Lake Bled is one of the major tourist destinations in Slovenia.
Bled itself is a village with the lake, a castle (center), and a church (background right).
We walk around the lake twice, and learn how fish are caught there.
The church on the island is a pilgrimage site, and dedicated to the Assumption of Mary.
A pretty strong assumption, I must say, given the limited evidence.
Bled is in the Julian Alps, and this shows in the architecture and the cuisine. The local speciality is “kremšnita” (Cremeschnitte).
Vintar Gorge
The Vintar Gorge is drawn by the river Radovna. The Radovna leads into the Sava river, which, ...
... after passing by Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Belgrade, discharges into the Danube.
The gorge can be followed by a path, which is indeed... gorgeous.
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, with 300k inhabitants. The picture shows the Ljubljana castle on top of the hill.
Much like the entire country, the city lies at the crossroads of 3 cultures: germanic (Austria), latin (Italy), and slavic (Croatia).
Slovenia belonged to Austria/Habsburg during centuries, and this shows in the architecture.
Slovenia became independent in 1991, after 10 days of war with Yugoslavia. Communism did leave its marks...
...but most of the city is just lovely.
It is maybe not surprising then that the name “Ljubljana” sounds like “ljubljena”, which means “the beloved” in Slovenian.
The city has similarities to Sibiu/Hermannstadt in Romania.
The Franciscan church is at the triple bridge, which has 3 paths over the river.
While some corners of the city remain pittoresque,...
...the country overall is modern. Here are different bins for different types of garbages.
Here is our landlord who scans our passports with an app that transmits the data automatically to the local police for registration.
Metelkova City is a self-declared “autonomous culture place” in Ljubljana.
We leave the city two days later.
Plitvice Lakes National Park
We are on the way to Croatia. The country has half the GDP per person of Slovenia.
This shows in the many more unfinished houses, and the generally less well organized landscape.
Splendidly organized, in contrast, is the Plitvice Lakes National Park.
The park consists of 16 lakes....
... that discharge into each other.
The colors are determined by the amount of minerals and plants...
...and lead to stunning shades (this is the lake in the background).
The park is criss-crossed by wooden paths...
...that pass by deep and clear waters.
We share the pleasure with quite a number of other people...
...but everything is very neat and clean.
Rovinj
Rovinj is a city in Istria/Croatia that lies on a peninsula.
The entire place is dominated by the iconic Church of St. Euphemia. The city was Venetian during centuries...
... and still looks very Italian. It became part of Austria-Hungary in 1797,...
...before becoming Italian again in 1918, and then Yugoslav in 1947, and thus Croatian today. The city is officially bilingual, and both Italian and Croatian are spoken.
What a nice place to end our journey.
