The Final Countdown. Day 46: Bled, Slovenia - Venice, Italy

I can't believe we are already on the Italy portion of the trip! That brings part one almost to a close - how quickly has time been going!

Check out was uneventful, as was making breakfast and the salads for lunch. We had bought tickets the day before for the 3pm bus from Ljubljana to Venice so we were going to catch the 11.30am bus from Bled to Ljubljana. However we were packed and ready early, so we hopped on the 10.30 bus instead. A few buses came past while we waited there although none were going to Ljubljana.

Just before 10.30 our bus pulled up and we waited patiently for him to serve everyone else and open the baggage compartment. We found ourselves a seat in the middle and settled in for the journey. Unfortunately this driver was a bit jerky on the transitions and it was about 10 minutes in that I had to reach for my chewing gum. The scenery outside was rather dramatic - low hanging clouds over the houses and lake - but with how unwell I was feeling I kept my eyes closed for most of the journey.

Thankfully we got into Ljubljana a full half an hour early, which was a reprieve for me but left Dan and I at a bit of a loss for what to do with the additional time. The last thing I felt like eating for lunch now was a salad - so Maccas it was! I had spotted a Guacamole burger there the other day so was keen to try it.

When it was literally hand delivered to our table (wut?) it came with a little flag in it, all gourmet like. Our receipt was priceless too, stating we had ordered two "No thanks", whatever they are, but at least they were free! We wiled away the time in Maccas downstairs where we were out of eyeshot.

After a while, we also grabbed an ice-cream, which was almost as much of a performance as previously, but we got there in the end and without any arguments! We also returned to the €1 wine bar while I wrote a little bit, while it rained - which thankfully stopped before we had to leave.

Soon enough it was time for our bus to Venice. We got around to the stop about half an hour early and set up camp. And waited. And waited. I went to the toilet about 8 times as Dan had an app on his phone which showed where the bus was - and it wasn’t going anywhere fast. It ended up being half an hour late, and jumping on was a bit of confusion, but we got there in the end. The drive made me feel really rather sick - I have misplaced the motion sickness wristbands that Nat kindly gave me (they’re in my luggage somewhere!). I was never sure whether they worked or they “worked” because I was wearing them - well, I think they do work now as that whole day without them was pretty sucky!

As we are travelling now within Schengen we were surprised when our bus pulled over for passport control at the Slovenia Italy border. I think they pull over cars randomly, but perhaps all buses. 2 gentlemen with large guns jumped on board, and started with a South Korean woman just in front of us. They interrogated her quite significantly, flipping back and forth through her passport. As a result, Dan and I prepared ourselves for an onslaught of questions, as our entry and exit stamps from various places are missing.

The biggest of the two gentlemen took both our passports, looked briefly at our photos, and our faces, passed our passports back and then moved on. Dan and I looked sideways at each other…really? Obviously the Aussie and Kiwi passports don’t elicit any interest at all! They ended up kicking two people off the bus - one eventually was able to rejoin but we never saw the other one again. Guess he has to go back to Ljubljana!

Now across the border, the drive continued to be slow, and strangely filled with trucks. Trucks everywhere! Sometimes we passed whole lines of trucks just stopped as the traffic in that lane was moving so slowly that right back here the trucks couldn’t move. It was a very industrial route, and when the train hit 6:55pm, the time we were SUPPOSED to be in Venice, we were very much not in Venice, although I do remember seeing a solitary seagull at one point.

Soon we arrived to the Venice mainland train station, and almost everyone got off the bus. I found this a bit confusing, especially as some of the people then were intending to get the train across now to the other side…? We stayed on the bus and soon we were on the concord over the water, Venice proper looming ahead of us. When we had chosen the bus in the end, I had thought the bus station was close to the train station, but this wasn’t entirely the case. Our accommodation was near the train station, so that’s where we wanted to end up.

The bus drove across and rounded into a giant parking and bus area. We were quite a walk now, but we realised we had been dropped off at something called a “people mover”. This was a weird monorail type thing that connected the bus station, the cruise terminal and the train station. It was only €1.50 for a ticket and if it was going to save us walking a long way, then it was a definite. It was kind of fun, too - it had strange compartments - think the shuttles in an airport, and we managed to get one to ourselves. The view was nothing spectacular, but then we were really just skirting the outskirts of the city at this stage.

