It is about that time of year where I finally take a vacation. My last vacation day from work was almost exactly a year ago. I’m long overdue for a vacation and couldn’t be more excited to get this adventure started. The plan is to fly from Portland to Amsterdam to Venice. There we will spend 2 nights in Venice. It is about an hour boat ride from the airport to the city. I can’t say I have ever taken a boat from an airplane. I’m not really looking forward to walking through San Marco square with all my luggage in tow but there isn’t any other way to get to the hotel. Hopefully the pigeons stay away from me as I’m not planning on doing any laundry for 2 weeks and I’m not packing that many clothes.

So after 2 nights in Venice, we will hop on a direct bus from Venice to Ljubljana. Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia. I have had many people ask me where Slovenia is and why would I want to go there. A little history on Slovenia is that after World War II, Ljubljana was the capital of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia (part of Communist Yugoslavia). Slovenia became independent in 1991 and later joined the European Union in 2004. So this is a very tiny country with a lot of history but also a very young country still trying to find its own path. My goal was to explore this country before it becomes overrun with tourists.

Now that you have a little history on the country here is my view of where I’m going. 2 nights in Ljubljana, 4 nights in Bled, 2 nights in Maribor and 3 nights in Vienna before flying back to Portland. You will have to keep checking back to actually hear and see what I’m doing.