"Wann der Fruhling kommt..."

The title of this blog is "When Spring Comes..." in German. Spring is indeed what we are waiting for here in the Julian Alps. We saw pleny of spring on the train from Kezsthely to Ljubliana. The flowers were blooming, the rivers were overflowing, the trees were beginning to bud, the hills were covered with bright green grass and yes, we even saw some pure white lambs sitting in that grass. We are now in the Julian Alps however where spring is a little bit harder to find. The grass is very green here but we seem to be stuck in that period between winter and spring where it rains a lot but there isn't much to show for it yet. It is still incredibly beautiful.

We arrived at the Lesce-Bled train station just before dark. We had made arrangements to stay in a tourist farm right outside of Bled in a little village called Gorje. The only directions we had was the address and "the farm is on the road to P------, you can't miss it!" So we walked to the nearest bus stop and and waited for a bus to Bled from which we planned to walk or something..... A few minutes before the bus was to come, a little car pulled up and let out a passenger. Then the driver looked at us and said something in Slovene. When he realized we didn't speak Slovene, he asked in English, "Are you going to Bled?" He offered us a ride so we stuffed our huge bags into his tiny car and off we went. I (Larissa) showed him the paper where I written the down the address. "OH!" He sucked in his breath, "This is a long way from Bled, I am supposed to meet a friend for coffee but I guess he can wait. We call the people who live in this village 'rednecks' because they live so far out of town." I asked just how far out of Bled they the village was and he said, "Oh, about 5 kilometers!" Slovenia is a small country so their wense of distance is quite a bit different than ours in America. He dropped us off right at at the front door and turned down our offers to pay for his gas.
We rang the doorbell and an elderly gentleman opened the door. He seemed to understand us when we said we had reservations and all that but when he replied, it was in a mixture of English and German. He invited us in to the house and we were very ecited to finally see the inside of a Slovene house. This of course is a very traditional farm house but we liked it. We sat down to wait for his son who was going to show us our room. We sat in awkward silence sometimes interrupted by with his occasionally speaking to me in german. I asked if he was from Austria and he said no that he learned german for the tourists that come there to stay. He also speaks Italian. So we started speaking in Italian. English seemed to be the language he knew the least of. His son Tony finally arrived and he seemed releived to let him take over obviously thinking Tony spoke much better English than he did. Tony, who's every third word was "Ayoh" (I am not sure what that means yet), is not very good at English actually. He speaks it very fast so we think that he probably knows it really well, it is just his pronounciation that needs help. On the way to our room, Jason told Tony that we are on our honeymoon. That may be why he gave us such a great room. It isn't really a room. It is an apartment. It has a kitchen, a table, a TV and it can sleep 5 people. For 17 euro a person per night, it is quite a deal around here. We slept fitfully, because the next day was Easter Sunday and the church bell seemed to ring all night. The next morning we sat down to a Slovenian Easter breakfast (which is included in the price) of cheese, bread, plum marmalade, butter, peppers, and tomatoes. Keep in mind that most of these were either homemade or homegrown. We were intent on eating all that we could, as we wanted to get our money's worth. I don't think I have ever eaten that much havaarti, swiss, and mozzarella cheese in my life. Tony's mom is the master of all the homemade things. She is a very excited person who speaks English/German just like her husband. After our breakfast that morning, I was talking to her cows when I turned around to see her coming towards me. "Missus!" She looked like she was about to jump up and down with joy, "I haf da donkey too!" She showed me where her donkey was and just like her, he had quite the personality. AS I walked up, he was vigourously scratching his body against the side of his wooden manger which liked it wasn't going to stand up to such abuse much longer. When it saw Jason and I though, he came trotting over and was especially interested in Jason's camera

.We often heard him hee-hawing and once I looked out the window to see him running and trying to buck something invisible off his back.

Anyway, we had a pleasant walk to to the town of Bled which is home to a beautiful lake with a picturesque island in the middle. The island has a church and it is probably one of the main reasons Bled is visited by millions of people every year.

As you can wee, the weather wasn't very clear that day. You can't even see the mountains in the background. Here is a picture that I grabbed from the internet of Bled Lake.

Also one of Bled's claims to fame is it's castle which stands at the very top of a cliff over looking the lake. There is a foot path that goes aroung the lake and we headed for that. Jason pointed out plenty of fish in the lake. There were beautiful char and lake trout in the water and Jason was very dissapointed not to have a fishing rod and equipment. It was a great walk but we were hungry and the walk was longer than we thought it would be . When we completed the loop, we rewarded ourselves with Bled's specialty, Cream Cake. It is our new obsession and I WILL learn how to make it. Coming soon to a potluck near you. We ate the best way, as in dessert first. For lunch I talked Jason into going to a traditional Slovenian restaurant by telling him they made pizza too. Turns out the pizzeria was a separate restaurant upstairs. Jason was very upset so I told him that I would order enough for one person, we would share that then share a pizza. I ordered mushroom soup, roast potatoes, and bread dumplings. Everything was superb! Except the bread dumplings which were questionable. After we ate that, we were so full we skipped the pizza.

After lunch we started walking towards Vintgar Gorge. Vintgar Gorge is another famous sight in Slovenia and it is only a couple kilometers away from our tourist farm. When we got to the entrance, we saw these signs in the path. It wasn't in our language so we weren't exactly sure what they were trying to tell us.