We were deposited near the train station, and started to get a small understanding of the city. In our path stood a large, staired bridge over the waiter, which would take us to the train station and our accommodation beyond. With our backpacks, it was all relatively easy. I did not envy anyone who had a wheeled suitcase, although some of the staired bridges had a sort of ramp-y section which would have helped.

The sun was gently lighting up the buildings as we  walked, and I thought it looked a little bit pretty. But we really had to get to our accommodation, so no time to stop for pictures now. We arrived at Hotel Adua, and checked in. The man behind the counter threw us a curveball, asking if we would like to do a tour to Murano and Burano. He briefly explained these are the glass blowing and lace islands, and we said we would think about it (as we had to do some research as we had no idea what these were!).

Probably because I had had a nap on the bus, I had a fair bit of energy when we arrived to our room. We collapsed for a short while, then decided we would jump out and do a bit of night exploring. Oh am I so glad we did this! As we left, we got a bit confused by the man at the hotel and left our key with him as it was on an enormous key ring and we thought we had to. Turns out we didn’t, and he would be closing the front door at midnight, so this gave us a bit of a time schedule. Either way, the chances of making it to midnight were pretty slim! We were still pretty stuffed.

Our hotel was at the very end of the main road that, if followed, takes you right around and deposits you in San Marco Square. The full walk would take about half an hour without any stops. Out in the night, the restaurants were still buzzing, and a few of the touristy stores were still open. Many shops had lights in their windows, and we saw thousands of glass figurines, necklaces and glass balloons light up by the gentle night-time shop light. We saw thousands of Venetian masks of all shapes and sizes behind the shop window glass. It was beautiful. And as we walked, we passed over channel after channel, little staired bridge after bridge. At night, there were few people walking and it wasn’t cold. We had the streets to ourselves.

We made it as far as the Rialto Bridge, which was beautifully lit up at night time. We stood here for a while, taking photos. At one point, as I geared up to take a photo, a couple stepped right in front of me for a selfie. I lowered my camera, and just stared at them. I heard one say to the other “Maybe we could ask…” And I turned and walked away. “Ah no, she’s just left.” No, I wasn’t going to take a photo of you after you blocked mine.

We crossed the bridge and started meandering through all the backstreets. We got wonderfully lost, although I think Dan had a decent bearing on where we were and which direction we generally needed to take. If we saw something pretty, we would walk down that street. I found it incredible that there were practically no walkways on the water front - occasionally we would pop out at the end of a little street with a small opening to the water, and then back into the maze of streets again.

We really ended up in the residential area. At one point I got a little bit jumpy as I realised the streets are quite dark, and there was literally no one else around. A guy was following us with something in his hands, but when I stepped back to let him pass, I realised it was a dog leash and a doggie was tailing him. Phew. Every now and then we would burst out next to a bar busy and overflowing with locals, standing outside smoking and drinking a glass of wine.

Eventually, we popped back out next to the Grand Canal, with the train station just ahead of us. Amazing! We had done quite a loop in that time, about 1 and a half hours, stopping periodically for photos. On the bridge, we also stayed for some photos too, and soon it was time to go back to our accommodation and head to bed.

I fell in love with Venice in the night time - what would the day bring?

Til next time,
xx

The Final Countdown. Day 45: Bled

Today was a seriously lazy day. You know the sort of weekends where you basically don’t leave the house? That was today, and it was SO necessary.

The weather today was meant to be gross, and gross it was. We had such a good time around the lake yesterday that there wasn’t any need to try to replicate it. We had gotten so lucky with the window of great weather in the early morning, got our amazing photos and had a lovely time - why do it again in the rain?

We slept in as late as possible, breakfasted and showered. We had been looking at doing a wine tasting evening but it came in at €35 per person. I contacted them to see if they had the "orange" wine which Slovenia is known for, which is a strange white and red wine mix. The tasting did include it, but in the end I couldn't justify €70 for the sake of trying one wine. We decided we'd try the place for lunch instead and maybe try to get a glass then.

Meanwhile, Dan spent the morning working on fixing his laptop, commandeering my laptop for a while too.

Eventually I got hungry and wanted lunch. We went to the wine tasting place - I had read online they had lunch deals but couldn't see anything like that on the menu. In the end, we just decided to go to the pizza place from yesterday.

