Slovenia in a Day

Slovenia is a really tiny country that amazingly you can see in a day. I had no idea when I started this would be the case but it is true. I hopped on a train from Zagreb, Croatia knowing it would only take barely two hours to get to Ljulbijana, the Capital of Slovenia. It's a lovely city and I hopped of the train for a couple hours and walked around this fine place. Probaly should have hung out for a few days to get the flavor as the folks were nice and they have a whitewater kayak course there, too.

But, I was really tired of cities and opted to hop back on the train and head to Lake Bled, Slovenia's answer to Sun Valley, Idaho minus the ski hill. This is clearly a palatial spot in the foothills of the Alps with a lake that takes a couple hours to walk around. It's 4 miles give or take. The scenery is stunning, the lake is swimmable though discouraged in many locations. I don't think the Slovenes or tourists paid much attention to that, however. I swam at a couple of isolated spots as I really was in the mode of avoiding many people; having had more than my fair share of human contact in Zagreb for nearly 4 weeks by this time.

Slovenes were not very friendly, actually, with the notabl exception of one woman I met at the touris information center. She spoke perfect English and was actually from somewhere else, though one parent was Slovene, she told me.

The lake was stunning, the castle had it's requisite armor and all the things that castles are supposed to have, though I have no photos because my camera battery decided to die then. Slovenes were not very friendly and I can only guess they were sick of tourists. Though Slovenian and Croatian language are similar they are differnt. But not much different than Spanish and Italian, or Spanish and Portuguese. So I was a bit miffed when Slovenes pretended they didn't understand my Croatian. I know for a fact that I speak clearly. My Croatian skills are limited but they are clear. These Slovenes were just being butt nuggets.

I liked the scenery but clearly I didn't really feel like Slovenia had anything over Croatia in terms of intellect, scenery, culture or Klapa singing. Or any manner of other things. I had expected more and got less. Oh well. It's not that Slovenes are bad. They are just spoiled children of the Austro Hungarian empire and have come to think they are better than anyone else from former Yugoslavia. Well, they better get some better ski racers and soccer players, I guess. Got their butts kicked on both of those counts!