Above the Rainbow

                                  Above the Rainbow: A View of Slovenia a Few Miles Up

       Everything about Slovenia on our last full day here was on the up and up. Before describing our day I need to say a few things about Slovenia. This is a diamond in the rough. It reminds me of Switzerland without the high prices. The Slovenian people are first rate, friendly and accommodating. Most speak good English which makes us, who are ignorant of their language, much at ease. They are simple people who live a simple lifestyle. Today I saw a man behind a horse holding a big iron plow making his garden for the summer. They stack up firewood in big racks set across the countryside so that all would have enough for the long cold winters. They eat well, drink well but exercise by using nature to their advantage. All in all they are wonderful and their country is beautiful.
     Today we climbed up the slope from the car to the castle's top.

The castle was disappointing as castle's go, as I have seen better ones in Germany, England and Italy. It had the obligatory knight in shining armor and blacksmith on the forge.

It had a moat and gate but mostly it was full of commercialization: restaurants, souvenir stands and a wine cellar that sold great wines at an outrageous price. We did manage to empty a couple of bottles there.

The views were priceless as we could see the entire lake which at the time we were there was full of scullers and the ever present quaint island that was at the end of the lake.

       We next got rowed out to the lake by a nice man who did this for his living from March to the end of October.

He took us to the island where we walked up the 100 steps to the pretty little church.

It was said to be good luck if you rang the church bell at least three times. We did just that. No need to tread on good luck.

       The next item of business was to drive to a small town at the end of Lake Bohinj, Slovenia's largest natural lake and find a restaurant for lunch. The place we chose was not disappointing as they lived up to the tradition of excellent cuisine. We had a beef goulash, full of beef medallions that melted in your mouth.

Before eating our waiter came and asked us if we could have some freshly baked bread. When he brought it, it was steaming hot and it also melted away with each bite.

        Now it was the time to put Lynda's faith in me to the test. I wanted to take the cable car up the Mountain so we could view Mt. Triglav, a peak of some 10,000 feet. She hates these rides and wouldn't even go up the CN tower, the Tower of the Americas or the chair lift at Capri, choosing to sit at the bottom and wait for my return. However I convinced her that she had good luck. Buying the tickets for the car while she was in the restroom, I was able to get her to go. She was terrified on the way up but seeing the top of the world and having a hot chocolate with a mountain of whipped cream made the ride down more peasant for her.

We frolicked in the snow and got to see an endless array of mountains from the top of the one we had ascended.

       We returned to lake Bohinj and then made our way back to our 'new' home in Slovenia.

It will be hard to leave here tomorrow but we vow to return one day. We head to country number three and look for more adventures and wondrous sights. Maybe even some more good food. Who knows?

Beautiful Lake Bled or Boy Do our Legs Hurt?

                                          Walking Around Lake Bled

       Well we did it! Walking a few miles might seem easy for most people but for us it is a challenge. I have two knees that need replacing and a bad foot. Two years ago Lynda broke her right leg and ankle. Last year she tore the ligaments in her left ankle and broke her left wrist so walking is an extreme sport for her as it can be for me. I am so proud of her for this is the farthest she has walked in years.
        Lynda was a trooper and after a little coaxing we headed out to trek around Lake Bled. We stopped often to rest, go the bathroom, eat lunch, have a Krema Rezina or another pastry, view the scenery or a combination of all. By the way the pastries and food here is terrific!

This a little delicacy called Prekmurska Gibanica

We took our time, leaving in the morning after we went for groceries and ate breakfast. We got to see the island and it's chruch from all sides today.

The day started cloudy and I was in long sleeves but soon the sun came out and I went to the short sleeved shirt as it reached 20 degrees Celsius.
       The Lake trail was full of every type of person, of whom I am sure we were the slowest. There were old Grandmas like us, young people pushing strollers, cyclists, joggers, rollerbladers and the wheeled train that takes tourists around. There were kayakers, rowers, scullers and tiny tour boats much like gondolas skimming across the water.

The World Rowing Champs, 2011 Were Held Here

      
We saw ducks and mute swans and tiny colored birds only my brother Reed could identify or maybe our Boerne friend Ruth.

A duck is a duck is a duck...



Mute swans- had to watch out because they attack!

 Dogs were being walked and then we came upon this.


Looks like a black bear, and we should know, we're Canadian,eh!

 Was it a dog or a bear? There were beautiful picturesque homes and tiny wild flowers along the way.

