Transit to Kranjska Gora (August 20, 2012)

Lynnae here. We ate breakfast, packed up, said good-bye to the Adriatic Sea and walked down the steep hill to the bus station. [Much easier going back to the bus station than trudging up it with our luggage.]

Last view of the ocean

We took the bus back to Ljubljana had a lengthy layover at the train/bus station where we ate lunch.  Then we took another bus toward Kranjska Gora on the edge of the Triglav National Park.  We drove through some beautiful countryside.

Views on the way to Kranjska Gora

We arrived in Kranjska Gora early evening.  We walked to our Bed & Breakfast, Brezov Gaj.  The reviews had stated that the proprietors spoke English.  This was not quite true.  However, eventually we were checked in.

[Here is how it happened.  After I accidentally got us off at one bus stop too early, we walked about a mile to the bed and breakfast and I rang the doorbell.  A gruff-looking man in his forties wearing Crocs answered, and after a series of unhelpful phrases uttered in our respective native languages, he said “RECEPTION?!?!”   “Yes, Yes!” I replied, and we entered the home.  Without a word, he took a key from a wall display and opened our room for us.  He then said “Documents!” Huh?  “Passport!”  Now I knew.  Foreigners in Slovenia are required to register with the local police, and hotels do this for you.  I gave him our passports and he went to the back office momentarily.  Upon his return I confirmed via holding up five fingers and saying “Five dan?‘” that we had a five night reservation, and the deal was done.]

We walked the short distance to main street and picked up a number of maps and other information from the tourist center.  We also stocked up at the Mercator.  After taking our goods back to our room and consulting TripAdvisor, we headed off to Kranjska Gora’s number one restaurant. [Out of five rated restaurants]

As was everything in the small town, Gostilna Pri Martinu was easy to find.  The food was good, the service okay and the portions were gargantuan.

After dinner, we enjoyed what was left of the sunshine by walking down to the river and walking around a while.  It was nice to stretch our legs a while.  We met a runaway dog and waved at the owner in pursuit. 

We walked back to the B & B and discussed plans for tomorrow before turning in.

Lesce Day 2 or Triglav Adventure Tour – Part 3 (August 15, 2012)

This was a very long day so we are breaking it into three parts – this is part three of three.

Eventually, we were all settled in and we headed off.  Everyone was talking about how great it was and our group was definitely feeling increased camaraderie.   Our next stop was just a short drive away but I can’t remember where it was.  We had a bit of hike, so we put on our shoes and socks.  We walked along a dirt road, then partway down a valley, where we crossed a wooden swinging bridge.  One man from the other van refused to cross it.  It wasn’t really surprising as you could feel the effects of every step on the bridge or gust of wind and the river was a long way down.

We continued down the valley and walked along the river bed.  In the spring, the river is much, much higher.  There were bridges built to cross the river then that were wholly unnecessary now.  We kept walking until we found ourselves in a very large cave like space with a huge (for Slovenia) waterfall, the Kozjak Waterfall.  We went up on the viewing platform to get a better view and then we backtracked a bit, removed our shoes and socks and waded in towards the waterfall pool.  The water was shockingly cold.  We were told it was five degrees (about forty degrees Fahrenheit) and it felt it.  When we got to the pool we threw ourselves in before we could change our minds and swam to the waterfall.  We didn’t linger long before swimming back to the rocks.

That’s us behind the waterfall.

Luca hustled us back into the van away we went to our last stop in Triglav National Park, a bridge over the Soca River.  Here from a height of 12 meters (about 40 feet) we could jump into the river.   So we did.  We even have photos (see below).  You’ll have to take my word for it that those blurs are us.  It was perhaps my favorite part of the day.  You had to be careful though.  If you hit the water with anything other than your feet, you could end up with some nasty bruises.  Fortunately, Ralph and I fared well.

[Lynnae looks pretty happy as I plunge to an uncertain river bottom.]

Lynnae jumps.  You can see me in the bottom left corner.]