Today I found an odd looking wine on there - I don't know if it's specifically orange wine but it's certainly regional! It’s called Cviček. I quickly looked it up and it's a weird blend of white and red wine - sounds pretty much like this orange wine, and if it's not, it's still going to be different! And different it was. Sour, salty - left me feeling thirsty, but still a bit tangy. I liked it. It was weird, so I ordered another of the bright pink wine.


After this, we wanted to try the famous Bled cream cake. I say we, I should say I. I found a place that's supposed to do the best in Bled and it was only around the corner from the pizza place, and it was self service. It seems self service in this country is simply pay and take from the counter, not actually serving yourself!


We walk in,  and I forget instantly what the cake is called in English or in Slovenian. Of course my phone stops working too, so we take a seat while I figure this out. It came back to life, and what I had assumed was the cream cake was, and so we settled on the cream cake and another regional cake, just for a bit of variety of flavour.


I ordered one cream cake and one other cake off the menu, which they didn’t have any of. I pointed to something else on the menu, and when she gestured towards the cake in the display, I misunderstood what it was. She piled the Bled cream cake, and custardy and wobbly onto a plate, and then collected a scoop and scooped out something from a container and plonked it unceremoniously onto another plate, before covering it in cream and chocolate sauce. It was enormous. It was also a mess, a chocolatey, creamy, saucy mess. Both cakes were enormous. I also got two of the crazy wines from here again too.

All of this was quite a mistake. Not because it wasn't tasty but it was enormous. Did I mention already it was enormous? We struggled through, although Dan’s resolve was much better than mine. I went to the toilet at one stage just so I could drink some water out of the tap! We started with the delicious cream cake - I don’t normally like custard but this was really, really tasty, before tackling the chocolate mess. Somehow we got through it all.

When we got back to the hostel, I couldn’t cope with life, and had to have a nap. That’s the second time so far on this journey that I’ve eaten myself into a food coma! I lay down and groaned for about 2 hours while Dan continued using my laptop to fix his laptop. Which he managed! I don’t think it’s working 100% but it’s definitely usable, and he can do blogging and photo editing, which is great. Eventually I was able to sit up and started blogging!

We went to the store a bit before it shut to get some more of that crazy salty wine and some chips - there was simply no room for dinner tonight, but a little bit of wine to go with writing is nice! And that’s the end of this day.

Til next time,
xx

The Final Countdown. Day 44: Bled

Up at 7am, we wandered down to prepare our muesli breakfast, which we were supplementing with bananas (for me) and orange juice. We add these things when we’re able to - bananas give me at least a piece of fruit and also helps keep me full for longer, and the juice is a nice vitamin addition too. We do this when we have access to a fridge, mainly.

We made sure our cameras were all primed and charged, donned our walking shoes and headed for the lake. We were told the day before that “THE” viewpoint will be about half an hour around, at the camp ground, and then it would take us 10 minutes to walk up to the viewing platform.

Not quite.

From ground level lake is fairly ordinary, especially on the side of the lake we started on. There wasn’t a lot to note, except we could see dots all on the lake for rowing lanes. As we were walking, we passed more and more people who were out for a stroll or a jog on a Sunday morning. Bells started to toll.

The view got prettier as we grew closer to the little church on the island. About halfway around, we found a toilet, which was a good thing it turns out as the walk up was a lot longer than the 10 min advertised…Our instructions had been that there was a path in the camping ground, and then it would take 10 minutes to go up. We simply could not find a path IN the camp grounds, or any path we did find ended in fences, and people in bathrobes outside their tents looking at us strangely. 


So we doubled back and found a proper sign for viewpoint Ojstrica. We started up and I regretted it.  It was very muddy and very slippery. I had to take it very very slowly. It eventually evened out a little bit and I could walk a bit faster, or I stuck to the very edges of the path to stop from slipping. We reached a sign which pointed to Ojstrica - straight up, and over rocks! No proper path anymore. This has already taken us about 20 minutes, and then probably another 10 minutes up over the rocks. So much for a 10 min ascent! Halfway up, we met a girl coming down, and waited for her. She was shortly followed by another two which we had to wait for too. All good though - these were the only people we’d seen on the path all morning! At least we were in the right place.

When we popped out at the top, the view was incredible. All I could think of though was, How did they get the bench up here? Dan and I took a lot of photos here, including going out on the rock ledge. It was magnificent. Just when we were almost done, but were going to take a couple of self timer shots, two people showed up. They waited patiently for us, but it meant that we were rushing. Dan set up the pics as it was a little intrepid for me, and he hurt his hip a bit on the landing one time. No lasting damage though, thankfully.