       When the clouds of the morning lifted the sun was uncovered as well as the mountain tops. These were gorgeous sights as they capped off the beauty of the lake, its famous island and the castle that stands watch over everything from it's perch atop the cliff.

Beat this: island church, castle, snow-capped mountains.

        When we were in sight of the town Lynda breathed a sigh of relief, my knees said a prayer of thanksgiving and we headed to a small wine bar to celebrate our victory. The Slovenian wines are amazing, easily comparable to the wines of Italy! After that we decided to encircle the lake once again, but this time we took the 'train'.

Resting the tired legs!

       Tomorrow we will conquor the island in a boat though we have decided that the rowing action will only make my rotator cuff tear more painful so we'll let someone else power the boat. This might not be as romantic, much like when we were younger on the Avon in Stratford, but alas we are older now (that event is chronicled in the second John Doyle Mystery, "Precious Package"). We also will do the castle and then if I can get Lynda to open her eyes we might head up a nearby mountain in a cable car and see the top of the world.

Beautiful Bled

                                            On The Road Again

       I like water more than most people but it was good to be on terra firma again. You can actually feel the ground(?) shift in Venice underneath you. The first night we were at a reataurant and I felt I was still flying, my body was shifting up and down. Lynda thought her vertigo had come back but Giorgio reassured us that sometimes the grounds shift depending on the tides etc. Today we traveled by rental car to Slovenia.
       Before I write about our second country,Slovenia, I need to tell you about rest stops in Italy along the autostrada. They are cultural experiences in their own way. To go to the bathroom you are expected to donate a small sum of your choice to use the toilet. This pays for the ladies who clean. Early in my travels to Italy you would have to pay for toilet paper or you couldn't use it. Think of the implications of not paying. The toilets are in the basement of the rest stops. On the first floor these places have cafes, sell beer and wine(and grappa), pastas, salamis, sandwiches to go and all sorts of games for kids to play in the car and gifts to take home. Sometimes foreigners would even offer to wash your windows for you.
       We left a country in which we are comfortable with the language to one we have to guess at words. Fortunately so far we have come across people who speak English. The TV in our 5 room apartment, a 42 inch flat screen, is filled with English-speaking programs with Slovenian sub-titles. That's one way they have been socialized into the English culture. By the way our apartment which has a view of an ancient castle on a hill overlooking the lake at Bled costs us 70 Euro a night. After Venice, that's dirt cheap.(no pun intended on the dirt versus water metaphor)

High above Lake Bled

       The Lake is beautiful and the island on the lake is quaint with an old church on it.

The Island with the Church

Tomorrow I hope to convince my wife to walk around the lake(6 km.), row out to the island and tour the castle. What are my chances she'll do all this?
       The lake is in the Julian Alps that border Austria. They still are capped with snow. One that we see from the lake is over 9000 feet high.

Snow-capped Alps

       To tempt her we walked into the town tonight and sat at a coffee bar by the lake and ate the specialty dessert of Bled, the Krema Rezina.

I had one myself!

Maybe with enough of these she'll make it around the lake. I heard that there are restaurants around the lake. Hopefully they'll serve the delicacy. I'll let you know how that turns out in my next posting. 

Markets and Marco

                                          Venice's Open Markets and San Marco Piazza

        Having visited many of the world's top open markets I can safely say that Venice's is high on the list. There is a fish market that is better than Seattle's famous one. There is a food market that is comparable to Florence's and the clothing and other goods market is similar to Petticoat Lane in East London, except for the 'cocknies' and the pickpockets.
     The fish market had such a variety of fish that I wished I could fly some home with me. There were little ones, big ones, slimy ones and colorful ones.

Someone has to clean the fish for the customers.

One of the big fish that fascinated shoppers.

Slimy eels anyone?

I was so motivated with this variety that at pranza(lunch) I had to try the Venetian specialty, fish soup. I was not disappointed.

That's what I'm eating for dinner tonight Rachel!

There was a plethora of extremely fresh fruits and vegetables and even colorful homemade fresh pasta.

Holy tomatoes!

Pastas of all colrs and all shapes!

Big and beautiful strawberries!

 The shops for clothing and houehold goods were plentiful, housed in several streets right off the Rialto bridge that I showed you in my last entry.
       We then took a vaporetto to San Marco's Square where we sat, had a drink, people watched, took pictures, dodged the most friendly pigeons in the world and walked through the magnificent Byzantine church of San Marco, my namesake. It is interesting that Marco Polo originated from the same city that has St. Mark's as its patron saint.

