The land of Dragons

Up early and trekking to the bus station, there is nothing to indicate where our bus is.  Barb and Bob managed to find it, however when they try to board, we find that they have tickets for the wrong day!  Racing off to the ticket counter, Barb gets tickets for the next bus leaving for Ljubljana as we pull away without the grandparents eek!

There aren’t border checks in all the places we have been to (Schengen) with the exception now of Slovenia.  There has been an increase in crime and terrorism coming across their border, and as we find out through our tours, Slovenia and in particular Lujbjlana is a very safe city with low crime.  Furiously texting between us and the grandparents, we are happy to hear they have tickets and will still make our afternoon tour to Predjama castle and Postojna caves.

We stop at the border, and a customs officer gets on.  Either she’s having a bad day, or they are just nasty.  We all have to get out our ID, and someone in the middle of the bus doesn’t understand or is too slow and she’s screaming at them in Slovenian.  Thankfully the ordeal is over quickly and we are waved through.

Unfortunately for Barb and Bob, someone on their bus doesn’t have the right credentials or something makes the customs people unhappy so their bus is delayed as they take that person off the bus.  Nek minnit their bus is headed back to Zagreb, with zero communication from the bus driver.  Then it does a massive loop and goes back through customs again.  

At this point, and together with our bus stopping for a toilet break, and then leaving someone behind…… I'm wondering if coming to Slovenia was a good idea.  A random car however waves down the bus that stops on the side of the road and the dude who was left behind gets back on, and Barb and Bob text to say they are now on their way so maybe there is still hope.

Slovenia has beautiful countryside, it's so green and clean.  Their villages tend to occupy a small area rather than spread out, and all will have one church in that village.  Just like Zagreb, most profess to be Roman Catholic, however most don't go to church these days.  It is said in Slovenia that the elderly are the most disappointed of all their people, they try to bribe the younger generation to go to church with cars, technology, university fees paid, but once the goods are handed over, the young are never seen again on Sunday at Church.

We have brunch when Barb and Bob arrive along the riverside and take in all the atmosphere.  The place is not overrun by people, it's clean and has a very laid back vibe, complete with dragons everywhere.

Tibor, our tour guide for today, is awesome.  He’s taking us to Predjama Castle and the Postojna caves.  He’s so passionate about everything Slovenian, and connecting with the people on tour, we often veer at high speed into another lane, and I'm fairly certain all of us are concentrating on the road more than the conversation at some points.  Being a small country, the cool thing about this place is you could be skiing in its mountains in the morning and then be swimming in the adriatic by the afternoon.

The castle just has to make you wonder - someone looked at this area and this rock and thought - oh yeah, let's build a giant house here.  With not a lot of natural light into the castle, it's the main “lounge” they lived in for most of the time, as the rest of the castle is quite dark.  But then, the first owners of this place designed a torture chamber right next to the master bedroom so make of that what you will.  The next dude to occupy the castle was called the “Robin hood of Predjama” but with a slight twist - he just robbed everyone. However, basing himself at this castle was the right move.  His enemies sought to starve him out, not realising that there is a massive cave under the castle and tunnels where he went out and replenished his food, and the cave was an ever source of water, you can see the contraption used to collect it.  What you don’t see from the outside of this castle is the drawbridge that connects the castle to the start of the cave.  This was probably one of the most secure places ever built if you were under siege.

The next stop is Postojna Caves.  I thought Waitomo was pretty epic, but when you hop on a train built for 120 passengers, and whizz 2.5kms into a cave that has been explored up to 35km inland, suddenly Waitomo is no longer epic, it's just cool.  Postojna doesn’t have glow worms though.

The size of the columns, stalagmites and stalactites makes you feel very insignificant in the scale of this cave and in space and time really.  We try to work out how old some of these structures are and it boggles the mind how long it took to not only create the cave from a stream but to then to create what we see in front of us.  We are 120m underground, 4km from the cave opening, and it's an awesome 10 degrees.  Not remembering the last time we wore a jumper, it's so refreshing being this cold.  We manage to see the “human fish” which look very similar to a salamander, and can’t handle light.  Historically they were referred to as baby dragons, so I guess this is where a lot of the dragon culture we find here comes from.  They are also critically endangered with less than a handful left in 2016.  Fearing extinction, the conservation team were stoked to see one day 50 eggs laid, and of them approx 20 survived to tadpoles.  With breeding only once every 12 years, you can imagine the concern. With 120 of us vying to have a look and find the 3 in the aquarium underground, there are always those people who are either ignorantly oblivious to others getting the ability to see, or just selfish.  Thankfully there is always a “Gareth” to tell them to move on as others want to see.

The downside of this tour was how fast it went.  This is definitely no casual meander through the caves, and I feel that I don’t have the time to really take in my surroundings before I’m loaded back onto a train to take us to the surface.  In hindsight I would have preferred to do a self guided audio tour instead.

Our ride back to Ljubljana is filled with Slovenian fun facts, gossip and where to try the best traditional foods. As we get closer to the main city, the heavy rain and thunderstorm starts.  We have been carrying around jackets all through Europe for this occasion, and of course we left them back with all our main luggage in Zagreb.  

Dinner is an experience.  It first helps if you are trying to translate the menu using the correct language.  Secondly it helps to actually double check the thing you are pointing to is actually what you want.  The kids wanted a “kids pizza” and we ended up ordering them a giant seafood pizza each.  On the plus side, the kids like gnocchi and Zach actually likes the taste of mushrooms, it's just the texture of them that makes him want to vomit.  I was looking forward to my pork and gnocchi dinner with truffle sauce and Gareth really did want to eat his with a mushroom topping, but we kinda have to take one for the team and swap foods.

Exhausted, we walked back to our accommodation for the night ready to do the Lake Bled tour early the next morning.  Bob and Barb will instead leisurely explore Ljubljana before heading back.

Lake Bled is so picturesque, the water is a turquoise blue but not as clear like the water in Split.  A vibrant bustling lake town, there are plenty of activities to do around various parts of the lake.  We hop into the flat bottomed boat to be rowed to the island and you notice there seems to be only one motorised boat on the lake.  Everything else is either row, paddle or swim which is quite refreshing to see, and probably why this lake is so healthy.

We walk all the way around the little island and then up the 99 stairs to the small chapel.  Being a hot day, the kids spot Gelato, we buy a couple of souvenirs and order ice cream.  Having been advised that icecream with a pumpkin oil on top is a very traditional dessert, I ordered the walnut ice cream which is green, with pumpkin oil on top.  Sounds like a weird combo, and it is, but like a lot of the food here - much more on the savoury side rather than the sweet which suits me.

We make our way to Bled Castle back on land, and all agree that we have seen heaps of castles, so rather than look inside we will just climb the stairs and look around it.  Unfortunately it’s built on steep rock, and you have to pay to enter the outside surroundings of the castle.  Disappointed, I decided we should make our way down and around the castle using the nature trail rather than the stairs.  Should have remembered that tracks aren’t so well sign posted as NZ, and also not so well maintained.  Knowing that we had to head downhill towards the lake, we carry on through what turns out to be stinging nettle (we are wearing shorts) and get weird zapping for the next 15 mins while we finally find our way back to the main trail and down to the waterfront.

Our lakeside restaurant is lovely, and I could see how you could drink the afternoon away if you weren’t on a schedule like us.  Back in our van we are whisked back to Lujbjlana to do some last minute shopping (Zach has this amazing diary with a dragon eye that weighs a ton) and jump on our bus back to Zagreb for an awkward dinner with Barb and Bob who leave for Tokyo the next morning.  And by Awkward, I mean, the same feeling as the “japanese” restaurant in Naples, I don’t think they wanted to serve us, very unfriendly and we have no idea why.

I would highly recommend Ljubljana, and Slovenia in general.  It’s a clean and green city with very friendly, happy people and if you like adventure, there’s plenty to do in this small country.