Now it was time to descent the rocks - this was much better than I anticipated and I took it a lot faster than I thought I Could too. Still, it was slow work and somehow I didn’t fall over! We continued on to the next viewpoint, called Mala Osojnica. More mud and sludge, although it petered out because more of this path had been in the sun and had dried. 


This viewpoint was behind a fence so not as good for shots of each other, but an astounding viewsof the entire lake. The scene was also now front lit, and it was truly beautiful. There were 3 benches here and we managed to get one. We would sit for a few minutes then one of us would jump up for a photo, sit again, jump up. I was trying to take a video for Instagram and my phone kept dying - I had to have it plugged into the charger to stop it from randomly turning off.


We stayed here for some time - it had been a bit of effort getting there, we needed to appreciate it! While here we had our snacks as it was about 11am by now. So much for 10 minutes up! I was also pausing because I was dreading the walk down.


But eventually we had to and it involved a fair bit of clambering. On the way down, we found another little viewpoint but the sun had gone behind a big cloud now, and it wasn’t as good as the views we had already seen. There was a big group of men here, and it turns out they were waiting on one of their party who was a bit slow. Once he finally arrived, they asked if Dan could take a photo of them with the lake and the island in the background.

“I’ll just sit here and read my book,” the slow one said to his friends. “No,” they insisted, “you have to keep going.” He turns to us and sighs, saying “I just want to sit by the side of the lake and read my book. I’ve been hiking around here for 4 days! These guys are slave drivers.” And he hauled himself off the bench and trailed after them.

Turns out there was a reason he was so slow coming up to meet his friends. To our right, and the path we had to take, was an EXTREMELY steep and long set of stairs. It was so steep it was almost like a ladder. I had to hold on with both hands and make sure I didn’t look around too much otherwise my legs would have turned to jelly with my fear of heights.

At the bottom, a lady was waiting for me so she could ascend. There was no way I could go any faster, so she just had to wait! The path continued and it was very, very twisty and windy. Some places even had rope for a handhold because there was only rock to clamber over.

We eventually made it to the bottom - it really did feel like it took forever and my knees were pretty unhappy. They’re not too bad going up, but I really feel them going down! Both of us had super shaky legs, and we were feeling really weary by now. And we still had halfway to get around the lake!

Because we were pretty tired, we took it pretty slowly. I was hungry, Dan was just tired - I think he was a bit low on blood sugar. We continued on, stopping for photos at lots of different angles as this is the side of the lake closest to the island with the church. We saw a lot of boats going over - both row boats and the “traditional” boats, both of which were expensive to hire.

On our route, we kept looking out for the apparently elusive €12 row boat per hour - we couldn’t find it. Every boat spot we saw was €20 and this was a bit steep! We were trying to decide if we would do the row boat today or tomorrow (too tired for today, by now, so it would have to be tomorrow if we did it at all), but the price was simply too expensive.

On the way around, we also found some ducks and ducklings, very cute! There were only 2 little ducklings, which seemed a small number for the two mumma ducks who were there.

We finally make it close to the town. We were so weary, and struggled to decide if we went back to accom to eat our salad (boring) or go for lunch and have the salad for tea. We ended up going back to accom via the shop and got a soft drink and wine for dinner that night. Then we collapsed for a bit, then went to lunch at the Pizza place, Pizzeria Rusticana.


Because of our accommodation and the wrist band we’d been given on arrival, we were entitled to 10% off at this place. It was delicious! We got 2 pizzas to share, and a beer each. Then I noticed a price list for some Kommjunism beers, and Dan ordered a TITO beer which was totally tasty! It rained while we were here, and we were happy with our timing.

We had perked up a bit more by now, so we wanted to get another beer at the Red and Black bar, which was also included on our wristband. First to the ATM in the main part of town, where we also grabbed magnets and postcards. On the walk back, we struggled to find the Red and Black bar - we went up to a bar that was in the right place and apparently this is the replacement. They no longer honoured the wrist bands so we left and went back to the accommodation. We weren’t that desperate for drinks!

