Sunday, September 22nd.
We were up early and enjoyed the excellent included breakfast buffet before departing at 9:30 aboard our coach. Our driver is Urska and we have a full sized coach for the 18 of us, so lots of space. The first drive was about 40 minutes through picturesque farmland surrounded by mountains, one of which was snow capped. The first of three towns we stopped at today was the town of Skofja Loka, or "Bishop's Meadow," a small medieval town with its historic streets, houses and its castle perched high above. We wandered the main street of the town, saw the Granary, St. James' Church, Homan house, and visited the 13th century castle, which today houses the finest ethnographic museum in the country. Inside we learned about the history of the area, and the peoples who have lived here through the ages. There were rooms set up as people lived in the castle and out in the garden there was a ‘pioneer’ type house showing how an ordinary farming family lived in the middle ages.
When we left our drive continued through small hamlets, with traditional farmhouses and steepled churches, where crops of potatoes, corn, turnips and hay are grown. Our next stop was Kranj, a tiny town which was historically famous for bomb shelter tunnels built beneath the city. They are about 1.5 kilometres long with information about the position Slovenia was in situated between fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Towards the end there was a room we could sit in and ‘experience’ an air raid. We heard the sirens, the approach of the bombers, the dropping bombs, and the explosions above our heads which knocked out lights and vibrated our bench seats! Even though most of us were laughing it did give you an inkling of what people went through.The Slovenians were forced to build these tunnels, which were also used to drive trucks carrying war materials.
The third town was Radovljka, another small medieval town with narrow streets lined with beautiful row houses. Here we visited Druzini Prijazen Muzej, a family friendly museum of alchemy. It is designed around a large collection of artifacts of spirit fairies, herbs, and witchcraft items. We were divided into three teams of 6 people and given an instruction sheet that led us through 10 activities in the museum based around alchemy. We had to identify items in the room to answer 'skill testing' questions. We had fun and it turned out to be quite a successful team building (or getting to know each other) kind of activity. We were marked very liberally (can’t make anyone feel bad) and given a team diploma. We had fun. Then we drove through spectacular scenery to the town of Bled which is situated on Lake Bled, where we will spend two nights. Bled is located on the edge of an emerald green glacial lake. Our driver did an excellent job of navigating the narrow winding streets and backing into the parking lot while holding up traffic in both directions. We checked into our hotel and immediately gathered out front for a short walk to the lake’s shore. Some of us did the 6 km walk around the lake taking in the stunning views of the lake, the town's castle perched above, Bled Otok, the small island with a church in the center of the lake, all set against the spectacular backdrop of the Karavanke Mountains and Julian Alps. I took my time soaking up my surroundings and taking photographs and arrived back at the hotel just in time to join the group for another kilometre walk to our restaurant for the evening. We eat as a group and it gives us a chance to engage with each other as we share thoughts and experiences of the day and trips from the past. Tonight I enjoyed a venison steak and a traditional dessert called ‘Bled cake’. When we got back to the hotel I discovered there was a pool, which I took advantage of for 20 minutes before getting ready for bed.
Looks idyllic. And quite right you went to the pool after all that cake ...
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