Friday, August 30, 2013
Lake Bled, Vintgar Gorge, and the Julian Alps
Woke up at 6:15 this morning. Now I think I've over-acclimated
to the new time zone. I made some instant coffee in the room with
tap water, and later we went across the hall to the dining room for
another big breakfast.
Tom is now feeling the effects of the air travel, so we got a later
start today, but by 11:30 we headed to Lake Bled, the most
picturesque town in Slovenia, located less than 30 minutes from
Skofja Loka. We went directly to Blejski Grad (Bled Castle). The
last bit of the drive to the castle was harrowing, up an extremely
steep, narrow road, where we met two buses coming down. Yikes!
Blejski Grad, over 1,000 years old, is perched atop a cliff above
Lake Bled, with the Julian Alps in the background. In the middle of
the lake is a precious little islet named Blejski Otok (Bled
Island). While we were there, a live band started playing in the
castle courtyard, just in case things weren't awesome enough
already!
Lake Bled and Blejski
Otok
The Alps from Blejski
Grad
Live music in a
beautiful setting
Leaving the castle, we proceeded to Vintgar Gorge, just a few
minutes' drive from Bled, even following our confused route. Once
we located the entrance, we followed a boardwalk path along the
crystal clear Radovna River, full of fat fish, through the striking
little gorge. It was a wonderful walk, about 3.5 kilometers
round-trip. There are a couple of slaps (waterfalls) along the way,
but the walk through the gorge is the real treat.
Vintgar
Gorge
Scenic slap
(waterfall)
After the hike, we decided we still had time to take a drive
through the mountainous northwest corner of Slovenia, around
Triglavski Narodni Park, Slovenia's only national park. The park is
named after its most conspicuous point, Triglav, the highest
mountain in Slovenia (2,864 meters/9,396 feet). Our route is
through the Julian Alps over Vrsic Pass, down into the Soca Valley,
and finally back to Skofja Loka.
But first a road map! Tom pulled in at a gas station, and I ran in
and bought a map, “Avtokarta Slovenija, Hrvaska, Bosna in
Hercegovina,” which covers 99 percent of the area we'll be
traveling the next two weeks. This map will be my constant
companion for the rest of the trip, because with Tom doing the bulk
of the driving, it's my responsibility to do the bulk of the
navigating. Often our roles are reversed, so this will take some
getting used to for both of us.
The Julian Alps,
Slovenia
The road over Vrsic (vur-SHEECH) Pass is narrow, twisting, and
steep, with 50 hairpin turns, 24 on our way up and 26 down, with up
to a 14% grade. The turns are made of cobblestone to provide better
traction. This road is not for the faint of stomach! Bless you,
Dramamine. There's many opportunities to pull off to the side and
look around.
After switchback No. 8, we hiked up to a little Russian chapel.
This road was built during World War I by over 10,000 Russian POWs,
who endured horrible conditions and many of whom died during its
construction of illness and exposure. The chapel is built on the
site where hundreds of workers were buried by an avalanche in March
of 1916.
Ruska
Kapelica
Majestic
mountains
We reached Vrsic Pass (1,611 meters/5,285 feet), then began our
descent into the Soca River Valley, an absolutely gorgeous place,
with a beautiful clear river flowing over brilliant white stones,
dominated by the Julian Alps.
Soca River
Valley
Jana above the Soca
River
Some of World War I's fiercest fighting occurred in this valley at
the Soca Front. Passing through the town of Soca, we continued to
Kluze Fort, strategically built at the narrowest part of the valley
leading to Italy. The fort was used during WWI by the Austrians to
keep the Italians out of their territory. A previous fort built on
this same site was used in the 1400s by the Italians to keep out
the Ottomans.
Kluze
Fort
Soca
River
In Bovec we stopped at a market and bought a couple of beers and
some Borovnicevec sani liker, a 20% alcohol concoction with a
picture of blueberries on the label, made in Slovenia. I hope it
doesn't taste like moonshine. It looks good, anyway.
From Bovec we drove to Tolmin and then turned east on the very
curvy 403 toward Skofja Loka, passing through some very cool
Austrian-looking towns and villages along the way. We fairly raced
this last bit, arriving back to Turizem Loka at dusk.
Around 9:00 we went to dinner at Pri
Inglicu, two blocks from our hotel. We saw this place Wednesday
when we were famished and couldn't find anywhere to eat, but it's
closed on Wednesdays. I had spaghetti carbonara and Tom got a
pizza. I was holding off on ordering pizza, because I'm pretty sure
we'll get to some places later where pizza is the only option, or
at least the only acceptable option. It was all good. We got way
too much food and a couple of average beers for a reasonable
price.
The Turizem Loka proprietress was at the front desk when we
returned for dinner. The Internet wasn't working earlier, so she
rebooted the router for us, and now we're back online.
The Slovenian blueberry liker we bought earlier is excellent. It
contains real, whole blueberries. A great ending to a great
day!
Yum!
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