I lay down because I was rooted, and while I did that, Dan was a superstar and ran our dirty clothes across the road to the laundry! He even came back with cheap beer. We took it super easy for the rest of the arvo, napping and blogging and so forth. In the evening we made a salad, grabbed our L of wine that we had purchased earlier in the day, and walked the 5 minutes back to the lake side to watch the sun set. It was quite cold by now, and all of the bench seats were wet from the earlier rain. We dried it mostly, and the rest from sitting on it! We had our cameras set up, although the sunset wasn’t particularly great. It was lovely though to sit here, drinking our wine and giggling, listening to a pretty bad busker across the lake (as Dan pointed out, if we could hear him singing, he could hear me complaining about how badly out of tune he was…this probably forced him to stop! Oops).

And with that - we called it a day. A beautiful day all around the Lake!

Til next time,
xx

The Final Countdown. Day 43: Ljubljana - Bled

We had been warned that there wasn’t a lot do to in Ljubljana and, for us, that turned out to be quite true. I said at the end of the day “It might be a nice place to live, if you want to just go out and have a beverage or breakfast on the water front - it's quite pretty - but for a tourist, there's practically nothing to do here."

To check out we had to go back down the street, but at least we were able to leave our luggage there for the day. The accommodation was right next to the iconic “dragon bridge”, so we took some mandatory photos of that.

Our main port of call for now was to climb up to the castle which sticks out like a pimple in the middle of Ljubljana. At the base, we found a bustling local market, selling a lot of produce and food products, as well as plants and fruits and vegetables. It was pretty cool looking! In the distance, we could hear live music too which was playing something quite electro. It was a cool vibe. We found our way to the bottom of the hill to start the climb to the castle. We opted not to pay the €10 return for the cable car - that’s €20 we can spend on something else (probably wine…!). On the way, we overtook 3 ladies pulling trundler suitcases and I couldn’t quite understand why they perhaps didn’t buy the cable car ticket.

The walk up was steep but fine, and didn’t take very long. Every now and then we took photos of the city peeking through the trees. At the top, around the base of the castle, the ladies with the trundlers had overtaken us by taking another path and asked Dan to take a photo of them. Circumnavigating the castle, there wasn’t a lot to see, and the castle itself wasn’t anything much to write home about. We have definitely seen more impressive castles. As we walked around, we discussed how much we would consider paying to go in because there was a view point up the tower that might be a nice look over the city. At the front, it turned out the cheapest ticket package was €7.50 per person, and this was above what we had been willing to pay. We finished another half lap and started making our way down - we had wanted to go down the opposite way but ended up finding ourselves on the same path back to the market. No matter! 

We stopped and listened to some guys busking for a while, they were playing electro music on sax and guitar and it sounded really, really cool. The music had resonated all the way up to the castle, too. Continuing on, we were looking for the square we could see up on the castle. Found it. Took some pictures.

By now, it wasn't even midday so too early for lunch, so we sat on a bench seat and ate some snacks. Dan had initially mentioned a train museum not far away, but after researching it had said it was a bit crap so didn’t want to go. Now we had so much time to kill that we decided to go to the train museum anyway, so after a bit of a sit down this was our next destination.

On the way was the “cyanometer” which I had wanted to see. It was slightly cooler than I expected - it was a beautiful brilliant blue - and I didn’t expect it to be so reflective. What is it? Apparently there’s been one on this spot for a long time, although the original wasn’t nearly so high tech! It reflects the colour of the sky, and this high tech one also gives pollution and other interesting air readings.

That was a photo and on we went to the museum, it was a 20 minute walk so not too long, but the sun was quite warm by now. There were road works at one stage which meant we had to back track a little way.

It was only €3.5 entry so that was nice and cheap. Dan had read there were only 8 trains on display but there were at least 12 inside and then probably about 8 or so outside. I had a little bit of a sit down in here while Dan inspected the trains.

Outside, there were a few more trains, some of which had started to be reclaimed by nature. By now it was time to go back - and for lunch. The place I wanted to go - Dan looked it up too and turns out it wasn't open on weekends. Damn! I lost track of days.

We found a place, it was alright...not too expensive but not crazy good either. I had the calamari which came with spinach and potato, it was a bit plan but alright. Dan had a lasagna and burnt his arm on the bowl. While here, we watched a crazy lady summoning evil forces or something - it looked like some possessed Tai Chi - she even whipped off her scarf and got that involved with the ceremony. No idea what she was doing!

