Slovenia is ridiculously beautiful.

Amazingly, jaw-droppingly, achingly beautiful.  There really aren’t enough adjectives in the world for how really, really nice it is there.  Plus, it’s full of kind, helpful people, good food, perfectly maintained roads, and a functioning tourist economy.

On July 3, J., S. and I flew from Sofia to Venice, then rented a car and drove to Slovenia.  Even the drive was gorgeous.  We spent four nights in a tourist farm B&B near Lake Bled that I absolutely adored.  Every morning we had breakfast featuring homemade butter, cottage cheese, and jam, while sitting on the patio of the owner’s house.

Planning our day’s adventures.

On the 4th we went to Vintgar Gorge, which was only a couple of kilometers from our hotel.  All of the lakes and streams we saw in Slovenia are these amazing blues and aquamarines.  This particular stream has carved itself a steep-sided canyon which has been a tourist attraction for over 100 years.  Wooden walkways and bridges traverse the gorge, allowing people to travel about 2 km downstream.

Some of these railings might be 100 years old.

The prettiest color for water I can imagine, and it’s real.

Later that afternoon we went for a boat ride on Lake Bled.  If Disney had created the surroundings, everyone would have thought he had gone too far.

Let’s see…mountains, improbably blue water, a scenic church on an island, and a castle on a cliff. Could it get any better than this?

Here’s a view from the inside of the castle, which we visited later in the week.

Bled Castle celebrated its 1,000th anniversary in 2011.

The second day in Slovenia we drove around Triglav National Park.  Also ridiculously beautiful.  I’m going to limit myself to just a few pictures for the day, but it’s not going to be easy.  Slovenia packs a lot of amazing scenery into a small size, which means that seemingly around every corner there’s another unbelievable sight just waiting to be  admired and explored.

Just a little lake (a pond really) on the side of the road with a few parking spots and a walking path. Nothing to see here kids.

J. and S. cooling off in the freezing cold Soca River. I could barely stand to put my feet in the water it was so cold, but S. thought it was perfect.

We were basing our drive around the park on what is commonly advertised as the standard tour around the park.  There are a number of waterfalls in the area, and every tour stops at at least one of them.  When looking at the map, we couldn’t figure out why none were stopping at what sounded like it should be the most spectacular falls of them all.  Turns out it’s not for the masses.

View from the road. Sorry, but I cannot remember the name of this waterfall.

There was a sign for a trail by the side of the road, but there was no trail.  Instead there was a bolder field, which is really lots more fun.  Sadly, due to the theft of my tennis shoes from the rental car the day before, I was forced to abandon the scramble once the chances of falling into the river increased, as my foam ballet flats weren’t really that reliable on wet, slippery rocks.  J. and S., however, continued on, and got pretty close to the base of the falls.

Why would we need a trail?

Here’s a longer view of the rock pile.  I stopped just passed where this picture was taken.  If you look just below and to the left of the center of the picture you will see a place where the river splits and two falls go over a rock.  J. and S. got to about there before they decided to turn around.  It was possible to go farther, but only if you wanted to get wet.

Our last adventure for the day was the car train.  You drive your car up onto an open flat car, which takes you to the next depot.  It saves about two hours of driving.  This was the one place in Slovenia where we were really reminded that we were still in Eastern Europe.  Here’s our rental car.

See how people are just hanging out by their cars, that’s because there is no passenger car.  You stay in your car for the entire 40 minute train ride.  But here’s the thing, there was NO ONE making us stay in the car.  So…

It was wildly, stupidly fun.  At least 75% of the people on the train were out of their cars, taking pictures, laughing in the face of danger. Sadly, it started to rain, and there are a lot of tunnels, so we only spent about 10 minutes outside.  I loved every single one of them.

Stay tuned for part two of the story where we go canyoneering.  Until then, чао чао.