Kitsch and Drama in Slovenia 10/3-10/11

We took the train from Prague to Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg was full of expensive things and people that were staring at my knee socks and Brad's shorts. It was Sunday and no grocery stores were opened. Luckily, we had some left over food and managed to eat without spending money in an over priced restaurant. We got the train to Slovenia and took a sigh of relief.

We arrived in Bled, Slovenia and sat down with a pizza and red wine. Italy is famous for such delicacies, but Slovenian wine and pizza was, perhaps, even more amazing. We then took a bus to Bohinj to do some hiking in the Julian alps. We walked to the youth hostel and drank two large glasses of red wine. Our hostel was empty and reminded us of The Shining.

The next morning as we started the hike a dog followed us up the mountain. And continued with us for the rest of the walk.

Brad continued to walk ahead of me. The dog seemed to be more concerned if I was keeping up.

We got close to the peak were we had our standard bread, cheese, and tomatoes lunch. The ascend had taken us longer than expected and it was clear we needed to get back.

We arrived at a place where the path diverged at 4:15 p.m. A post said that it would take 2 hours and 50 minutes to reach the bottom of the mountain. That was discouraging to say the least. The dog stayed by our side the entire time and my legs felt like jelly. Brad stayed ahead of me and we held onto the hill side as we descended the steep mountain at dusk. When we finally got to the bottom we both talked about the emergency scenarios we were going over in our heads if the sunlight had beat us. At this point we were starving and tired. But the dog was still with us. I insisted on knocking on strangers doors to find out where she lived. No one knew and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. The dog sat under our table as we ate in a hotel.

Our last day in Bohinj was spent eating pizza, drinking wine, and marveling at our surroundings.



Then it was off to the capital city of Ljublana where we would meet our Slovenia friends from Russia that we made promises of visits to. Gasper and Klavdija were perfect hosts. They are both theater stars in Slovenia. We got to see free shows and we seemed to be perfect guest cast members in the theatrical life that is Gasper and Klavdija. We had a beautiful Sunday road trip on our way to the Italian border. We made stops along the way and learned about Slovenia, a country that is 40% forest, much of that land being untouched to this day.





Our last stop was at the border town of Piran. Gasper and Klavdija continually referred to it as a "kitschy town." It was sunset over the Adriatic sea. We sat down at an outdoor restaurant. Gasper and I indulged in some herbs and my feta stuffed calamari arrived. It was the most delicious meal I have ever eaten, the definition of perfection. We barely made it to the train on time. The weekend ended with appropriate drama. Brad and I jumped on the train bound for Rome and waved goodbye to our hosts.