The final thing I had wanted to do in Ljubljana was to visit the artist commune Metalkava. It was kinda disappointing, to be honest. I had expected more like Uzipius in Vilnius or Teufelsberg in Berlin. Instead it was just some graffitied buildings which are apparently bars at night time. Some people glared at us with our cameras, so we quickly left.

Dan realised we were right near our accom so we grabbed our stuff and just went straight to the bus station. Good thing! It started POURING as we entered the bus station. The sky opened up. We couldn't get tix for the 4pm bus (turns out, as I learnt later, you have to buy tickets 2 hours in advance), so we had to get tix for the 5pm bus instead.

This meant a 2 hour wait, and we didn’t know what to do with this time. Dan had spotted some seats at the train station next door, so while the rain paused for 30 seconds we ran across the road and set ourselves up on seats which we thought were for Maccas. I wandered off to the toilet, and popped into Maccas on my return to see what their ice-cream offerings were (more than usual, by the way!) and when I got back to the table I saw Dan being served. Turns out these tables were for a tiny station bar and so we had to order something. The drinks were super cheap, €1 for a glass of wine, so we ended up sitting here and ordering a few drinks over the next 2 hours!

And oh, did it RAIN. The sky was alight with lightening, and some of the thunderclaps were right on top of us. I think one hit the castle hill! It was truly amazing to watch. The tracks were flooding. Some of the platforms were flooding - all while we just sat back and enjoyed the view - it wasn’t even cold!

The original intention was to buy a Maccas ice-cream, so I went inside to order this. What ensued was a bit of an argument - I ordered the “jagoda” and the “chocolate” supreme McSundae, pointing to the pictures. The Jagoda had pink soft serve and the chocolate and had chocolate soft serve. When she returned, both had vanilla soft serve. I was like “It doesn’t look like the pictures?” And she said, well, you didn’t say that you wanted different soft serve. And I said, you didn’t ask me. So she got all huffy and made them again, this time like the pictures.

When I returned, we ordered another €1 wine from the bar lady, and when she saw our ice creams, she exclaimed, "Oh icecream and wine! That'll send you to the toilet!”

The rain miraculously stopped by the time we had to walk out to catch our bus to Bled. We grabbed ourselves some seats near the front, and in 1 and a half hours we were at Lake Bled. The sky looked very, very angry and there was more lightening on the way. It was drizzling in Bled when we got there, and we tried looking for an ATM to pay for our accommodation but failed, so just went straight to check in, hoping they’d point us in the right direction.

Thankfully at check in they allowed us to pay later! Our accommodation was in another building and we had the main kitchen below us. A lovely lady showed us the map and all around the area, as well as letting us know prices of things (such as the row boats) and estimated walking times around the lake. I mention all this, because I think her information may have been a little out, as we were to find out later!

The shop next to accom would close at 9pm, so we went in there to get dinner for the night and snacks for the morrow. Took us FOREVER as we couldn’t decide what we wanted to eat for dinner. We figured salads for lunch again and settled on cheap tinned soup and fluffy bread for dinner - we weren’t overly hungry.


Back at accom we didn't make dinner straight away as there were too many people in the kitchen. We went down a little while later, and prepared our gourmet tinned soup! It was actually ok, with rice and vegetables, and we ate it with some buttered some soft bread. While we were preparing our dinner, we chatted with and got to know 2 Aussie ladies who were also staying here - they were reasonably elderly, far older than the normal hostel clientele (probably 50+?)! One was sick so she had decided to just up and travel around the world (she didn't go into details) and the other has been living in Hungary for the last 7 years doing up a world heritage home, and travelling in between times. It was fun and interesting to talk to them, very different! The older lady who lived in Hungary couldn’t quite grasp the fact that we had been living in London and Berlin statically, and worked career progressing jobs. She seemed to still think we would be wanting to work on bars or farms, and working as we travelled because she herself employed young people to help with her house.

We excused ourselves and had an early night. Originally, we were looking forward to a sleep in but when we looked up the weather for the next day - storms were supposed to roll in from midday, so an early start around Lake Bled it was!

