Friday, June 26, 2015

Day 3 Slovenian Castles

This morning started out much better than the last few mornings.  We actually got enough sleep and it was beautiful out when we woke up. We did a ton of stuff today.  The day isn't quite over and I am at over 100 flights of stairs and 32000 steps and 15 miles (thanks to the new fitbit I got I can tell you all these details :-)
Today's main events include a visit to the Ljubljana Castle, a walking tour of Ljubljana, a few more sites in Ljubljana, driving to Bled and walking up to Bled Castle and around Bled.  I will mostly let the pictures explain the story since there is so much we did.

Looking down the steps from our apartment

Lovely breakfast at the B&B Atticus

Step hike up the hill to the castle

View from the top of the tower at the Ljubljana castle

Steps we climed to get up to the castle

View of Ljubljana from the castle

View of the castle from the steps up
After we walked through the castle we quickly hiked down the hill and back to our apartment to check out.  We sprinted to catch the Ljubljana free walking tour at 11.  The tour group was huge so we were split into 2 groups. The free tour was great and included about 2 hours of seeing the sites around mostly the old town.  Only bad part about the tour is I lost my long sleeve shirt and sprinted to try to go back and find it (it is one of my favorites).  Luckily later we found it.  Somebody had nicely folded it and put it on a railing.  Slovenians are so honest and really keep everything so clean!  Some highlights of the walk are below

Art Nouveau style house on Presernov square.  They got money to renovate the house after the earthquake is 1895 by putting up scaffolding and pretending the house was ruined.

Detail on another building on the square.

Locks from lovers on the Butchers bridge.

Right near the market you can get 1 L of raw milk fresh from organic cows delivered daily for 1 euro out of this vending machine.'

Inside of the church of St. Nicholas, the most important catholic church in Ljublana

Door that was redone when Pope John Paul II came in 1997.  The door tells the history of Slovenian Christianity from bottom to top

Father Baraga was apparently from Slovenia (same guy with the cross on the north shore).  He was also on the door of the church for being an important part of Slovenian history

City hall with the Slovenian and Ljubljana flag

Cool clock (I think it was on city hall?)

We ran across the symphony practicing for a concert that night

Ursuline church.  One of the older ones, but currently closed because they damaged it while building a parking garage under the square in front so they could get rid of the cars on the square.  During that same renovation they found the Roman cemetary and all sorts of treasures

The university adminstration building.  Apparently something like 50000 students go here, but the campus is spread all over the city

National and University Library designed by Plecnik.  The top windows are supposed to be open books.  Unfortunately it was closed for the holiday so we couldn't see the inside.

Outdoor theatre again designed by Plecnik (his last work because the communists didn't like it)

Detail of dragon on the theater

Not sure why there was a terrarium in the dumpster, but that is what it seems to be

After the tour we went back to the river to enjoy a nice fish lunch a Ribna.  The place is actually downstairs from the road, with a patio overlooking the river.

Slovenian coke, Zach says it tasks like Coke with bubble gum, I actually thought it was better than real Coke

We both had fish and chips.  Good, but with the added bonus of a few bones

Wood tourist boat going by while we were eating

After lunch we stopped for gellato on the main square

We tried to bike the Plecnik's house which is now a museum.  Unfortunately it is closed for renovations.

Next up was a longer bike ride to the Serbian chruch near the park.  This ride was an adventure due to closed roads, missing bike return stations and signs we didn't really understand

Serbian Orthedox church built in the 30s for the growing population moving in from Serbia

Illegal picture of the inside

We walked past the crazy art place on the way to the ethnographic museum

The ethnographic museum had an exhibit on doors. The entire museum seemed really well done, but we only had 30 min and a lot of the stuff was only in Slovenian

Chests from an exhibit about identity

The temporary exhibit was on Italian fashion (and how it was viewed in Slovenia in the 30-80's


 After a quick walk back and stop to pick up one more souvenir we waited for the car at our apartment.  They arrived only a few minutes late and after figuring out some controls we were off to Bled
Zach figuring out the stick shift and car

Slovenian countryside on the way to Bled (only 40 min from Ljubljana)

Our pension.  Rooms Jerman.  It was a little hard to find and then when we did finally find it she had lost our reservation.  Eventually it was all straightened out and we got upgraded to the big room with a balcony for one night

Our room for the first night

Church on an island in Bled

Bled castle with the geese

We hiked all the way up that cliff to the castle.  When we got there we didn't actually go in because they were only open 30 more min and it was 9 euro each

View from the cliff

Some of the many stairs we walked up and down

Where we had dinner on the water

Dinky enjoyed the local beeer (Lasko) maybe more than we did.  It was a somewhat drinkable lager.

Zach had spelt risotto with sheep cheese and mushrooms

The famous Bled cream cake for dessert.  It was very good!

Moon over the island as we walked the long side of the lake back

The island church and castle in the background

And with that it was time for bed.  Tomorrow it is our trip through the Slovenian Alps on the Emerald River Adventure!



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