What do you when it is raining out?  You head to a cave and then to the Adriatic.  Basically we drove the length of Slovenia in less than 2 hours.  This makes it a reasonable day trip.  Below is a map of where Piran is located.  You can see Croatia and Italy to the south and north.  Let’s just say this is well worth the drive even if gas is expensive. 

Yesterday along the drive through Triglav National Park, we just happened to come across an Alpine Botanical garden.  I was actually hesitant to hike up to it since it was raining pretty heavy but I love taking photos of flowers.  As we hiked up to the garden we heard a tour bus pull up.  It was the same tour group we followed on the hike earlier.  Here are some of my favorite photos at the botanical garden.

The mission today was to visit Triglav National Park, Slovenia’s only National Park.  The weather was a little rainy but that wouldn’t stop our little Polo from climbing up a mountain.  There were 24 hairpin turns on the way up and 26 on the way down.  (So I drove 100 hairpin turns today by the time we made our way back.)  The park was peaceful and not busy at all.  Maybe the rain had something to do with that but that doesn’t stop me from walking around.

The road was actually built by Russian prisoners of war during the first world war.  They built a chapel on the road up and there are a couple of burial sites there from a avalanche.  There were some fresh candles on the grave.

Half of the hairpin turns were cobblestone to help get a better grip on the road.  This is also why I pay extra to rent an automatic car. 🙂  The road actually wasn’t that bad and every turn was numbered and gave you the elevation.  When we reached the summit there was a little hut restaurant.  The temp got down to 6.5 celsius at the top of the mountain.  This is also a popular route for bicycles however due to the weather, I only saw 2.

We did one hike in the middle.  Well we thought it would be a nice hike but really we were just following another tour group thinking that there must be something down a trail.  Little did we know that there wasn’t really much to see that you couldn’t have seen from driving further down the road.  We climbed down for 40 minutes only to come to the road.  Naturally the tour group only hiked down as their bus picked them up at the bottom and that left us as the only suckers having to climb up.

(In the photo of just the face of the mountain see if you can find the image of Ajda.  Adja is a mythical village girl from local lore.)

Just a short drive northwest from Ljubljana is Bled.  Bled is close to the Austrian border and is a huge winter/summer tourist destination for its outdoor activities.   The glacial Lake Bled has a trail around the lake and you have views of the only island in Slovenia and a castle up on the mountain side.  The island contains a church where many locals like to get married.  The church has 99 steps up to the door and it is tradition that the man carries the bride up the stairs and the bride must remain silent.  Many people consider the island to bring good luck.  I will let you know if I have good luck after I visit.  You take a row boat to the lake so we are saving that for hopefully some better weather.

Ljubljana was a lovely city that has some old world charm and modern technology.  All waiters/waitress can print you a receipt from their belt.  When people pay with credit card, people just put their phone on top of a machine at the table.  America is so far behind with credit card technology.  Even the hotel room was high tech.  I never could figure out how to turn the AC or heat on but for once the room cleaning people could tell if people were in the room and didn’t need to knock.  You wave your key in front of this screen outside the door to get in.  Then the screen let’s people know if there are people in the room and even more they can tell if somebody is in the bed.  The people were all very nice and you everyone spoke pretty perfect English.   Most menus were all listed in English, German, Italian and Slovene.  So don’t be afraid to visit Ljubljana if you don’t know Slovene.  You really won’t have any problems communicating or ordering.

For lunch today, we decided to try some Slovenian food from a restaurant located in the castle.  One was some sort of sausage and the other was a corn polenta.  Both dishes tasted good but neither of us could finish.  Food here is pretty reasonably priced, and you can try some very interesting things.  Horse is a Slovenian speciality although I haven’t tried it yet. 

Ljubljana has some great outdoor markets but strangely one of my favorite items happens to come from a vending machine.  They have a milk vending machine that gives you fresh milk.  You can either get a plastic bottle from the right side of the machine and fill it up or you can bring your own container.  I was actually tempted to try the milk but I don’t know what I would do with so much milk 

You may notice a couple of blue courts in some of my city photos.  This weekend they were having a 3v3 basketball tournament right in the center of town.  Of course one of the courts in on one of their famous bridges so I’m hoping that I can take a photo tomorrow before I leave of the famous bridge.

As if I needed help waking up for sunrise, this morning was a bit earlier for me.  There was an earthquake in Northern Italy and I felt the bed moving around 4:30.  I tried going back to sleep but I finally got up and started my day after I felt an aftershock in the 5:00 hour.  Sounds like there was some damage in Northern Italy.

You will notice a couple of photos that have locks on a bridge.  When people get married they go to the bridge and add a lock to the bridge.  Some are fancy and engraved with their names and some are written on the lock.  I really enjoy seeing the Julian Alps north of the city.  I was up at the castle pretty early in the day so the lighting made them pretty hard to see.

The hotel we are staying at is one of the best I have stayed at.  The free breakfast was amazing.  I was shocked when they brought up our luggage to the room and told us how to use everything in the room.  Even everything in the mini bar is free.  If you ever go to Ljubljana, stay at Hotel Cubo.

This morning we left crowded Venice for calm Ljubljana.  Our day included a boat to a train to a bus.  Everything went pretty smoothly until we waited for this so called bus.  For some reason, Italy stopped train service to Slovenia last fall.  There were also no flights available.  Car rental was very expensive.  The only option we could find was a direct bus from Venezia Mestre to Ljubljana.  There is one bus a day.  We bought our tickets a couple of weeks ago but there wasn’t much instruction on how to find the bus.  We saw on a travel site that someone said to leave the train station and cross the street.  We should find a colorful bus on the other side of the street.  We waited and waited for a nice colorful bus.  As time got closer, Bridget finally went and asked another bus driver where our bus was.  I watched the luggage as it wasn’t the nicest place to hang out.  He said that the gray mini van ahead was what we were looking for and we better hurry.  We get to this little van and there are already 6 other people in the van.  The driver had to adjust the luggage for my large suitcase and we had to sit in the front seat.  I had the middle front seat next to the driver and since it was a manual, I had no leg room.  We drove for a little over 2 hours and made it to Ljubljana.