Monday, April 18, 2016

Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle

I had never been in a cave before, so I thought the Karst region of Slovenia would be a good place to try that for the first time. This is where the term Karst actually comes from.

Postojna Cave is the second largest cave system in Slovenia, the first being the Skocjan Cave, and we chose to visit this one because of the location near Predjama Castle (just a few miles down the road) and because they take you into and out of the cave on a little train, which I thought the kids would enjoy more than miles of walking.

We rode for about 10 minutes at the beginning and again at the end through dimly lit passageways. And in the middle walked for about an hour with a tour guide through "the most beautiful section of the cave."

Hard to take decent photos in such dim light (no flashes allowed,) but irresistible to try because of the eerie and other worldly beauty.

Rob and I both liked these curtain stalactites. The effect is caused when thin wavy sheets of calcite form.  These look like they are blowing in the wind, because when they formed the river was still flowing below them causing a breeze to alter the shapes as the stalactites formed.

The different colors might be what surprised me the most.  I know rocks come in different colors based on their mineral composition, but to see such strong reds, whites, and dark browns forming so near one another was surprising.

After our visit to the cave and some quick lunch, we headed to Predjama Castle.  This castle is famous for being built into the mouth of a cave. This photo is just to show you how often our family photos fail. Jake and Amelie are both screaming about being forced to pose and Rob is cracking up about it.

The castle is really cool though.
 
If you look at the picture from the outside, you can see a cavern above the castle.  We toured the castle interior (it is very simply furnished and didn't take long to tour) and then climbed up above the castle into the cavern to look out at the view.  There are stairs that continue back into the cave and provided the castle with a secret "back door" when they were under siege that enabled them to sneak in supplies.


Oh look! There's a viking in Slovenia?!?

Hurrah!  I finally got a nice family photo!
We really loved Slovenia and if we have enough time here in Germany, we may try to make a return trip one day to do some more hiking or possibly even some skiing one day.

Lake Bled and Ljubljana

You've seen pictures of Lake Bled, right? Right?!?!

It is every bit as gorgeous in real life.

Happy, beautiful day.

You can ride a boat called a pletna to the island.  It is kind of like a gondola. 

Or.... you can rent a row boat and row yourselves. We thought that sounded like much more fun.  

Once out on the island, we had a picnic on the grounds and visited the church. Sadly, the church is being heavily renovated, but each kiddo still took a turn ringing the wishing bell.  The two big kids and I also climbed the tower while Rob got the required ice cream cones with the two little kids.

I couldn't let Rob have all the rowing fun, so I took the oars on the trip back to shore. I did grow up next to a lake after all, and I know my way around a row boat.

Here's the view from the other side of the island with the castle on the hill, and the mountains just peeking above the clouds in the background.  We did walk around the castle grounds a little one day, but decided not to take the tour.  Lake Bled was best enjoyed from the outdoors for sure.
 
Another day we drove to the capitol city of Ljubljana. Slovenia is roughly the size of New Jersey, so nothing we drove to was much more than an hour away.  Here the kids are standing next to the Dragon Bridge.  The dragon has been the symbol for this city for a long, long time.

We walked around the market and checked out souvenirs as well before enjoying lunch from a couple of food vendors.  I should have taken a picture of my burger, it was the size of my head.  Toby ordered one too, and Rob ended up having to eat half of each of them.

We rode the funicular up to the Ljubljana Castle.

It was perfect weather for enjoying the views and walking off a giant hamburger.

Ljubljana is Europe's Green City for 2016.  I don't know exactly what that means; but we don't particularly like cities and we could see ourselves living in this one. This is the view from the castle's highest tower.

From front to back this is the market hall, the Cathedral of St. Nicholas (was closed during our visit,) and Ljubljana Castle at the very top. I like Slovenian arcitecture more than I thought I would. I guess I thought there would be more Soviet sort of influence from the Tito/Yugoslavia years, and there is some of that. But mostly the buildings look a little Bavarian, and even a bit Italian, but cleaner, simpler, and less adorned. I really like it.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

hiking in sLOVEnia

Sunday morning we picked up our rental car and drove to Slovenia.  I have so many photos, I decided to depart from my usual chronological style and do a few blog posts by subject.  So this post is all about hiking in Slovenia.  

We stayed in an apartment in Zirovnica. This was a beautiful apartment (for a fraction of the price of Venice) and within walking distance of this reservoir, a playground, and countless hiking trails.

We could also walk to this restaurant that featured a swing set for the kiddos, a live bear in an enclosure, and ridiculously large portions. Check out Rob's pork ribs and salad. We took the leftovers and had them for dinner another night.

We hiked every day in Slovenia and loved it.  Rob loved it so much that sometimes when the kids and I were worn out we would relax at the house and Rob would head back out to climb another peak. Not all of our hikes worked out perfectly though.  We had read about a waterfall nearby called Pokljuka and we headed out.

