Wake up in the morning. It's gloomy in Budapest. But not to worry, we have Hungarian Meusli. Probably the best muesli ever. And our gracious host who looked pretty delicious himself. Check out...and go try to see castle hill across the river in Buda before boarding an afternoon 9 hour train to Ljubljana, Slovenia. Hey hey, sounds wonderful. Let's do it. We get to the train station, drop off our packs and head in a search for bus #16 that will take us to the top of the hill. But where is this bus? Is it a 30 minute walk from the train station on the side of a highway? No...it's not. It's in the complete other direction. Good thing we had a lot of time to waste that day and let's just say that Kat wasn't allowed to be the map reader for the rest of the trip. We found this elusive bus (actually a 5 minute walk from our original location) and had about 10 minutes to see Castle Hill.
Bus #16 at its gloriousness.
Maybe it was the tough journey and lack of success, but I wasn't too impressed. A sunny day and better circumstances might have helped though. We ate lunch, the goulash was delicious, and we bought plenty of snacks so as not to starve this time (see post on 10 hour train from Vilnius to Warsaw).
Here is the short scoop on the train ride:
1) We had wet laundry to dry, so obviously we blocked our compartment and aired it on the train. Classy.
2) We ate some delcious gourmet sandwiches with fake cheese and rolls.
3) I was yelled at by a Slovenian man for a visa at the border because I am Israeli. No picture of that cause I would probably be writing this from immigration jail.
4) We arrived in Slovenia at 11 pm at night and according to our hostel directions, we were to take a 20 minute bus or train to the hostel. WHAT BUS?
There was no bus, no train, no living person to talk to. So we wandered around the train station aimlessly until we decided to breakdown and take our first real cab ride on this trip. We find the first cabbies available and show them the address and then chaos ensues. They all talk amongst themselves in the rain, asking questions, animatedly moving their hands, looking up address books, and checking maps. No one told us what was going on, so we watched helplessly as these guys debated our future. Finally, some cabby tells us that the address is not in Ljubljana and that they are calling the hostel to try to find it. Turns out it's a 17 km ride outside of the city, or what they told us was 17 km. I counted and it seemed more like 9, but whatever. Maybe Slovenian km's are longer. We finally get to the hostel, overpay our cab driver because of the long km's and go to bed. Tomorrow, Bled!
Day 21:
We wake up early to check out of the hostel, eat breakfast, and take some sort of transportation to Bled, Slovenia, a popular resort town that centers around Lake Bled. One thing led to another and we were confused....again. We ended up walking on the highway to get to the strange thing that Slovenians think are round-abouts, but are actually just shoulders in the road. Doesn't matter, we caught a bus to Bled and drove 1 hour through the beautiful Slovenian Alps to get there. I really started liking Slovenia. When we arrived in Bled, we walked to our hostel through, yet again, some construction. Our hostel was adorable, with a dog, and a view of the mountains. We also had some fun fellow backpackers there from...Keith, wait for it....Winchester, VA? Who comes from there? Anyway, there were some great Finnish people and British people as well and we all had merry conversations about our many similar travel itineraries.
Our plan: rent bikes, bike around the lake, rent rowboats, row to the island in the middle of the lake, eat some creme cake (traditional Bled dessert), walk around the city and maybe try some local liquor that involves honey.
We rented bikes, we rode them, Katie was uncomfortable and unsteady, Kat fell, the lake was beautiful.
Here are some pictures.
