Day 5 Driving through Slovenia and onto Pula Croatia

Already day 5!

Today we drove through Slovenia and eventually onto Pula Croatia.  Highlights of the day were rowing to the island in Bled, seeing the  Predjama castle, hiking through the Skocjan caves, wandering around Piran and then driving through Istria to Pula.

Map of where we went.  Ignore the other stars in Istria, those we will stop at on Day 6

Great breakfast at the hotel again.  Still horrible coffee though

After breakfast we walked down to the lake to rent a boat.  I guess people don't do much before 9 so we had to walk around the lake for a while waiting.  That meant more great views like this though

Traditional Pletna boat loaded down with Asian tourists

I got to row us out since Zach's shoulder was still sore from dislocating it the day before

The boat ride was only about 15 min and then we hiked up the steps to hike up even more steps in the church bell tower

Zach ringing the bell in the church.  This church has been around for a long time and was put up by fisherman in the 9th-11th century (although the current church is newer than that)

Steps we climbed to look out the bell tower

View of the castle from the bell tower

Dinky getting in on the rowing action

After the 15 min row back we quickly got our stuff ready and were off on a day long driving adventure with the end goal of Pula Croatia

It was about 80 min drive to our first stop.  The scenery was hard to get a picture of, but it was quite nice all the way there

First stop was Predjama castle.  The road there was quite the adventure (think curvy one lane road with the occasional speeding trucks).  This castle was actually built into the cliff.  We didn't go inside because we were short on time, and it was kinda expensive 

On the way to our next stop we went into a mall to get some groceries.  We found a non alcoholic version of Radler (usually beer plus fruit juice in this case non alcoholic beer plus peach juice).  This was from the Ljublana brewery and actually was good, but it did take a little for it to grow on us.

We arrived at the Skocjan caves a little after the 1 pm tour, bu that gave us plenty of time to eat our picnic lunch and check our email.

The Skocjan caves are on the UNESCO list because of how impressive they are.  Technically there was no pictures allowed and because the guy behind us was super annoying about pictures I was only able to talke a few clandestine shots.  This one is of the bridge inside the largest cavern in the mummering part of the cave. The entire tour took about 1.5 hours

After the end of the tour we took the long way out and hiked basically a cliff up.  The long way was worth it though because we got to see more of the river and the waterfall.

Part of many stairs on the way out.

Happy to have made it to the top

Next stop was Piran Italy which is part of the 28 km of Slovenian coast.  There is no parking in old town so we had to park in the garage and catch a shuttle into town.  Americans would never survive in this ramp.  It is hard to see, but basically all the spots were so narrow you could barely open either door even if you were totally centered in the spot.

We quickly hiked through old town and headed to our favorite place, the church bell tower.  Of course we had to climb it to get some good pictures.

Steps up to the top of the bell tower

Great view of the town from the top

Dinky enjoying the sun

We also visited the inside of the church.  The highlight was this crucifix from the 13th century.   

Church alter

We walked down the hill and around town.  On the way back to the car we found this band playing some bad beatles impressions

View from Tartini square to the harbor

Walking back along the beach we stopped for ice coffee with ice cream!

We then hopped in the car and after a short drive we passed into Croatia

Final stop of the day was Pula at the tip of the Istrian peninsula.  We arrived around 8 pm and were greeted immediately by our friendly host at the Sonja Apartments who gave us some advice.  We went for a short walk on the way to another pizza dinner.  Part of the reason we stopped in Pula was because of the well preserved Roman architecture so we checked out a lot of the sites as the sun was setting.  This is Arch of Serguis from Roman times

The Temple of Augustas which was rebuilt by the Allies since they accidently bombed it during WWII

The Cathedral from the 5th century

The ampitheater which was having a loud crazy concert that night

For dinner we stopped at Jupiter pizza.  Zach decided we needed a jumbo pizza which of course we didnt make it through

After dinner we had a quick stop at Wine Bar Brajda.  I had the local white wine Malvazija made by Kozlovic which was very very good.

Finally at about midnight we walked back to our apartment and basically collapsed for the night

Tomorrow we see some sites in Pula before driving to Plitvice Park with lots of little stops on the way

Day 4 Emerald River Adventure

Today the main activity was the Emerald River Adventure with 3Glav Adventures.  

Highlights of the day were hiking to a pass in the Alps, "hiking" (really clinging to ropes) to the source of the Soca river, swimming in a very cold waterfall seeing Lake Bohinj, and some great pizza back in town.  Again I will mostly let the pictures tell the story

We had a nice big breakfast, with some truly aweful coffee at our hotel before the van came to pick us up a 8 am.

Lots of great scenery on the drive.  In this picture you can see the traditional hay drying racks which are basically the national symbol of Slovenia

First stop of the day was at this little lake to have us all sit on the golden goat.  I guess Slovenian kids stories are kinda sad because the tail of the goat was something about the mountain goat protecting the area, a kid dying trying to kill it and then the goat taking away all the fairies (or something like that)

Hike up to the pass

Old WWI hut that was used to transport weapons and stuff across the pass.  This area had lots of WWI stuff because she pretty terrible fighting happened here.

Woman's face in the mountain

These sheep were begging for ice cream

View from the top of our hike

This was how a lot of the hike to the Soca river source looked like.  Pretty sure in America this would never be allowed, but we saw plenty of older Slovenians including a blind guy doing this hike.

Source of the Soca river

When one of the girls on the trip heard it was our anniversary soon she gave us this heart shaped rock

Later on the way to lunch we stopped for a picture of the Soca river

Our group decided on a picnic lunch.  All of this food was less than 8 dollars including some good Slovenian cheese and salami.  Also I had an ice cream cone :-)  The picnic was at a grocery store in Bovec.

First stop after lunch was rafting.  After getting into our sexy but hot rafting gear we were off down the river with our guide Teddy.  On the way we all stopped to jump off a rock to go swimming.  The guide was really good and got us safely down the little rapids

Our group in the last little rapids

After returning the rafting gear we drove a little, then had a 20 min hike to this waterfall.  It was in the gouge and the water was quite cold

I waded in up to my knees, Zach actually went in and swam for a few seconds

After hiking back to the car and a short drive we stopped for 5 min for anyone who wanted to jump off this bridge.  I said no way, Zach was excited.  If you look closely you can see him nearly in the water.  He nearly gave me a heart attack because he managed to dislocate his arm going into the water.  Luckily he popped it back in so I didn't have to swim in to get him.

Another short drive brought us to the car train.  You just drive right onto the train and ride in the car through tunnels and such for about 30 min.  They gave us some beer during the wait that had the golden goat symbol on it.

View from our car

Final stop was Lake Bohinj for some pictures.  Lake Bohinj is bigger than Lake Bled and a little more natural, and maybe even more beautiful

Bridge over river by the lake

We did it!  We survived the 12 hour Emerald river adventure!

After paying and saying goodbye to our new friends we walked through town to a pizza place for dinner.  Along the way we stopped for this great photo opportunity

Working bee hive right in Bled with the traditional paintings

Our pizza had ham, asparagus and 2 other meats on it.

View walking back from dinner

Castle and island at night

Our new smaller room which we finally arrived at after 10 pm. 

At this point we were quite ready for bed.  After getting everything charged and ready for the next day we quickly fell asleep.  Tomorrow is driving to Pula Croatia with lots of stops on the way