The Church of San Marco

I was fascinated with two old clocks, one which at the top of a high tower and serves to warn the venetians with different chiming messages and a 24 hour clock to the left of the church.

A clock of many messages!

       Enough of boat travel. We take our last boat tomorrow as we pick up our rental car and head to a virgin country for us Slovenia, and the little town of Bled. We say 'arrividerci' to the Venetians and our gracious landlord, Giorgio and head to the Julian Alps.

The Islands of Venice

                                                        The Islands of Venice

       Someone wrote that the best way to see Venice is to let yourself get lost. On our way to visit the charming islands of Burano and Murano we managed just that. Venice's back streets snake their way through the city, on bridges that cross it's 177 canals and in small 'Calles' that often come to a dead end. Much like it's Grand Canal and Rialto Bridge the city is alive with traffic, both water and pedestrian. Huge crowds vied for gondola rides and water busses.

       Finally we found our 'vaporetto' (water bus) that took us to the picturesque lace making island of Burano. The colorful facades of the house were painted the way they are so the sailors could pick out their own places when they returned in the fog that often engulfed the island. The ladies on the island are famous lace makers and this is evident throughout the island.

       The island of Murano took over the glass-blowing function that Venice once had. It is a microcosm of it's larger Venetian counterpart with bridges and canals throughout. However the quantity of glass and it's various shapes, colors and sizes filled the island. There were even large glass 'statues' in their piazzas that got me to thinking. I could only imagine that if an American city had such structures they would be destroyed or written on as these ones seemed to have no guards nearby.

       The day was productive, the weather was highly cooperative and the food and drink delicious. With sore feet and joints we turned in early tonight and dreamed of visiting the Rialto outdoor market, Piazza san Marco and church and the Doge's Palace.

Government, Travel and Venice

                                                   BLAME THE GOVERNMENT

       After 27 hours on the road, air, train and water we finally arrived in Venice, tired but not ready to give into the jet lag that you experience when you pass over several time zones. Needless to say Lynda showed some fatigue on the 'vaporetto'.

       Things were going too well! That's what I told myself after we got through check-in and security at Austin's Bergstrom airport in fifteen minutes, arrived at JFK early and only had to walk five gates down the road to our gate for Milan. I thought too soon and jinxed myself.
       I often get hunches, so I decided to try an ATM card based on an account we only use for travel in a JFK ATM. It shut us out saying that we can't withdraw from our checking account. Finding this out and after my heartbeat came back close to normal I called the number on the card. I had already, as I usually do, called all the potential cards I might use on the trip telling them that purchases might be made in these countries on these dates. It seems like when you don't use the ATM card for a while they deactivate it. Thank God that I checked since it was to be the one we would use the most on the trip. After getting it reactivated and checking it again I was satisfied that this was just one of those travel bumps in the road you get.
       Thanks to the 'sequester' resulting from the government's inability to rule effectively and it's effect on air traffic controllers we sat in the terminal for an extra hour because they didn't want us to sit on the tarmac. That was nice of AA but after we finally boarded we sat for another hour due to the amount of uncontrolled traffic and a huge fog bank that enveloped the airport around 6:00 pm. Needless to say we were two hours late arriving in Milan.
       That caused us to miss the train we had reserved tickets on to Venice. Originally I had booked a car out of Milan but cancelled it because I thought it was stupid to sit a car for three or four days in Venice, paying for both the rental days and the parking which is dear. On the train we were informed by a nice young man that today was a three headed holiday monster in Venice. They celebrate the day where the Allies liberated Italy from Nazi rule; they celebrate the patron saint of Venice, St. Mark and they celebrate a day in which the Venetians and the Turks fought over Cyprus, turning the white roses in to red ones with Venetian blood. The city was packed and road traffic made Austin on I-35 look tame. I was blessed to take the train.
       I knew our B&B in Venice had no elevator, but did not know it was five flights of stairs. My ortho doctor would have had a cardiac episode watching me carry all our luggage up those stairs, not once but twice. It was not until I was finished did I realize that my brace was still in my small backpack.
        We had a nice meal, celebrated a psuedo Communion, walked around a little and made our plans for tomorrow. The islands of Murano and Burano are beckoning us.