Slovenia
After having spent around 14 hours in Italy we started making our way towards Postojna (“Pos-toy-na”), about an hour over the Italian/Slovenian border. The idea was to try and spend a couple hours in Trieste on the way over, get one more fix of that sweet sweet Italian coffee and maybe check out the Roman ruins before moving on but a bit of misinformation from the internet (I’m shocked and appalled that the internet could be wrong, who’d have thought?!) meant we had maybe 45 mins to eat and make a connection to our next bus.
A train and 2 bus trips later we found ourselves in Postojna, our introduction to the land that loves to jam the letter J randomly into words presumably to see how dumb tourists sound trying to pronounce them.
Postojna, I’m informed, is home to Slovenija’s (again with the ‘J’s!) number 1 and number 2 tourist attractions, being that of the Postojna caves and the castle built into the side of a cliff/cave. First off we headed down to the caves which was actually pretty sweet to see. The cave system was very extensive, to the point that we went on a 2km train ride through the caves just to get to the point where we could take a proper walking tour.
I took a few photos but the limited light and the constant “no photos!” “keep moving!” or “no flash!” being barked at the group by a trailing tour guide prevented me from getting (m)any good shots.
It’s a constant temperature of around 8 degrees celsius year-round in there, and was weird to have gone into there from outside where it was closer to the mid-twenties. At the end of the tour we get guided through the ‘concert hall’ which is quite literally what they call it, except it’s a cave. Up the back there was a bunch of mock-up graves with a little gremlin type thing.
I tried asking the guide what the deal with this was, to which the response I received was pretty much along the lines of ‘eh, it’s just some crap useless art installation’. Maybe not in so many words, but yeh.
The caves were pretty damn sweet, but now it was time to check out Slovenia’s number 2 tourist attraction. We didn’t go inside, but it was a pretty sweet looking building.
After our short stay in Postojna we moved on to Bled, a sleepy lakeside town tucked away in a valley which I could explain but I guess I could just let the pictures do the talking.
You don’t really do much in Bled, you kind of laze about, take in the scenery and know that life is probably 3 million times sweeter just being here looking at the scenery than wherever you are right now, whatever it is you are doing. Sorry, but it did rule.
We went rowing…
…swimming….
…hiking up to the castle for incredible views…
…and using the opportunity to get some great snaps.
From Bled it was on to Ljubljana (“Loo-blah-nah”… or “le-jew-bull-jar-na” as we were calling it) for another overnight stop as we were flying out of there. It also had an ‘old town’ district that kept us busy for a few hours as we explored it .Dave and I kept an eye out for points of interest, the guide maps recommending the castle and the Roman wall. The castle was what you’d expect, nothing bad, but the Roman wall… well yeah, I was a little disappointed.
They even restored the pyramid that stands over the gate at the Roman wall… with freaking cinderblock! Seriously, they’re not even trying anymore. Slovenia, I are disappoint. and sorry.
The wall aside though, it’s been great fun through here. Slovenija, you’ve been rad, but now it’s time for Parijs, Frajnce.
Coming up in the next episode: