Posts

Ljubljana - The Dragon City

Image
  We weren’t sure what to expect in Ljubljana. It is a town of about 300,000 people and 50,000 students. That’s about the size that Austin was when Malcolm went to University of Texas. Young people everywhere. We found that almost everyone we talked to spoke perfect English. An unbelievable 74% of Slovenians adults speak English.   The city is built around a big bend in the Ljubljanica River. As usual, there’s a castle on the top of the hill, built by the Hapsburgs during their reign over the city. Since no one from the family lived here, it was mostly for the Governors who managed the city and collected the taxes for the Hapsburgs.   We love cities with free walking tours. Well, they are not really free. You’re expected to tip the guide if they did good work and our guide was outstanding. During the tour she told us about the geology of the city, about key people in the architectural history, and even about legends.   She talked about the geology of their ‘disappear...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Julian Alps and Lake Bled

Image
We made it to Fantasyland in Slovenia. When we arrived at Lake Bled, it had that high-Alpine feeling to it. We couldn't see the majesty of the mountains but we could feel that small village feeling we would expect from a Walt Disney movie. We even encountered several accordion players adding to the mood. We drove in by rental car from Pula and were happy to get off of the freeway. Construction provided our entertainment while we were stopped. In most cases, on one-lane roads, we were stopped by a non-manned traffic light that we trusted would eventually turn to some shade of green that allowed us to proceed. When there was no construction, we were usually warned that the road was narrow and we just had to watch for the oncoming cars and make sure we were ready to give up half of the one lane and it always seemed to work. A few times it worked by one of us backing into a space that was wider.  Triglav National Park is almost 4% of the land area of Slovenia. Similar to the Rockies wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Going to the Theater

Image
In researching our trip, we ran across a short blurb about Pula in the Istrian Region of Croatia. Neither of us can recall exactly where, but it fascinated us. Almost everywhere we have been traveling for the last 25 years was touched by the Romans 2000 years earlier. From England south to the settlements around Tangier in Morocco. To the east into Greece and Turkey, and of course, Rome itself, all had Roman footprints all over them. When we first saw that there was one of the most well-preserved Roman amphitheaters in Pula, it was added to a growing list of must-see places. But the challenge seemed to be getting there. In the off-season, the ferries only run on Wednesday and Sunday. Then Friday gets added in during the swing season and finally it becomes daily during the summer. All over the Dalmatian Coast, we could tell that things were gearing up for a busy summer season, we were just early. We had built our trip around getting places on ferries and believed that the ferry ride f...
2 comments
Read more