Lake Bled:
Bike Helmet Picture Success:
We tried renting some rowboats as well so that we could get to the middle of the island and look at the magnificent church, and also so that we could say we rowed our very own selves to that island. The waters were choppy and what Kat thought was a flag for decoration, was actually a red flag for dangerous and choppy waters. Ugh, we need to know boat rules in other countries. Could have been helpful. Anywho, we rent the boat and try to row ourselves, unsuccessfully might I add, to the island. It took us about 30 minutes just to get ourselves out of the 10 m range of the dock which cut our 60 minute rental in half. We got some good rhythm going at some point and it was mostly after I had gotten soaking wet from Kat's violent paddling, but luckily, she calmed down. Look at how well I'm hiding my "I want to kill you" face:
It took us about 30 minutes to gracefully row ourselves to the island. A quick tour and a few pictures later we were back at our beloved rowboat, ready to tackle the task again. This time, with Katie's arm strength as half of the team. She almost did a good job too. It was only after she helped us bump the handmade traditional Slovenian gondola boat that she really got into her groove and was paddling with ease.
After our memorable yet taxing and cold rowing experience, we got back to shore, left the oars in front of some office and kept biking around the lake. The views were beautiful and the stairs were apparently tempting as that is when Kathryn decided to sneak a peak at some stairs and fell over. Almost into the lake, but luckily was stopped by some prickly bushes. I used my nursing skills to pour water on her bleeding hand. JHU has obviously taught me a lot :) We kept biking to find a local secret....creme cake. Actually, it's not really a secret. It's very well known in fact. For years, this has been my favorite cake and now we know where it comes from! Don't you just love finding your roots? Here are mine:
Layers of flaky phyllo with creme and whipped cream. Heaven.
We continued biking/shopping/walking around the town and then ran out of things to do. We reluctantly tried to go mini-golfing, and by reluctantly, I mean, I didn't want to because I'm a sore loser. The heavens smiled and the place was closed. Instead, we went to try some of Bled's famous seafood at one of the most amazingly decorated restaurants I have ever seen. The staff was immensely friendly and we all enjoyed our various dishes. I, again, was too full to finish mine. So Kathryn volunteered her talents and finished both plates. The waiter was impressed.
After all that food it was a task to bike uphill to the hostel, but we managed to do just that. We pet the dog, talked to interesting fellow hostellers and commenced the task of trying to rent a car in Croatia. Splendid idea if I do say so myself. We researched a little, saw some promising options, and went to bed. Tomorrow, back to Ljubljana.
Day 22:
We woke up to the smiling mountains and the sounds of birds and fresh air. There were no birds, but if I hadn't told you, you would have believed me. We biked back to our bike rental area, got some pastries and bananas from the local supermarket and took an early bus back to Ljubljana. Apparently, Ljubljana is the next next Prague after Warsaw (I credit Rick with that). So we thought we would need some good time to cover the wonders. We parked our stuff at the train station and went to explore. First couple of stops: Sixt, Hertz, Budget, and Europcar. We were really set on that Croatian car. For some reason, prices kept getting more expensive as we kept asking, so we gave up and decided to enjoy the city and look in Croatia. We walked along the main part of the city and looked for the local pizza shop that Rick raved about. We thought 3 hungry girls could take care of 2 medium pizzas. Oh no. That was false. We ate and ate and the pizza was never-ending. Delicious, but never-ending. We vowed to never eat again until we got gelato 3 hours later. Also, delicious. Pitango is better though, not to worry. We mosied along the Ljubljanica river and purchased some souvenirs and clothes. Here is the view we saw:
There were also candles, dragons, artists, and singing children everywhere. I could have enjoyed that for longer. We walked some more, had mentioned gelato (Pistacchio and Chocolate for moi), and ran some errands such as mailing all of you your postcards. There are more coming by the way, the wait is worth it. After the Slovenian post office experience, we went to wait for the bus which only comes every half an hour. We wait for half an hour, try to board and pay, find out you can only pay at the station, look dejected and angry, get off the bus and wait another half an hour to get to our hostel. Kat took it hard, so I gave her a bus massage (mostly just a massage at the bus station, locals were staring).
We got to our hostel in the middle of nowhere and watched the amazing Slovenian sunset through the alps before heading to bed.
Gotta get up early tomorrow because we are going to the Dalmation Coast...Croatia!