Going by the signs posted, it became clear that to us theat they were trying to prevent us from throwing rocks at hammers, wearing hats, or wearing all black. We didn't have any problems with these rules so we jumped over the barracade and went on our merry way. We passed a few people coming the other direction and one guy had a hat on so we knew he was a law breaker. This gorge is beautiful. The water is clear and in deep spots, incredibly blue. The boardwalk was built in 1893 and follows the river for almost 2 km in a rock gorge. Behind us, a little family of four was walking. A mom, dad, a baby and a 3 years old. We finally got to a place that felt a little too unsafe to travel over and we turned around. This picture is actually a place that we walked across.
We were a little dismayed to see the 3 year old make it over the section where we turned back. But no matter. It was a good day with lots of walking and my legs were quite sore. This all took place on Easter so not much was open. Here they celebrate Easter Friday through Monday. I did not take this picture.Here is a picture of a traditional painted egg we saw a lot of.

The next morning we woke up and after breakfast, headed to the train station. We wanted to go to lake Bohinj. When we got to the train station, it was shut up tight and nobody was around. We looked at the timetable and there was a train going at 11:30. Which was in about an hour. We sat outside and looked out over the lake. We vould see people rowing crew boast on the lake and it was just a beautiful day and beautiful sight. Jason innocently asked, "So do you think you could beat me in a crew race if we went right now?" After I stopped laughing, I informed him that I didn't think anything, I knew that if I raced him in a crew boat, I would win. He was quite surprised at the strength of my assuredness and said "Yeah, but I am stronger than you!" After I stopped laughing again, I told him that it didn't matter how strong you were if you didn't know hor to balance the boat or work the oars. Even after that, He still said he was pretty confident that he could beat me in a race then and there. That's when it turned into a full blown argument. For those of you who don't know, I raced crew boats for a year so I took it as an insult to my skill as a rower. I probably shouldn't have felt insulted by Jason's naivete because he obviously didn't mean to insinuate anything. BUt anyway, is there anyone out there who has ever been in a crew boat that can back me up on this one? I realize I am speaking to a very small percentile here. Maybe I am just speaking to my brother, but can someone please tell Jason that rowing a crew boat is quite different than rowing a drift boat and it is harder than it looks?

Anyway, we finally got on a train. The whole way, we followed the beautiful Sava River. We passed Kayakers, canoeists and fly fishermen in abundance. Jason started to feel very sorry for himself. I promised we could come back some time and he could bring his fly fishing gear and we could rent a kayak for him. Fishing liscences are quite expensive here but there are lost os beautiful trout in the rivers and lakes here.

We arrived at Bohinj Bistrica after about a 20 minute ride. IT is a town about 6 km from the lake. Our goal, Lake Bohinj. The bike rental place was closed (according to the toursit center guy) so we decided to walk along the river until we reached the lake. There was a hiking trail on our map that we decided to follow. It was warm and sunny so I took my fleece off and it was still hot. We walked and walk and then it started to rain. We put on our useless ponchos. The rain seemed to get harder. It seemed like we had been walking for ages. My legs, still sore from the day before werenow achin. Jason was limping because his knee was hurting and we were both basically pathetic. We got to a meadow that had many little huts. One hut had a little sheltered eating area that we decided to stop at and wait for the rain to stop. It just seemed to rain harder so we ended up just eating our lunch. The rain still hadn't let up so we decided to just walk on. Our previously beautiful gravel trail turned into a big clay mud bogg. After hours of walking, we finally emerged on to the green grass park surrounding part of the lake. We made it!! It was beautiful but we were wet and cold. Bohinj is bigger and less developed than Bled. It doesn't have a cool island but it is truly majestic.

There isn't much stuff to do that doesn't involve outdoor activites so we decided to head back to the train station. The bus ride back was so quick!! We thought of our hours of walking...but it was definitely worth it.

We bought train tickets to vintgar thinking how smart we were "yesterday we walked fromVintgar gorge to our house and it only took 10 minutes. Vintgar station can't be too far from there right?" We began to grow concerned when right after we left the stop before ours, we started going through a long tunnel. After about a minutetunnel ride, we came to our stop. It was dark and nobody got off the train with us. We didn't recognize anything and there was no map and it was dark. We walked acrodd the street to the bar to ask directions so we could start walking. When I asked, the lady's eyes got big and she said "you have a car?" when she heard we were planning to walk, she told that it would take an hour and a half at least. We had missed that last train and there wasn't a busin sight. We asked her if she could call us a taxi and from the incredulous look on people's faces, we realized it wasn't really an option. "Here, I will just drive you" We asked if we could pay her and she just waved us away. I looked back at the bar as we were leaving and was realieved to see that there was just a coffee cup at her spot.

We started driving and WOW! an hour and a half walk would have been more of a run. We zigzagged our way up a mountain and down the other side. When she dropped us off, she refused our money so Jason told her "Next time you are in America, we will give you a ride when you are lost" As you can see, people are very nice here.

Well, today is my birthday and we are in an outdoor store buying a trip to take tomorrow. We just hung out today and rested our poor legs. Jason bought me a Vienetta. I love those things. We are taking a canyoneering trip. I am so excited because I have always wanted to try it. We will take our underwater camera and tell you all about it. Jason might break down and take a kayaking trip in a couple days too. Thank you for your comments. Hope you enjoy our extra long blog!