Slovenia

We had planned to do a one-night trip to a small village of Bled, which we’d heard was an idyllic village with an unbelievably clear lake that was home to a small church on an island in the middle. We’d read that the place looks as if it was made for tourists, as every picture you take looks postcard-perfect, but it’s not overrun by tourists as many other similar spots are. About an hour and a half from Ljubljana, we decided to leave around lunchtime and spend a night there. Picking up some lunch supplies from the local market, we headed towards the bus station, and entered the ‘ticket office’ building and bought some tickets for the next trip to Bled. Waiting by the buses, we tried to board with our tickets once the driver arrived, and were told we had been sold train tickets instead for a train that was leaving about, ah… now. Running to the platforms (again! We were getting used to this…) we saw the train pull out from the station (again…). With three minutes to spare before the bus was about to leave, the ticket seller kindly gave us our money back, with an air of disapproval, and we made it to the bus on time.

An American guy, Brian, on the bus had overheard our mix-up, and started chatting to us along the way. He was currently living in Sheffield in the UK, and had broken up with his girlfriend at the airport just before they were supposed to travel together, so was doing most of the trip by himself, and going to quite a few places we were going to. He was only in Bled for an afternoon, and we invited him to join us for a few drinks on the lake, as we thought we’d hire a rowboat and head out to the island. After dropping our gear off at our hostel (which was quite lovely, with its own bathrooms, towels, and even a tv…not that we were going to be watching it), we headed towards the lake, a short walk away. Bled really is one of those ‘almost too good to be true’ sights. The entire area is immaculately groomed, the water so crystal clear that you can see the fish swimming underneath clusters of waterlillies. It was also one of the first places we’d been on the trip that was so peaceful and quiet that you could hear the birds singing in the trees.

The sun was still very hot, and we hired a rowboat to travel over the lake, looking forward to diving in for a swim by the island. We docked our boat, and walked the short track around the island and up to the church, which isn’t a spectacular sight inside, but legend has it that you ring the church bell three times for good luck, so we all had a go. After icecreams and coffees in the sun, we jumped off the dock into the crisp blue water, and floated and relaxed until we thought it was time to take the boat back and have some dinner.

We took some seats at a restaurant over the water, with a great view of the lake and island. A castle also hangs off one of the cliffs high above the water, at is another incredible sight (and postcard-worthy view). It was a tasty meal, lots of seafood on the menu, but I’m not sure Josh got the best dish. More often than not with our meal choices, there’s been a winner and a loser… the titles got shared around throughout the trip. The other thing we all lost out at was the awful cabaret entertainment, which was in essence a one-woman show of covers to a backing tape (although she did mix it up with her saxophone and keyboard from time to time). Brian escaped to go to the bus stop, and we lasted long enough to try the local dessert, similar to a custard square, before leaving saxophone lady to belt out her wedding tunes into the night.
From there we decided to try out a local bar ‘Devil’, which was decorated with organs on the wall, a mural of nymphs fornicating with ladies above the bar, and a heavily tattooed waiter… and also ABBA playing throughout the bar??? Not quite sure that Bled has their music scene sorted out. There was no one really there, but we had a quiet drink before heading back to the hostel.

The next morning, another stunning day was ahead of us, and after breakfast at the hostel surrounded by a lot of families and so many screaming children, we left for the peace of the forest to walk the hill up to the castle. We decided to forego paying the entrance fee, as we found a secret wee path off to the side of the castle, and climbed some rocks for a fantastic view over the lake and island. The perfect town for cycling around, we hired some bikes and took off towards another lookout. Josh had bad feet at the time, and couldn’t wear shoes, so we were both in jandals, but we didn’t quite realise what a climb was ahead of us to the lookout. A steep and rocky hillside awaited us, and we accidentally took the wrong path, and ended up climbing 100m higher than we intended to. I’m usually one to do anything in jandals, but this was a big mistake. Hours later, with strained raw feet and starving bellies, we managed to find a few great lookouts, and took a different route back, that included one of the steepest staircases I’ve ever seen.

