One of those things happened. One. Thankfully, it was dinner with friends. We did sleep in and enjoyed the morning, but per usual, when I looked at the clock and it said 11am and we still eating, in pajamas, with not a thing packed, I went into the zone. Not a good zone, necessarily. The one where I run around huffing and puffing trying to get everything done and James just stares at me like, "why are are you so weird?" It never helps the situation.
But eventually we were off- at 1pm. It is a 3 hour drive. It gets dark here around 430. Hiking appeared to be out of the question.
So, because gas is a little under $9.00 a gallon here, we get gas coupons to help supplement. We still pay for the gas coupons- about $5.00/gallon with the coupons, which still made my eyes bug out of my head. The downside to the whole gas coupon situation is that they are only accepted at one gas station- not that big of a deal, because they are very popular in Italy- but not outside of Italy. So the idea being, you fill up with gas before you exit the border and hope that you make it without paying out of pocket. Finding a gas station was super easy- with the help of our GPS, but getting the gas station was the tricky part. Well, exiting the autostrada in general is pretty tricky. There are no exits- except for towns. There are not really rest stops or easily accessible gas stations on the side of the highway. So we venture into a little town- probably like 10 min off the autostrada, get gas, check out the car because it was making some funny noise and I was convinced that we were going to break down on the side of the road- and there are no shoulders on the autostrada, you can't just pull over on the side of the road. So basically, you have to have a very strategic breakdown. No worries, it didn't happen. But while we were off in this pretty cool little Italian town, someone ::cough:cough:: names will not be mentioned, hit the detour button in the GPS. So we take back roads all the way up to Lake Bled...and added another hour and a half to our trip. Hiking was definitely out of the picture.
Ulitmately, the back roads were beautiful, and we were really thankful because we weren't driving on toll roads. ONCE again another blessing- because in Slovenia you have to buy a "vingette" to drive on the roads. Fine is 800e if you get pulled and don't have one. Did I mention that they have toll like booths that have you have to drive through so they check to see if you have the vingette sticker thing??? They do. We went through 4 on our return trip. Hoping that they can't track us down.
It was a short but sweet trip. Slovenia, is beautiful. Lake Bled lies in a plateau surrounded by the Julian Alps- yes they were named for Julius Caesar. The lake has a little island in the middle, known as, The Island. It has an old Slavic church and cemetery located in the center. The only way to get to the island, besides swimming-which you can do in the summer, is on these pletna boats. These are traditional Slovenian gondolier-like boats. Supposedly tons of people still get married on this Island and the groom is suppose to carry the bride up the 99 stairs that lead from the boat dock to the Chapel, to prove that he is fit for marriage. American men get it so easy. There is also the Bled Castle that sits up on this rock overlooking the lake. It is a SERIOUSLY steep hike. But the castle was really cool- it was built during the medieval times and has a beautiful chapel, a slightly interesting museum and the best view of Lake Bled!
Here are some pictures!!
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