it was, and gave me both driving and walking directions. Since I didn't have a car, I had to walk, but I was prepared (I thought). It turned out that the path he sent me to was closed off, either for renovations or for archaeological digs (many prehistoric human remains have been found in the area, and they are still excavating different areas). So, I tried to walk around and see if there was another way up. There was, but it was not the safest path up. The first 50 feet were covered in snow and ice which I opted to walk around, and then there were different side paths all along the way up. I decided to stay on the gravel that looked like the main path. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that the other paths led to caves that I had noticed before starting up the hill. By the time I got to the top, I was fairly worn out. It didn't help that as soon as I walked into the castle there was a man waiting with a camera who said "Smile!" and then clicked a photo. I probably should have gone to look at this photo since I have a feeling I had an 'are you serious?!' kind of smile on my face!
When I got to the top of the castle it was near sunset and I had been hoping for a bit of a show, really. The sky disagreed with me and had become a bit overcast instead. Inside the castle there was a printing room where they had an old fashioned printing press. I went in and the man told me a bit about it and about the important advances in printing in Slovene. I then went through the museum section of the castle, and then just watched the view down on the lake more as the sun made its final descent.
Instead of taking the uneven footpath back down the hill at night I walked along the road. I got to the bus station just in time to take the bus out of town, and I went back to Ljubljana.
The next day I took things slowly and grabbed a coffee before heading to the airport.
I ended up taking the same shuttle bus with the same driver as when I arrived, and before I knew it I was back in the crowded streets of Paris.
