Wrap-Up of Lake Bled

I must confess I laughed yesterday when you guys thought I'd had some sort of crazy misspelling. Ljubljana isn't that hard to pronounce. It's basically Leeyoob Leeyawna, easier to say than it looks.



This was a sausage platter that we ordered in Lake Bled. I honestly think it might be one of the best things we had. There were about 6 different kinds of sausage with cheese and fresh horseradish to dip it in. Ah-mazing.



Fall foliage around the lake.



This is Boomer trying to catch a duck.



Me with one of the mannequins in the museum in the castle.



Bird through the window in the castle.



The church in Bled.



This is our afternoon treat from the "Brown Bear" in Bled. I got Bled Cake, Sean got pudding and a cappucino. All that for 6 euro! It was amazing too. Seriously...if you're ever in Bled, you must go to the Brown Bear.



The infamous Brown Bear.

In summary...I highly recommend going to Slovenia. The people are friendly and it's very English friendly as well. It's very beautiful, not too expensive like some of the other European countries and has a plethora of things to do. I'm planning on going back to take advantage of some of their many spas throughout Slovenia.

Hope you enjoyed seeing Slovenia through my eyes!

Ljubljana

The second day we were in Slovenia we decided to head to the capital, Ljubljana. In all honesty I wasn't impressed with Ljubljana. I didn't feel as if there was a lot to see or do there and overall I didn't find the city to be particularly pretty. That being said, I did enjoy the large market that the held in one of the main squares and I also enjoyed the cheap, yet delicious wine. Average price for a glass was about 1.20 euro.



We found a Mexican restaurant in Ljubljana. The most surprising thing? It was actually quite tasty. I enjoyed the flautas the most, but my enchiladas weren't bad either.



A view of the Triple Bridge and the river that runs through Ljubljana.



Some tables at an outdoor cafe



This chef statue was EVERYWHERE. I've not seen it anywhere else in our travels, yet it was a staple in Slovenia.



This was a door of a church, from what I understand these were bishops of the past. Slightly creepy no?



The Dragon Bridge. The dragon is the "mascot" of Ljubljana.



At the top of the castle in Ljubljana, looking down the staircase.



Look closely at the sign...does anything seem slightly odd to you?



Inside the chapel of the castle


I know I promised I'd finish up with the trip today, but honestly there are just too many pictures...so I'll finish up tomorrow.

Slovenia: Day 1

As promised, here are some pictures from our trip. We stayed in Lake Bled in a wonderful little apartment. It was spacious, with a full kitchen, two bedrooms and only cost us 56 Euro a night. It also had free wireless and cable TV. After nearly a year of watching AFN, it was pure heaven to actually watch some cable TV. I may or may not have been as excited about the cable TV as I was about being in Slovenia.

I'm pretty sure Sean and I were one of maybe 5 tourists in the town. While that was good in some respects, in others it kind of sucked, because some attractions were closed during the season. However, the awesome views and delish food made up for that.



All around the lake there were geese, ducks and a few swans. Boomer was obsessed with the ducks and wanted to get in the lake to catch one. Needless to say that didn't happen.



Sean and I walked around the lake our first full day there. It was a beautiful 3.5 mile walk. This is a smaller part of the town we encountered on our walk.



This was one of the boats that takes tourists over to the island. We considered doing it, but I'm cheap and didn't want to spend 13 Euro a person just to get to the island. Maybe next time.



This was the castle above the town. We hiked up there on our last day in Bled. Now THAT was a hike. The castle was fairly interesting. It had a wine shop, a small museum and some great views.



Ok, this picture isn't anything special, but I loved how the trees looked, so naturally I had to take several pictures.



A view of the church and the island. If I ever go back in the summer, I'm so swimming to the island!



Lake Bled is home of a ton of rowing races/training for the Olympics. We got to see a few guys training when we were doing our walk. There is even a grandstand set up so when they have races people can watch.



They had these cute little frog trash cans all around the lake path.



Probably one of my favorite pictures I took of the lake. I like the wide-angle look.

Tomorrow I'll be combining our trip to Ljubljana and our remaining days in Bled together. I'll try not to make it too boring. :)

Photography Contest

Whew! I've been gone for quite a few days! We actually got back from Slovenia on Monday afternoon, but it was a lazy kind of day and I never got around to blogging. I do plan on doing a post or two on Slovenia, as I have a TON of pictures, but today I'm just going to tell you Army wives out there about the photography contest that is being sponsored by MWR.
As some of you know I entered it last year and I plan on doing it again. Deadline to enter the contest is November 30th, so start going through your photographs and find something to submit!

Complete contest rules and more info can be found at: www.armymwr.com.

Now for a preview of Slovenia pictures to come...

Veterans Day

Yesterday Sean and I took a trip to the war memorial outside of Florence. Since it was Veteran's Day, a couple of junior ROTC groups from Italy did a ceremony. I have to admit I choked up a bit during a few of the songs. The cemetery was very moving and just incredible in my opinion. It's one of the smaller cemeteries holding soldiers from WWII, but that doesn't make it any less moving.



This is the group from Naples High School



One of three wreaths they placed on the memorial.



More flowers left at the memorial.



Headstone marking the grave of an unknown soldier



Row of crosses. Probably my favorite shot of the day.

Sean and I are off to Slovenia today so I'm not sure if I'll be around much until Monday. We have wireless in our room (supposedly) but we shall see if we even take the laptop.

Have a good (early) weekend!

Question of the Day

Do you find it odd when people try to add you as a friend on Facebook and you've never met them in real life?

I am excluding blogging friends from this statement, as I consider bloggers people I know.

I'm more talking people adding you as a friend only because you have a mutual friend.

I ask this because I had a girl add me as a friend, not once, but twice because we have a mutual friend. I don't know her! I like my privacy and don't like adding people that I don't know.

Your thoughts?

Travel Woes

It's no secret in our household that bad things seem to happen when we travel.

1. Car locked in Innsbruck parking garage
2. Barely caught the last train back to La Spezia because of train strike

And those are just a couple of examples.

This weekend Sean has a four day, so we wanted to take advantage of it and go somewhere we hadn't yet. Our choices are usually a little limited as we try to take Boomer with us since I hate asking people to dog -sit him all the time.

So..we decided on Slovenia. I've been dying to go there and Sean said he was game. On Sunday I started emailing some of the places to stay about making reservations. The place I really wanted to stay offered spa services and was a great price.

I got an email back from them saying they were closed until December. So did the second place I emailed. Finally I heard back from my third choice, but we are still in the process of negotiating our stay there.

It's a little odd to me that they are closed. Sure, I know there is an off-season, but usually the places shut down in August, as that seems to be the month of locals taking their own trips.

I just hope this trip works out!