Slovenia was an amazingly beautiful country to explore. We spent three days in Ljubljana, the capital, and then three days in Bled, a smaller city in the mountains in the north west of the country.
Anna and I really enjoyed our time in Ljubljana. It's a much smaller capital city than many others we have been to, with everything in walking distance which was really pleasant. Unfortunately the first day we spent there was a Sunday, which meant that the whole city was very quiet and almost everything was closed, except of course for the churches which all had services running. We had a quick peek inside the outwardly not so attractive salmon pink church on the main square (beautiful inside though), and happened to be just in time for a bible reading in English which was nice. There were also some cute little antique markets all set up alongside the river that runs through he centre of the city, so we just wandered about them and soaked up the atmosphere. After that we walked up the hill above the city to the castle and were rewarded with a great view of the city from the highest tower.
The castle itself wasn't particularly spectacular, a lot of it looked new and remodelled (I'm not entirely sure of the history here, but I think a lot of it might have been destroyed during the war, however nothing was mentioned about this during the 3D castle and city history film we watched, so I'm not sure! :)) That evening we went back to the castle and had a lovely summer's evening picnic in the castle grounds and then saw an open air movie inside the castle courtyard.
The next day we decided to be a little more adventurous and check the city out by bike. So we hired some bikes in the morning, however this soon turned to disaster...after half an hour of riding it started to rain, shortly after this the chain came off Anna's bike and although we tried we just couldn't get it back on...so as Anna went off to seek out some help, I just stood by the bikes looking helpless and...it paid off very nicely...a very helpful construction worker who spoke no English came over and started speaking Slovenia to me and I just pointed to the chain and smiled nicely. So then he had a go at getting it back on, but couldn't either, then said some more stuff in Slovenian then walked off. hmmm...but...thankfully he came back, with tools! Fantastic! and so very nice of him, the chain was back on in about 10 mins and we were free to ride off in the rain...hurrah! :) I felt terrible though, that I couldn't even thank him properly in his language, but he seemed happy enough just to have been able to help some stranded little foreign girls :) ha ha. And that was pretty much the highlight of our bike riding adventure! Seeing as it was raining so much we decided just to take the bikes back and go back to our hostel and get some dry clothes and walk around the city (and find refuge in a cute little cafe) instead :)
The following day we caught the bus to Bled. Bled is possibly the most picturesque place I have ever been. The town is surrounded by mountains with a beautiful lake right in the middle and a castle up on a hill overlooking the lake. The weather was beautiful when we arrived, the sun was shinning and there were clear blue skies so we decided to camp for the two nights we would spend there. After setting up the tent we went for a lovely stroll around the lake and then walked up to the castle and through the town afterwards.
Anna had previously been told by a friend that area surrounding Bled was a great place to go canyoning and rafting, so we had a look at the options and decided to book in a day of canyoning in the Predeliscza Canyon and rafting on the Soca River for the following day. I am so glad we decided to! The canyoning was absolutely amazing, there were lots of jumps and slides down rocks in the canyon as well as a few parts we had to abseil, including a 40m abseil down a waterfall at the end! It was a little bit scary in parts, but completely exhilarating at the same time! We had a fantastic guide, Jose, (the only licenced guide in Bled as he liked to tell us) who made us feel very safe the whole time. The whole Canyon was stunning; amazing views and beautiful scenery with the most crystal clear (absolutely freezing) water. Such an awesome experience! The rafting was also fun, not nearly as awesome as the canyoning, but it would be hard to beat that. The river was pretty low so the rapids weren't all the exciting, but we still had a lot of fun. Unfortunately the river wasn't it's usual amazing blue colour as the second part of 'Narnia' was being filmed upstream and had disturbed all the minerals so the water was all cloudy :(
The next morning was very exciting...I found out that I was an aunty! My brother Nick and his wife Carla had had a beautiful baby girl named Eloise...so exciting!!! :) Congratulations guys! I can't wait to meet her!
After I calmed down from the excitement of the news, we packed up camp and then used the bikes from the company we went canyoning to ride around the lake. We stopped off at a hiking trail and walked up to the top of the hill (almost a vertical walking trail) for an amazing view of Bled and a little picnic in the forest. 
After dropping off the bikes and a famous Bled creme cake we jumped back on the bus to Ljubljana.
1 comment:
I leave on the 16th, can't wait!
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