Day 5 - Oh Italy, I will miss you so!!! It's hard to say goodbye but the trip must go on. We had our coffee, stocked up on food, packed up the car and started on our journey to Lake Bled, which according to an article that was read by Mike's parents is one of the 12 most beautiful lakes in the world. This was the only destination that we didn't have printed directions to so getting there was a little more challenging.
A little outside of Sezana, Slovenia we came upon a tiny wine producing village and took a wrong turn. We ended up facing a street that was not only narrow but also had walls on both sides and turned. I don't know if you guys know this, but we rented a car with a manual transmission for this trip, which is challenging in the best of times. At first the boys were sure that we would be OK driving through it but once the car only had 6 inches on either side and it looked like the alley was getting narrower we went to plan B - reversing a car that is facing down a steep hill with no room on either side of it. After several attempts the car started smoking so we let it cool of for a bit before continuing. Jessica seemed nervous, but the rest of us were having a great time since the place was indescribably beautiful and all you could see were rolling hills with grape vines and old sprawling houses. I think all in all we spent about 30 minutes getting the car back up the hill and turned around but we were still lost so we drove around the area a little more. We saw an old man watching us and when he saw Olichka he kept screaming "Bella Donna" so we managed to get pretty good directions and were on our way once more.
Our trip took us through Soca Valley which made for an incredibly beautiful journey. This is when I decided that Slovenia is more beautiful than Switzerland. The roads we were on ran parallel to the Soca River which has the clearest, bluest water I have ever seen outside of the Carribean. We made a stop at a lookout point to take a couple of pictures and stretch our legs and it was breathtaking. Poor Mike was driving so I don't know if he got to stare at our surroundings nearly as much as the rest of us did, but it was awe inspiring.
Our journey continued through the Julian Alps which seemed like a pretty challenging drive with sharp turns and narrow roads. We stopped off at Podbrdo to eat some food and relax and met a really nice man who was running a small cafe there and potentially a hostel. He was super friendly and gave us some mountain spring water along with a knife and cutting board for us to make sandwiches out of our remaining food. I am sending him some major warm fuzziness.
We arrived at Lake Bled at around 5pm, changed by the lake Russian style and enjoyed a swim with some swans. The water is crystal clear and the place is breathtaking, although in all honesty I do think that Lake Atitlan in Guatemala is more beautiful. There was a rope for us to swing into the water on - which I have always wanted to do, and Yanik took plenty of pictures. When it started getting dark we changed back into our clothes (russian style again) and went to celebrate Yan's birthday at a nearby restaurant. Again - delicious food that was overindulged in badly. I didn't have room for dessert but I hear it's exceptional.
We arrived at Ljubljana at around 11 or so and had to make a couple of circles since half of their streets are blocked off in the old city part where our hostel was. We ran into some friendly locals that told us where to park for free. some of us carried the luggage to the hostel from there and Mike and I stayed with the car. There was a cafe owner who was closing up for the night that seemed friendly so Mike asked him if he had Coke (meaning the soft drink). The man's reply: "One line or two?". Welcome to Ljubljana!!!
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