2015 CONT'

Well well well look at me, not leaving this one whole year between posts. What a champ.

touchdown

Lake Bled

howl to the moon mega

atop Mt Vogel

loving the forest time

in the Castle in Austria

explorer times

Onwards to:

Slovenia

So Greer, Megan and I booked a wee girls trip to Slovenia, and just about missed the flight due to just-your-average-sleep-in *cough*definitelydidntgetsuperwasteythenightbefore*cough*...Lucky I thought ahead and booked us priority boarding. We got to the airport just on time to skip the huge line. The only downfall of priority boarding is ya know who else gets priority boarding? People with children. Ya know who shouldn't get priority boarding? Either super hungover people who can't handle noise, or people who completely and utterly ignore their children and let the little shits do what the hell ever. Anywho. Suck it up Alana.

We hired a cute lil red renal car from Ljubljana Airport and started on the journey to Lake Bled. We stopped off for foreign road snacks (the best) and tried to find a usb car charger (failed) and got on the massive 45 mins car journey. There was very little traffic until the turn off for Bled, where we came to a grinding halt and continued to crawl for probably half an hour. Which was fine, cos the surrounding VISTAS were exceptional. We had a little backpackers slightly out of town (it gets quite busy and exp if you leave booking, so, get onto it early). The guy running the place was super helpful and gave us maps and recommendations left right and centre. Brilliant. We walked back to the lake and stopped off for lunch at a restaurant right on the water. I don't remember what it was called, but Bled is so damn beautiful.

Man, writing about super summer adventures when it is currently winter and 2 degrees, mistake.

Walks and swims around the lake, picnics, drives into the countryside. One day we drove out to Lake Bohinj and went up a cable car on Mount Vogel. I didn't particularly think I was afraid of heights, but this thing goes so fast it's actually insane and I did feel sick. Pity up is only half the journey... there were snakes up there, poor Greer had to dash away with such sudden speed. She had literally just been saying thank god we haven't  see any so far, when this sneaky black one came outta nowhere right in front of us. The mountainous views from up here are so spectacular, it was quite a clear day so we could see ranges and ranges and the lake below. In the winter they ski up there, so there were all these lifts and trails, we walked one of them for a while, so I could work up the courage to go back down the blimmin  cable car hahah.

Another day we went to Vintgar, which is this lovely gorge with beautiful blue water running through it. Pretty rammed as well though, so slow going some of the time. Lots of wooden bridges and rocky outcrops to dodge. We took a woodland hike basically straight uphill to get back to the carpark, which was epic. A few dodgy signposts, a few fields with cows (I dunnae like being in fields with cows) but again, the outlook over the countryside...so nice.

This has got to be the most scenic spot on earth, which I almost feel bad saying, seeing as I'm from NZ. But the mountains and the lakes and the snow and the sun and the rolling hills and forest and heat all in one. We drove up some mountains and through random villages looking for cheese, and at one point someone spotted a little stall off of someones house, score. Lucky the road had no footpath and was only as wide as our super economy sized four seater, so we basically had drive through. Another interesting thing is they must have some private resident only roads, but the signage is not in english woops. Well, the horses were great down that road, so, sorry Triglav National park. We frolicked in the forest because we are super-cool humans, drove down roads that abruptly finished (thanks googlemaps) and went through some weird road skiing racetrack,

The last day we realised how close both Italy and Austria were, so we went to Italy to get some gelato and look at some markets (which were terrible), and then on to Austria to Villach and found Landskron Castle to visit. We got a tad lost trying to find our way back to Slovenia, as I'd found a particular road I wanted to take, but couldn't find any signage. Some Austrian man on his push bike road up and offered us help thank god, and away we went. 

The chosen route being the Wurzenpass, which ''is a mountain pass is a mountain pass in a col of the Karawanken mountain range in the Southern Limestone Alps, on the border between Radendorf in the Austrian state of Carinthia and Kranjska Gora in Slovenia. It is named after the nearby village of Podkoren (Wurzen). Though its elevation of 1,073 m (3,520 ft) is relatively moderate, the road contains numerous curves and includes several steep ascents with a maximum grade of 18 percent.'' 

Also, a small bit of the history, ''During the Cold War the Austrian Armed Forces built several defence works and bunkers along the Wurzenpass Straße which today are open to the public in the context of a documentation centre.''

Thanks wiki. It was very bendy, our lil car was very slow, but it was a very good trip. 

On our way back to Ljubljana airport we stopped for petrol and made a horrible obsession/discovery, Filly's. These small lucky dip horses figurines. They consuuuuumed the rest of the trip (in a good way, maybe, I'm still not sure). 

Next up is Croatia...