Til next time,
xx

The Final Countdown. Day 42: Split, Croatia - Ljubljana, Slovenia

Today was a long travel day. It began with the 8.25am train from Split to Zagreb, the capital of Split. The lady had given us a table seat which mean we sat opposite each other, and when we got on there was practically no one else around. There was nothing to say whether a seat was reserved or not, so when people got on with reserved tickets they had to bump people out of their seats. Just before take off,  5 girls ended up sitting at our table and the one opposite, even though the train was empty, but thanks to the reserved seating business they weren’t able to spread out further. They were loud and really annoying. I wasn't happy. Oh well. 6 hours this train journey took and it was very, very windy (as in, not in a straight line). Dan and I chatted, and then did a bit of blogging once the path became less windy. We even climbed up into the clouds which was quite beautiful, and the moment it hit 12pm we ate our salads.

We arrived into Zagreb late at about 3pm and piled off the train after the 5 loud girls. In the station we found some huge lockers for very cheap, which made our exploration of Zagreb far more enjoyable! It was around about here that I discovered Dan, in my definition of the term, has not actually been to Zagreb. “Which way do we go, and what should we see?” I asked him. He didn’t know, which confused me, as I thought he had been here. “But haven’t you been here before?” I continued. By “been here”, he had stayed near the airport, and popped into the city - saw a single building opposite the train station and wander to the pharmacy just next to the station. That rendered him slightly useless for Zagreb recommendations!

Across the road from the station was quite a lovely square with a small market selling mostly flowers, off-the-back-of-a-truck clothing, and strawberries. There was a lovely building here with some pretty flowers which we spent some time taking photos of from every conceivable angle. We continued to follow our noses towards the centre, on the way passing what from a distance we thought was another market, but turned out to be a student fair, like an O Day kind of deal.

After being in this for a short way, we felt really old so decided to skirt it, and in doing so found the main square. Oddly enough, here was another market, but this one looked pretty local and seemed to be selling lots of nice things. Rounding the corner, we found another market - I think we found another 2, both of these were packing up for the day (or maybe hadn’t opened), except for one lady selling jewellery in the middle. We ended up passing her about 4 times in our journey around Zagreb.

We continued up the street, and saw a few bars that had reasonably cheap beverages. We did a bit of a loop, found the cathedral, took a photo of it, and then returned to one of the bars. Basically we had seen most of what there is to see in Zagreb, I reckon. There was a wine on the menu that was really cheap and large, so we ordered one each. When we tasted it, it was like it had been watered down. I actually googled it and we had, in fact, ordered watered down wine. Apparently it’s a thing! So we ordered a full strength red and a white, just to be on the safe side…

And that was our time in Zagreb. At 6.30pm we had another train to catch - this time to Ljubljana in Slovenia so we returned to the station. As we wouldn’t get into Ljubljana until about 9pm, we decided to have dinner on board. A quick stop around the supermarket at the station, where we bought a giant 1L bottle of beer and some local brand softies and a quick trip to the bakery for some baked goods, and we were set for dinner.

When the train arrived it had lots of different names on each of the carriages, which makes one think that the train would split up at various times. After Dan went and asked, I pushed my way onto the Ljubljana carriage and found an empty compartment. We don't like compartments but there was no choice. Dan and I purposely spread our stuff out so no one was tempted to join us!

We poured our beer into our sippy cups and scoffed our baked goods, feeling nice and full. Not too long after setting off we arrived at the border crossing. The Croatian side asked a few questions, gave us a stamp. So many bloody Croatian stamps! Why do the Croatians love stamping, but other countries don’t? Soon after the Slovenian border lady came past, and threw us quite a lot of questions (complicated, after our 1L of beer), but I think she might have just been doing it while she was scrolling through our passports. There’s so many stamps that I can imagine it’s pretty hard to figure out, and then all of our visas for the UK and Germany also make things confusing!

She finally left us alone (with no damn stamp) and we settled back again. I thought as we were riding along - I could do this forever. It was beautiful, and just sitting back watching the world go by is so peaceful. The scenery was lovely with the sun setting outside, and at about 9pm we arrived in Ljubljana.

The walk to our accommodation was a bit arduous. When we got to it, there was a sign on door saying Check in at Hostel o2 down the road. So we had to keep walking just as I was wanted to throw my luggage all on the floor. However, check in was easy enough, and then we had to go back to the apartment and up a few flights of stairs. Oh well! It’s just one night.

Before crashing out hard, we did a bit of research of what we actually wanted to see in Ljubljana on the morrow - the map was very helpful as it had little explanations of things to do so we chose the ones we liked the sound of, consulted our “bible” for a few other suggestions and then it was time to sleep.

Til next time,
xx