WanderlustandWhimSea

Slovenia was a delightful surprise. It’s a small country, about the size of Massachusetts with a total population of 2M. It’s bordered by Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Slovenia is 110th in my country count, and I’m not sure why I waited so long to visit. Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia after World War 2 till 1991. It’s interesting since I just came from Hungary where that is a very dark period in Hungarian history under communism. The opposite is true in Slovenia as it was communist, but ruled by Tito who was a bit more popular and the economy was stable. I stayed in the capital Ljubljana for five glorious days of exploring. Five days was enough time to explore the extremely walkable city where the entire old town is a pedestrian zone, well pedestrians, bikes and scooters. I also did several day trips with Viator and two of the trips just had 5 people which is a lovely size to get to know my fellow travelers.

I started the visit with a Food and Wine walking tour. It included 5 stops where we sampled 5 different Slovenian Wines and traditional food. The Slovenian wine was shockingly good. We sampled 3 whites and 2 reds. My favorite was the red on the right called Teran. It’s a dry red and is even supposed to be good for you as it is full of iron. So a red wine that tastes good and is good for you – you can’t beat that!

The view of Lake Bled from Bled Castle is iconic. I was lucky with weather as the day before was rainy and I toured the castle in the cave and a gigantic underground cavern but the Lake Bled viewing was perfect with no rain, a bit chilly with temps in the 50’s. The boat ride to the island is on the traditional Pletna boats that are rowed by hand. My knees were a bit intimidated by the 99 steps up to the church on the island, I made it, but not nearly so effortlessly as the 8 year old who sort of skipped up them with ease.

I always like to include a few “Proof of Life” photos when I add a new country to the list. From Slovenia I’m headed to Rotterdam to pick up a Holland America cruise that’s headed north to Norway, then Scotland, UK, France and transatlantic ending in Ft Lauderdale. On this trip I’ll be gone a total of seven weeks so that’s a bit tough to attempt with a carry on suitcase given the weather extremes from Norway in October to Bermuda. Fortunately I took advantage of a luggage service called Luggage Forward and sent a larger suitcase directly to the ship while I traveled lightly with my smallest carry on for this side trip.