[This part of the tour wasn’t anything I was particularly anticipating.  As I edged onto the platform, Luca told me “just don’t look,” which is great advice.  I stepped off the platform and almost immediately jammed my eyes shut.  I did this to ensure I didn’t lose my contact lenses (I didn’t).  Unfortunately I don’t even remember the two or three seconds it must have taken me to fall, I only remember realizing I was several feet underwater in the river, and still alive.  I happily surfaced and swam to the side of the river to tread water and watch Lynnae jump.]

Luca told us it was time to go.  We needed to hurry because we didn’t want to miss our train, the last one of the night.  One of the girls in our van insisted on jumping again because it hadn’t been captured on camera the first time.  Luca said no but she jumped anyway.   We did make it to the train in time but we didn’t really have any time to spare.  It was a car train.  I’d never heard of such a thing but you drive your car onto the flatbed railcar, park it, and the train takes off. 

[This runs several times a day.  The reason it exists is because it is much faster to take the car train from one valley to the next, than to drive all the way around the mountain.  The car train we took was the last one of the day, which is why Luca was so insistent we hurry.]

While Luca parked, we had time to change into our dry clothes.  I was also able to experience a very interesting bathroom.  One room – no stalls.  I walk in, close and lock the door, turn around and… there’s no toilet.  That’s maybe not a fair statement; there was nothing I immediately recognized as a toilet.  Instead there was an elongated toilet bowl insert in the floor.  On either side were porcelain treads on the floor.  So I guess it was a female urinal of sorts.  It was definitely a different experience.  At least it seemed clean and I didn’t have to pay to use it.  (Years ago in Italy, my first pay toilet experience was similar but worse.  There were stalls without doors, a hole on the ground to squat over and rope to support yourself if necessary.  To think I paid for the privilege!)

We milled around the car talking amongst ourselves.  Luca briefly disappeared, then came back with Laskos for us all.  We got back in the car as the train started.  It was interesting and kind of nice to be both in a car and on a train.  The weather was nice and the scenery good.  We had the windows down and the sliding door open except for when we went through long tunnels (because of the smell).  I saw a family of deer.  It was very relaxing after all the activity of the day.

We also passed through Slovenia’s longest tunnel.  It’s about 6.4 kilometers and took quite a while to go through.  I guess I had thought the train was moving faster than it actually was.  The second longest tunnel in Slovenia is actually longer but part of the tunnel is in Austria and the Slovenian portion of that tunnel is shorter than this one.

When Luca drove the car off the train, I thought the tour was over and we were headed back but we had one more stop.  We stopped to see Lake Bohinj, the largest natural lake in Slovenia.  It was very beautiful.  It lacked an island and a castle but I think I preferred it to touristy Bled.  I’m sure Guide One told a story at this point but I can no longer remember it.  I do remember we ate delicious cheese samples from a street vendor on our way out.

We were the last people Luca dropped off.  He was going to take us back to our hotel but we felt we’d exhausted the dining options in Lesce so we asked him for recommendations and to be dropped off in Bled. [Additionally, “the jam” going from Bled to Lesce was pretty severe and we didn’t want to put him through driving us all that way in bumper-to-bumper traffic, only to turn around and return to Bled.] We wandered around for a while and eventually decided on a rooftop pizzeria for dinner.  Our table was a converted Singer sewing machine.  We split a decent pizza, walked back to Lesce and called it a night.

Lesce Day 2 or Triglav Adventure Tour – Part 2 (August 15, 2012)

This was a very long day so we are breaking it into three parts – this is part two of three.

Immediately after lunch was one of the highlights of the day, optional whitewater rafting.  Of course, we had opted in.  We put on our “swimming costumes” and then our wetsuits (mine was a child size 😦 wetsuit). [It was adult-sized. Lynnae is just unhappy that it was a different color design than the rest of the group, and instead resembled wetsuits worn by children in a different rafting group] and helmets and met our navigator.  This was not Luca.  Luca and Guide One were able to relax without us for a while, as everyone had opted in.  Our raft was composed of our van members.

[Brief interlude on the “swimming costumes.”  Luca and Guide One/Mr. Pink both spoke excellent English, which is good since our van was composed of 7/8ths native English speakers.  However, some of their vocabulary just seemed odd to American ears.  I know swimsuits are known as swimming costumes in some English-speaking areas, even though it makes me think of clowns on the beach.  But when Luca kept referring to car traffic as “the jam” – as in, “Oh no, the jam, we will be late” – it reminded me that not all colloquialisms are created equal.]

