A Trip to Slovenia -A Blast from the Past III

Lost Post 7:



Sitting in cold, rainy New York . . . my thoughts turned to past travels, to places far beyond the realm of my little basement in Kan Tziva.

As many of you know, a few months into the life of this blog, back in 06 . . . it was deleted. Precious posts, essays, travels and pics . . . lost.

In light of such, I went through my archives and pulled up my pictures from my trip to Slovenia. Enjoy.
So click on the link.



The four of us -Mottel (pre-kasket) days, the Flying Dutch Jew, Y. and M.

Our first stop was the capital city of Slovenia -Ljubljana (the ju making a yu sound like the U when a Russian says Lubavitch).



There, as in New York, it was rainy -though the weather was warm and slightly mugging -making the drizzle rather refreshing. On the way around the city we stopped by the Ljubljana castle -where we bumped into two Israelis couples, rented bikes (For a ridiculously cheap amount), and traveled around the city looking at all the wonderful sites -including a Roman wall.

Together.



Jews on Bikes


The castle





The Cooperative Bank Building


The Roman Wall

From there we took a train to our home for the next two days -Bled.


Bled Lake

After the train ride, we took a walk around the lake, and then began to look for a taxi to our hotel. Walking near a local restaurant, a drunk man was dragged out, cursing in Slovenian, by two large patrons and left to wobble around with a bottle of beer in his hand, until he slumped to the ground. Though Slovenia is not part of Eastern Europe, this was my second time in a Slavic country (technically first, as Lithuania -where I had first visited that previous Pesach- is not Slavic, however since everything I did there was amongst Russian speaking Jews . . .) and images of Russian drunks flashed through my mind.
The taxi came, and we left the drunk cursing in the mud.


The backyard of our Hotel


A five star dinner -Skippy peanut butter and Venetian bread.

The next morning we went off to the Bohinj lake . . .




Ignore the white paper hat, look at the mountains instead.


An Alpine meadow

On the way to the Slap Slavica, the tallest waterfall in Slovenia, we bumped into a group of Israeli Russians -and put tefillin on them -for the first times in their lives.






The Slap Slavica


We hiked from the lake bellow to this point . . .


The river as it winds its way from the waterfall to the lake.






Hiking down, we eventually tramped a ride from a friendly person from Switzerland.



Back at Bled, we bumped into a group of Israelis and got a few last minute tefillins

The next day we went to the neighboring Vintgar Gorges . . .


The Flying Dutch Jew and the cow sign

Enjoy the beauty of the place:









A video of the second waterfall -from the bridge.


By the base of the fall.



Leaving the hotel.


A break on the train tracks

From there we went to Bled for one last time . . .





. . . and took a ride in a rented rowboat.




Notice the castle above

Realizing that time was running out, we made a mad dash for our train back to Venice, via a very short stop off in Ljubljana.
Y. ran ahead and managed to hold up the train.

Thanking G-d for the still waiting train, we sat down and began to bid the scenery of Slovenia a loving farewell.

In Ljubljana we ran to get extra money to buy the tickets for the train to Venice. To our surprise, however, the train never came. The next train was to arive five and a half hours later -12:30.

So off we went to check out the city . . .

The town was alive, with hundreds of patrons enjoying the warm weather and the open air bars around the river. One slightly inebriated man came over to us and told us, that we need not wory -Ljubljana was a safe city. Even more so he loved Jews, as he had held a job in Monsey for some time. Another man, who didn't speak a word of English, tried to tell us through a friend, who spoke some English, that his (the first guy's) brother played soccer in Israel. Yet another lady told us that she was a witch . . . and that if we didn't speak to her she would destroy the world . . .

By the Dragon Bridge.


12:30 came, and went, and the train did not come . . . Apparently it had been held up in Budapest.


Waiting

Finally it did arrive -around four in the morning.

Thus ended my trip . . .


Technorati Tags: Slovenia, Ljubljana, Bled, Bohinj, Vintgar, Waterfalls, Trains, Travel, Photography, Nature