My Favorite Day-- Lake Bled, Slovenia!

Today was my favorite day!!! We went in a small van to Lake Bled with a family from SOUTH CAROLINA!! They are actually from a town about 20 min from Charleston. His office is in Moncks Corner. They were such nice people—the Rowans! They had 2 teenage daughters—one going into High School and one that had just finished her freshman year of college and they were a hoot! They reminded me so much of my girls on these trips! They were being so funny!! On the tour, we had a driver and a tour guide that explained everything about Slovenia’s history and politics, etc. It was super interesting! He spoke English really well and was easy to understand. We left at 8am and didn’t get back until 5pm! So the lake is located up in the Slovenian Alps and it literally felt like we were in Switzerland! It was sooooo pretty! We went to Slovenia’s only island—which is a small one right out in the middle of this lake! It has a church built on it and it is so cute and quaint! We had a guy row our boat out to it and we had about an hour to poke around until he took us back. We sampled some gelato while we were there and looked in the gift shops. It was such a cool and gorgeous day weather wise—overcast and threatening rain! Back on the mainland, we sampled their vanilla pudding cake I guess they are famous for in this region. It was good! They don’t like super sweet desserts here and I like that! Then we went to visit the coolest castle. It reminded me of one we went to with Grandma in Switzerland! It was so fun to poke around in there and wonder how life was so long ago! Nobility always liked to build their homes (castles) right on top of a really big mountain and this one was built on solid rock! You could see it at any point from the lake down below. We stayed there for a couple of hours. As soon as we got back into the van, the guide recommended we go to lunch so we went back to the restaurant where we had the vanilla cake and ate there. It was really good! We had the mushroom soup that he recommended, a yummy cheese platter and a Caesar salad unlike any I’ve ever had before—it was so good! Right when we started eating it started to rain pretty hard. We were outside, but it was perfect, because we were under a huge awning so we just enjoyed the weather and stayed completely dry! We were going to try to hit one of Slovenia’s caves on the way back to Portoroz (a 2 hour drive one way), but there was a lot of traffic AND we hit a hail storm with golf ball sized hail! The driver had to pull over so his car didn’t get damaged! (I thought for sure it had gotten dented, but it didn’t!) We had to wait it out but it eventually passed. The weather here is crazy! There are so many regions in this small country! I thought it hard to believe that one day we were sweating like pigs and the next chilly with a hail storm!! This day was my favorite!! It was the most different, with the most beautiful scenery and it felt more European. The rest of the time felt a lot more like the Mediterranean to me but still green and beautiful. Just very warm and humid compared to cool and nice!! Definitely a fun day. A lot of people didn’t like it because it was a 4 hour roundtrip and too long of a drive, but I felt like it was totally worth the drive to see such a beautiful place!! After we got back we took a swim in the pool which is indoor and outdoor—kinda cool, and then we took a walk along the shops that line the coastline. We dipped our feet into the Mediterranean Sea, just to say we did—haha! We went back to the hotel and showered and then felt like pizza, so we went and found a cute little pizza joint—it was really good! We walked around the shops close by and I found a cute little charm for my bracelet of an olive tree to remind me of the trip!