Leaving Slovenia

At the top of the pass

Well, were leaving Slovenia… its been amazing and I’ve promised myself that sometime I’ll come back. Last time I wrote we were in the town of Bled, we stayed there one more night after we hiked up to the castle. In the morning we woke up, had another great buffet breakfast and once again piled into our tiny white car and headed off. We had a gorgeous three hour drive up and over the Julian Alps (names after Julius Caesar), and stopped for a quick picnic lunch (out of the back of our car) by the beautiful Soca river. Which, due to some unknown combination of chemicals in the rocks and surrounding banks turns the river a magical light blue, the color of crushed Nepali turquoise.

The beautiful Soca river

            Upon arriving in the town of Kobarid we headed directly for their famous war museum. It was incredibly well done; in three floors they covered Slovenia’s history from before the Romans, to the rise and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the end of WWII. They managed to convey in a relatively small amount of time, the huge atrocities dealt to both Slovenia itself and the whole of former Yugoslavia by both outside forces and by themselves. It made me realize once again, how much there is to learn and how fascinating and yet equally depressing most of it is. Walking back out onto the small street of a tiny town out in the middle of nowhere at the base of giant mountains it seemed incredible that this beautiful place, now home to adventure travelers looking for white water kayaking or mountain climbing, could have ever been torn apart by war and strife. Today people go about their normal business like nothing ever happened. People my parent’s age, who fought for their country’s freedom in the break up of Yugoslavia calmly sit on park benches or walk their dogs around town, it’s an incredibly testimony to human spirit. 

That evening we actually got a apartment that was meant for three people instead of two, it was nice not having to sleep on a couch for once, and it was situated right in the center of town! My dad and I went to buy some groceries for dinner, but unfortunately they haven’t quite mastered the 24/7 groceries stores here, we walked around the whole town (which took us less then 15 minuets) but to our chagrin all the shops were closed, the owners had gone home and it was only 7:30!

takin a train ride!

            As always we hit the road bright and early (ish) the next morning, drove the 3 hours back to Ljubljana and dropped of our car. Then hurried over to the train station, bought tickets and boarded the 2’oclock to Rijeka Croatia. It was the first time I’d ever done a boarder crossing by train and it’s a lot more laid back then by airplane, no customs, immigration or bag check, just a few officials who come on, stamp your passport and your on your way!

Sunset over the Adriatic

In Rijeka our fist plan of action was to somehow get out to the airport where we could pick up our new car. But since tourist season was off it turned out that there were only two buses to the airport, and we had missed both of them. Eventually we decided to bite the bullet and get a taxi (which turned out to be a good idea, otherwise we would have had a 20 mile walk.) We picked up our car at the airport (which was completely disserted) and drove and drove until we made it to the ferry, took the ferry across to the island of Losinj. This was my first look at the Adriatic Sea; we were crossing just as the sun was setting over the distant islands setting the water aglow with rays of dying sun. After countless hours of travel, we drove to our small apartment, but the woman who was supposed to meet us… wasn’t there. We walked up and down the street looking for her, just when we were starting to think about to sleeping in the car as a viable option, a older woman with a small black dog came down the street. My dad asked her (using hand gestures mostly) if she know the person who owned the apartment. She nodded, said something in rapid fire Croatian and beckoned for us to follow. As we walked down the hill she produced the keys from somewhere and let us into the tiny studio, she asked us how many day she would be staying, took our passports and without another word, took her dogs leash and together they disappeared into the night.