Finally at the bottom, we biked to a supermarket for some picnic supplies, which we devoured by the lake before continuing our journey further around the waters edge. Nearing our bus departure time, Josh and Andy squeezed in another quick dip while I lay in the shade and relaxed, and then we dropped our bikes back and made our way to the bus. It was a very full bus trip, and thankfully we managed to get some seats. A huge group of Irish teens had overtaken most of the bus, had spent too long in Bled, and were going to miss their train that night. Incredibly loud and annoying, most of the trip was spent listening to them trying to make plans, and I was glad I wasn’t travelling in such a large group – it’s hard enough to make decisions with only three of you. Dozing off, we awoke to a loud bang, as the driver hit some road signs or something similar, and he must have damaged the bus, as soon after he pulled over and we all had to quickly change to another bus, delaying the late Irish group even more…

From the bus station we made our way back to the hostel to drop off our gear, and then decided to explore the side of the river we hadn’t seen much of, which ended up being full of great little restaurants and cafés down small alleyways. We witnessed a fire truck approaching us at full speed as a building caught fire and black smoke filled the alley, but settled at a café for dinner once the smoke had cleared. After dinner we managed to squeeze in some dessert at a cake store, and then wandered back home via the riverside streets filled with buskers and artists (and a guy selling incredibly cool bikes). Next stop Vienna…

Our first early morning train of the trip meant an early start to get ready and out of the door to the train station. Here began our comedy of errors, as the tram arrived at our stop, but wasn’t the tram number we had taken before. We didn’t have enough time to check if it went to the station before it left, and couldn’t risk it taking us to the wrong place, so it left without us. We hadn’t realised that it was a different number running during the weekdays than it was in the weekend… As we sat down to wait for the next tram with our train tickets to Ljubljana to see what platform to go to when we arrived, we realised the departure time was 7.26am, 20 minutes before we thought we were leaving… Now it was panic time, as we had about ten minutes to get there, and the next tram was still five minutes away. Surely we couldn’t make it in time… We arrived at the station stop and made a run for it, sprinting with our huge heavy backpacks through the building to the platforms. Awaiting us was an empty platform… five minutes too late!

After a long time in an information queue, Josh failed to slip through by pulling the sick card, and we were forced to buy a replacement ticket. Thankfully it was only one ticket since Josh and I were travelling on the Eurail passes, but it did mean we had a few hours to fill before the next train. We then got lost on the wrong tram into town (the same number we had missed from our stop that made us miss our train, this tram number had it in for us!!!), but finally made it to a café for coffees and food. Determined to order in German, we didn’t do too badly at all. After walking some shops, and visiting the huge double-towered cathedral, it was time to head back towards the station, making sure we were very early this time.
We found some seats in a compartment which we ended up sharing with a funny Spanish couple with little English who chatted to us mainly through hand gestures, about their disgust at German food and their love for their home city of Seville in Spain which we had to visit ahead of Madrid and Barcelona apparently (which they also disliked immensely). Another girl was also sitting with us, who was from the north of Germany but studying in Munich (and shared the Spaniards dislike for German food).

It was evening by the time we arrived in Slovenia, and we left the train for the sticky intense heat of Ljubljana, heightened by the fact we were carrying all of our gear with us. Another language to try and learn the basics of, we were fooled by some of the pronunciations in the Lonely Planet but thankfully corrected by a guy at the information desk at the station. A lot of people spoke English, but we were determined to try some Slovenian. We walked towards our hostel through concrete streets where many building exteriors had fallen into disrepair. It was not too far from the train station, and was actually a school hostel that was a traveller hostel during the summer months.

We dropped our bags, then left the room to explore the city, and started with a meal at a restaurant serving traditional Slovenian cuisine recommended by the hostel. As they’re so close to Italy, Austria and Slovakia, their traditional food includes seafood, game meats, stews, pizzas, pastas… a varied range of things from many places. We had initially thought it would be interesting to go to a foreign restaurant, avoid the English menu, and point to a meal and order it without knowing what it was, but luckily we didn’t at this restaurant, as the Bull’s Testicles on the menu did not take anyone’s fancy. Josh and Andrew instead chose stag steaks, which they really enjoyed, and I had a whole trout baked in foil with vegetables, that I couldn’t finish. The wine was incredibly cheap – less than a euro a glass at some places, and actually pretty good.

