slovenia

island church on lake bled

The first photo sums up my memories of Slovenia both from this trip and my first visit. This lake is about a 45 minute drive from the capital, Ljubljana where we stayed for our first two nights in Slovenia.


the city sits on the ljubljana river.

Slovenia is a feast for the eyes. Croatia has beautiful mountains with thick forests, but we didn't visit these, making the change from Croatian beach to Slovenian Julian Alps a stunning contrast. The temperature cooled and we slept easier. Our guide book describes Slovenia as having the "Germanic work ethic with a Mediterranean joie de vivre." This seems the perfect combination to me because it means that deadlines are met and things get accomplished but time is taken for food, family, and fun. To us, the people of Ljubljana appear to be chic like Parisians, but relaxed and friendly. This country enjoyed considerably more freedom than others behind the Iron Curtain, and it shows.


the cafe culture thrives here, and the setting is picture perfect. ljubljana means beloved.


art nouveau buildings line the cobbled streets


fountains and statues appear around every corner

We stayed two nights in Ljubljana at a resort type camp site with crowds of people. We went to bed both nights listening to the local talent sing songs that were bad when they were new twenty years ago. Surprisingly, 'Alice' didn't make the play list. Still, the setting was pretty and the weather perfect. Our camp site at Lake Bled might have been our favorite camp site of the whole trip, but that's hindsight speaking. We agree that it ranks in the top five. It was clean, across the street from the swimming area of the lake, had nice laundry facilities, a restaurant, a small grocery store, and free wifi. The grass was so thick that Tim, on the verge of crawling for weeks, mastered the skill.


our lovely campsite with real toilets after weeks of turkish squat toilets


We walked half the circumference of the lake along a path that allowed for Tim's stroller. each time the path brought us against the shore, we saw teams of fish. we watched a fisherman wrestle in a huge carp at least as big as Tim, and that's no fish story.



Lake Bled doesn't just have a church on an island in the center, it has a cliff hugging castle on one side. We hope to return to Slovenia. The skiing is supposed to be good here.