After a relatively brief safety briefing we got in the raft and shoved off.  Almost immediately, we grounded ourselves on a rock.  (The river does get pretty low in the summer.)  After some rocking back and forth and jumping up and down we finally freed ourselves and continued on our way, when we steered directly into another large rock.  Our guide steered us into calm water and used this opportunity to remind us that we need to follow his instructions exactly and we cannot paddle like “little girls” but must paddle like “strong men.”  In spite of these remarks, he was overall pretty agreeable.

We took advantage of this calm water to get out and practice getting in and helping others in.  The water was quite cold. [The wetsuits helped to a point, but the wetsuits resembled bib overalls – so when the water was up to chest-level, it got inside the wetsuit and the suit wasn’t too useful .]  We went through a series of small rapids without much incident.  The navigator had said one of his rules was we could not be quiet in his boat so the family began singing a river song in parts.  They were pretty good.

We stopped at a very large boulder in the river.  A couple other rafts from the same company were also there.   They flipped one of the rafts and laid it down over the side of the boulder.  Then after we scrambled up the rock, we could use it as a slide and slide or bounce down into the water.  It was lots of fun.  We probably stayed 20 or 30 minutes.  The water was just as cold here as it was upriver.

We went through some more minor rapids and stopped where a mountain spring was joining the river.  We were told that this water was suitable for drinking, so everyone got out to try it.  Call me paranoid but I went a little upstream to be beyond all the others.

We all clambered back into our raft.  Our navigator told us that the easy part of the river was behind us and the dangerous portion was ahead.  Now we absolutely had to immediately and forcefully carry out his instructions.  He had us do a few practice strokes and then we switched around a couple of people.  This balanced out the force of our paddling and put a more experienced and forceful person in one of the front positions.

You could feel that the current was much more powerful here.  We were going much faster, through more rapids, with more large rocks as obstacles.  It was also much more fun and exhilarating.

[I was on the front right of the raft, so numerous times I had to dodge my head to the left to avoid conking on a rock.  It also meant my views were unobstructed.]

After the dangers were over, our navigator told us we could swim to the end if we wanted but we had to follow the raft exactly or it would be dangerous.  Once again, we all opted in.  We got out and started swimming behind the raft to the little beach. 

Luca was waiting for us.  We gathered the gear, picked up the raft and carried it up to a parking lot.  Luca hurried us along as we removed our wetsuits and toweled off.  Apparently, we were a little behind schedule.  He had placed foam over the seats in the van so we didn’t have to worry about getting the van wet.  We just needed to PLEASE GET IN THE CAR.

Lesce Day 2 or Triglav Adventure Tour – Part 1 (August 15, 2012)

This was a very long day, so we are breaking it up into three posts.

Lynnae again – We woke up early, checked our gear, and went downstairs for breakfast.  Luca, our 3glav guide, picked up us promptly in a large white van.  All the seats in the back were full so Ralph and I shared a bench seat in the front next to Luca.  It’s a good thing we don’t mind being close.  The spot did mean we had the advantage of being able to see the views forward and sideways.  Unfortunately, it also meant that we spent the first fifteen minutes of our drive poring over the audio guidebook trying the fix the radio.  [The van had just returned from the mechanic, and it was displaying an error message.  It did not seem promising to me that the guide’s most pressing issue right after he picked us up was fixing his radio.]  Ultimately we were unsuccessful, we needed the vehicles unique radio code and it was not listed in the manual.

Luca narrated portions of his drive with factoids about the history of Slovenia as a whole and this region in particular.  He shared a lot of interesting information.  I wish I remembered more of it.