After we’d finished our meals, we walked through the old town, which is centred around the river that you can row down, many bridges connecting both sides, lovely old architecture and a growing café culture. We stopped at a studenty, artsy café/bar, described in our guide book as somewhere that you never get served at, where everyone is ultra-cool and snobby in an artsy kind of way, but we didn’t find that on this particular night (or maybe we are just so ultra-cool we didn’t notice), and ordered some Mojitos to sip away at outside, under a veil of mismatched umbrellas. A few drinks later, and we set off in search of the highly recommended Jazz Club Gajo, where there was an open-jam night on that night. It was a few blocks away from the main square, and we weren’t entirely sure we were heading in the right direction, but were soon led by the distant sounds of saxaphones, piano and drums, which guided us straight to the garden bar of the club. The exterior stage was alive with young musicians mixing together jam after jam while small tables crowded with people tapped their feet to the music – drink in one hand, smoke or cigar in the other. By some stroke of luck, we found an empty table and sat down for a drink. I got my first taste of what seems to be an Eastern European oddity – chilled red wine. I warmed the glass in my hands until it was relatively normal, and sipped away. It was a fantastic night, and the place had such a buzzing, electric atmosphere. We stayed until the musicians packed up, before walking back to the hostel along the river.

The next day we started with a great cheap breakfast at the hostel, with everything we needed for a great start to the day (expect perhaps some very good coffee…). A short walk into the old town, and we headed up to one of the areas biggest attractions – the castle on the hill, which is now mainly an exhibition space. It was a short but steep walk to the top on a pretty dry and hot day. We had read that the castle is a bit of a mishmash of different styles, which it indeed was – a puzzle of bricks. Apparently it has been destroyed and rebuilt numerous times due to earthquakes, different political leaders and so on, and it definitely shows.

Not entirely sure what sort of exhibitions we were going to see, we entered a room with some bizarrely bland, and quite honestly bad, paintings. We weren’t quite aware of the context of the works, but were left a bit confused. The main reason for going to the castle is to see the view over the city from the top of the castle tower, so we climbed the steep spiral staircase and took in the view over Ljubljana, extending far beyond the limits of the old town. Back down again, we were really hungry by this point, and Josh and Andrew decided they just had to try the local delicacy – horse. There’s a few burger joints called ‘Red Hot Horse’ serving up huge burgers, which the boys described as gamey (if a little chewy), but pretty tasty overall. Not sure they could have one every day of course… I refrained altogether.

We were joined by another traveller from Manchester, united by the fact we were carrying the same guide book and had ended up at the same restaurant described in it. He gave us some tips about where he’d been and what he’d enjoyed, and said he hadn’t really enjoyed Krakow in Poland at all, as it seemed like a bit of a farce designed for tourists, and wouldn’t give you any experience of what real Poland was like. It had been on our list of future destinations, and we decided to read up a bit before choosing whether to go or not. Josh left Andy and I in town to go back to the hostel and rest his feet, so we relaxed with another coffee before attempting a museum, but it was about to close. Instead we took a look inside St. Nicholas Church, through the entrance of intricately moulded brass doors that become sculptural works of art. It was a stunning interior, shimmering with gold from ceiling to floor. We happened to get caught in a private prayer ceremony halfway through our visit, and as we couldn’t understand a work of Slovenian prayer, we left the locals to it and walked back to the hostel.

Intrigued by a recommended Bosnian restaurant, we set out to the opposite end of the river for dinner, but sadly discovered it was closed (when we finally found it). It was getting late by this stage, and a lot of restaurants close around 10pm in the area, so we found a pasta place (Slovenia is supposed to have great Italian food as it’s on the border), and took a seat outside to eat. A bit of antipasto to start (again accompanied with a chilled red wine???), and the food was initially good, but the mains we weren’t all as lucky with. My seafood risotto was quite tasty, but Josh and Andrew’s ravioli meals were pretty awful. Dry, bland, and Andy’s was a strange, almost Asian flavoured, concoction. It was quite funny despite, or perhaps because of, the taste. I tried to order a glass of rose instead of more chilled red, as apparently the area is known for them, and the waiter smiled and nodded, then brought over yet another chilled bloody red. I really did not understand. I guess the upside is they’re insanely cheap. During our meal the rain had begun to pour, and luckily this time we were more prepared than our biking experience in Salzburg, so we zipped up our jackets, got out the umbrellas, and walked back to the hostel.