Country Roads Take Me to Slovenia
Sunday, September 25th, 2005We last wrote from Karlovy Vary, a small Czech town on the German border. From there, we drove to Plzen on a nice country road that took us through rolling green hills and fields of hops. When we arrived in Plzen, we were surprised to find a much larger city than we expected and my prediction that we would find easily Hlavni Nadrazi (the main train station) where we would pick up Kristin and Joseph was sadly wrong. After multiple wrong turns and a test of my Czech language skills, we found it, 30 minutes late. We went to the Pilsner Urquell Brewery (otherwise know as Czech Beer World) where we took a scintillating tour that showed us just how proud Czechs are of their beer (and we agree, they should be.) We toured the underground cellars and tasted fresh, unpasteurized Pilsner Urquell, hoppy and delicious.
From Plzen, we headed to Cesky Krumlov, another famous Czech town that we had visited before. It has the second largest castle in the Czech Republic, which impressively sits on a rock high above the Vltva River. Perhaps our most precious find there was the campground 20 minutes north of the city on a small lake. We rented a bungalow for 4. It was in rather ragged shape, with chipped paint, torn tile and infested with drunken mosquitoes stunned by the cold of the approaching autumn, but otherwise it was perfect. We had a working kitchen and bathroom and a balcony with a view of the lake, all for less than 600CZK (thats about 20 euros.)
In Cesky Krumlov, we were also introduced to Frantisek Skala, a contemporary Czech artist (I should say we were introduced to his art, not really to him.) Fab and I would probably never choose to visit an exhibit like this on our own, but Joseph (an art buyer from Santa Fe, now English teaching Praguer) and Kristin (my American writer/editor vagabonding Praguer friend) were insistent and we weren’t disappointed. My favorite part of the exhibit were the intricately carved heads (with detailed facial expressions)- the catch, they were carved from kelp collected from the shore in Northern California. Fabien’s favorite…the elaborately decorated travel journals. A sort of new inspiration for both of us in the art of journalling. Bravo Frantisek Skala.
From Cesky Krumlov, we drove south along the Vltva through some charming Czech villages, before crossing the border to Austria. Austria welcomed us with smoothly paved roads, rolling green hills and exorbitant prices. A lack of planning and resources quickly led to frustration when we attempted to find a campground. Our maps indicated campgrounds everywhere, but when we attempted to find one, we ended up in the parking lot of a hypermarket. We even considered the hotel at a truck stop (90 euros for a double, about 5 times our alloted budget.) Sure we would have to sleep in the car, we luckily came to Lake Mondsee, about 30km north of Salzburg. We found a lovely spot next to the lake, enjoyed the best showers of our camping life and awoke to find ourselves surrounded by mountains.
Then to Salzburg, birthplace of Mozart, a lovely town surrounded by hills. We spent much of the day sampling the local treats, chocolates, donuts, giant pretzels and wurst. After we had stuffed ourselves on goodies, we climbed up to the castle on the hill to enjoy a nice walk and at the impressive views. We even heard a little local music, a few waltzes at some semblance of a beer festival and of course the incessant church bells.
We spent one more evening camping in Austria before driving through the Alps of Southern Austria and arriving in Slovenia.
Saturday, we finally arrived in Bled, Slovenia, back to the original plan of our trip (who needs a plan though?) Bled is magical. It is a small village on a big, crystal clear sparkling blue lake. In the middle of the lake, there is an 18th century church. On one side of the lake, there is a small castle high on a rock. We decided to rent a row boat for the afternoon, and I (the expert) rowed us to the small island. Fab and I climbed up to see the church, while Kristin and Joseph took to boat for a spin. I rang the bell in the church and made a wish. A few minutes later, we heard cars honking, indicating a wedding. When we went back to meet Kristin and Joseph, we saw the big rowboats coming with bride and groom, the wedding guests and the accordion player. Fabien rowed us out to get a close up view while Kristin and Joseph watched them from the steps of the church. The lucky groom carried his new bride up the steps of the church. Out of breath and exhausted they arrived to the top of the steps where they toasted the couple by slicing the tops of the champagne bottles with a sword. Wow!
We paddled happily back to the shore, feeling blessed to have witnessed this event. We then drove on to Lake Bohinj(about 30 km west of Bled) to camp next to a lake surrounded by mountains. From our campsite we stared out onto a lake with a perfect reflection of the mountains and sky above. Lake Bohinj was our home for a couple of days. We relaxed, wrote in our journals and took an easy walk on Sunday. On Monday, Fabien, Kristin and I decided to stretch out our legs and made a full day trek to see the nearby waterfalls and several lakes high in the mountains. We climbed about 1400 meters this day (thats more than 4000 feet.) We are in training for the Himalyas.
Now we are writing from Postojna a small town (famous for having the largest caves in Europe.) It is pouring rain, and we are using the time to catch up. Kristin and Joseph left us yesterday in Ljubljana to go to Venice to see the Bienalle. We are trying to dry our camping gear and finally sprang last night for a real hotel room. (the first of the trip!!)
Our impressions of Slovenia so far: the people are extremely friendly and they have amazing language skills. Almost everyone we have met speaks English- and many of them speak German and Italian as well. There food is heavily influenced by Italian food. There is far too much traffic and lack of parking in Ljubljana. Things are more expensive than we expected, but we are having a wonderful time.
Administrator