The day was beautiful, and so were the woods, but the trail was rough and very isolated.  We hiked and hiked without coming to a waterfall. Eventually Rob and I stopped and looked around and decided to turn back.  We didn't say it out loud until we got to the car, but we were both feeling a little uneasy and getting a bit freaked out by the isolation and the possibilty of bears and wolves.

Back by the apartment, there was no shortage of natural beauty.

The sign says these stairs are for fitness.

Here we are at the top.  
You can just see Toby at the bottom of the fitness stairs (which ended in a ladder) in the top right corner of the photo.

Another day we hiked to the Slap Savica (Savica waterfall) above Lake Bohinj.  There were 550 steps or so, but the kids did it.

Worth every step.

It was very beautiful.

As was the view out over the lake far below.

They were working on replacing all of the wood railings along this trail so we were able to enjoy the Slovenian folk music of chainsawing on this hike.  Seriously, not a day went by in Slovenia that we didn't hear a chainsaw at some point.

This is the kind of vacation that we love.

Loads of time outdoors, enjoying the beauty of nature.  As Charlotte pointed out, "Mother Nature is really an artist."

And of course, no hike would be complete without the reward of some sladoled (ice cream) and some time spent skipping rocks and feeding the ducks.  Rob wants me to put another trip to Slovenia on the calendar as soon as possible. But wait, there's more Slovenia to come!

24 hours in Venice

Last week our kids had Spring Break from school and we went on an epic trip to Venice and Slovenia.We flew into Venice on Friday afternoon and planned to stay until Sunday.  We checked into our airbnb apartment and were thankful that the owner met us at the vaporetto stop (water taxi) because I don't think we ever would have found it on our own.  It was down a very narrow street (I could easily touch both walls at the same time) and despite being at the top of our budget for accommodations, it wasn't very nice.  (We're not too fussy, but the wifi didn't work, there was no dish soap or hand soap, and the entire first floor smelled badly of mildew; though I suspect that is a common issue in Venice.) So we headed out right away to explore the neighborhood and eat some pizza and pasta.  We wanted to go on a gondola ride, but it was drizzling constantly so we decided to wait a day and see if we'd get better weather.


  
We did, however, find the Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, which was open for an exhibit by an artist named Joseph Klibansky called Beautiful Tomorrow.  It was free, so we thought we'd check it out.  The building was gorgeous!

Okay, so this is one of his pieces.  It is a gorilla head wearing a birthday hat, surrounded by black balloons.  Interesting.  But this room!  And the hand blown glass chandelier!

The art work was intriguing and the kids thought it was great.  But I mostly loved the rooms and the chandeliers.

After a rough night's sleep and no hot water to shower (grrr) we headed out on Saturday morning toward San Marco.  I hope they know this tower is a little lean-y.  Maybe it's just me, but I find things like leaning towers a little concerning.  Also, it was still raining.

Piazzo San Marco! With St. Mark's basilica in the background.

And up close.  We did walk around inside a bit, but they don't allow any photographs. There are some pictures and more info here if you are interested.

Next door to the basilica is the Doge's Palace. We enjoyed walking all around and exploring and occasionally getting out of the rain.

Check out this awesome 24 hour clock.  Notice it runs what we would call counter-clockwise.

There are doubtless volumes written about the artwork on the walls and ceilings of the Doge's Palace, and it is wow-worthy, but we didn't spend a lot of time researching it.  We just enjoyed it.

The Doge's Palace was the seat of government, and when someone was convicted, they were walked over the Bridge of Sighs to the prison. The story goes that prisoners would stop and look out the window at the beauty of Venice and sigh before being taken to the dungeons to never see the light of day again. It is hard to take a photo through the stone work, but this would be their view.

After all of that it was time for some paninis and more pizza.  Still raining.

Our next stop was the Correr Museum. The history of Venice was interesting, but a bit exhausting with the four little ones. 

They were much happier to be back out on the Piazzo and feeding the pigeons- in the rain.  All of the kids tried, but only Toby was able to get birds to land on his hand to be fed. Rob was a little freaked out about the uncleanliness of this activity, but the kids loved it.

Since it was STILL RAINING we headed back to the apartment for a nap in the hope that we might yet get our gondola ride in the evening.  Not long after we got there, there was a knock on the door and the owner asked us when we would be leaving.  We thought we were booked for two nights, but we were not.  No bueno. I felt terrible.  I book all of our travel, and I have never left us homeless until now. This was a very stressful situation and it could have gone very badly, but thankfully I have the most fantastic husband who did not blame me, or get annoyed at me, or anything of the sort.  In fact, he said, "I didn't really want to spend another night here anyway." We just put our heads together to come up with a solution.  Our solution was to get out of Dodge. I took this photo of the Rialto Bridge as we awaited the vaporetto to take us back toward the airport where there would be wifi and possibly hotels that provide shuttle service.

The kids were a little bit stressed by our hasty departure, but trusted that we would work it out.

And we did.  We booked two rooms at the airport Marriott and took the shuttle there.  We enjoyed hot showers, yummy food at a restaurant down the street, and comfy, mildew free rooms. We are so glad we got to see Venice, but it will not go down in history as one of our favorite cities.