Our first stop was in Kranjska Gora.  We stopped at a small pool just off the River Pisnic that flowed through a wasteland of white rock fragments.  In front of the pool was a statue of a goat named Zlatorog or Goldhorn.  Legend has it Zlatorog was guardian of these lands long ago when they were the most beautiful meadows imaginable.  Also, his golden horns were the key to a treasure hidden in the mountains.  In a neighboring valley lived a hunter who had fallen in love with a village girl.  She was unimpressed with him.  He decided that he was going to prove his might and win riches by killing the goat.  He was sure these would win her favor.  High up on the mountain the boy got close enough, and shot Zlatorog.  As the goat lay dying, flowers sprang from the ground where his blood fell.   Zlatorog ate the flowers and was healed, revived and revitalized.  He grew to be stronger than he was before.  Before the hunter realized what was happening, the goat charged the boy and butted him over the ledge to his death.  However, Zlatorog was very angry so he left and he took the perfect meadows with him, leaving only wastelands behind.

It was at this stop we realized that our van was only half of the group.  Another van was driven by Guide One, the man who did most of the storytelling.  [He had a name, which he did share with us.  Unfortunately neither of us remember his name, hence the title.  If you so desire, when reading, replace “Guide One” with “Mr. Pink.”]  We did get to know a couple members of that van over the course of the trip but obviously we were more familiar with the passengers from our van, a British couple with their three teenaged daughters, and an Italian man traveling alone.

The whole group in front of the goat

 wastelands

Next we drove up the mountain to Vrsic Pass, a mere 1611 meters above sea level, and the highest mountain pass in Slovenia.  The road from the bottom to the top is only about 9km so naturally the road is quite steep [Kranjska Gora, the city where we started, is at an elevation of about 811 meters above sea level].  On the side we drove up, there are 24 hairpin turns.  They are numbered and signed with elevation data.  The turns are also cobblestoned.  The entire road was initially constructed this way during WWI to supply the front.  Russian POWs constructed the road using only hand tools in less than a year.   It was able to be completed so quickly because all portions of the road were worked on simultaneously.  Many Russians lost their lives in an avalanche and many others to the elements.  There are two Russian graveyards beside the road as well as a Russian Chapel to memorialize them.  In 2006, the road was renamed Russian Road (Ruska cesta) to further remember their work and their lives.  Putin visited the site during his official visit to Slovenia.   So the turns are also left as cobblestones to recall the road’s history.

Ruska cesta

Vrsic Pass was chilly in the morning.  It was also packed with people.  Apparently, the day was a national holiday so lots of people were out and about.  However, the views were awesome.

The views

We hiked up the smallest mountain nearby for about twenty minutes.  We stopped at an abandoned building that had been used to transport supplies by cable [during World War I].  We were then directed to the rockface of the mountain in front of us, to the “Giant Girl in the Mountain” or the “Pagan Girl.”  According to legend, this girl was one of many fairies that could and would occasionally foretell the future of infants.  The Pagan Girl had gone one morning to see a male infant and she had stated that he would grow to become a mighty hunter who would shoot the goat Zlatorog for his valuable horns.  The other fairies were so angry with her, they put her in the mountain for all eternity and still today you can see her weeping.

[In yesterday’s post I mentioned that the dragon is featured on cans and bottles of Union brand beer.  The other main Slovenian beer, Lasko, prominently displays the Zlatorog.  Lasko is like a weaker version of Bud Light.]

The Pagan Girl

We hiked back down to the vans and took off again.  We headed down the backside of the mountain (26 hairpin turns) to our next stop – the source of the Soca River.   A short, steep hike and we were there.

At the source of the Soca River

Our road followed the Soca River and we could see it widen and become increasingly green (due to the minerals in the rocks).  We stopped here to take and look and see some popular recreational options.

Right after this photo she fell – but she was the best of the people doing it

Then it was time for lunch.  Good thing too because we were hungry.  Ralph and I had resolved to go the Mercator for our lunch.  [Mercator appears to be the dominant grocery chain in Slovenia, because there is at least one location in every little town.  I’m not sure if Mercator means ‘market’ or if the founders were just geography buffs.]  It was pointed out to us on the drive into town, as well as the bakery and one restaurant.  However, the Mercator was closed for the holiday.  So instead we went to the bakery.  Ralph bought a hot dog stuck on a pastry and I had a pizza inside a pastry and some perfectly ripe raspberries.  It was an interesting lunch.