SUMMARY We were sad to leave our stunning villa in the hills but excited to add a new country to our list. We took a gorgeous drive through northern Istria (Croatia) and into Slovenia. The Julian Alps are beautiful and, not surprisingly, the countryside and villages look a lot like Germany and Switzerland. Our final destination was a hotel in Bohinjska, near Lake Bohinjsko. Nice little town to walk around in and very good restaurant at our hotel. - Karen
DETAIL We wake and enjoy one last morning at the villa. The weather is beautiful and we take all the same pictures again. After breakfast we pack and load the car.
Our host drops by to inspect the place and, given that we didn’t trash the it, gives us back our €500 deposit. We take her up on her offer to take photos of the group by the pool, with the villa, etc. Soon we’re on our way out of Croatia and into Slovenia.
Across the border we stop at a huge gas station for gas and coffee. We buy our required visitors pass (money for Slovenia to allow our car to be visiting this country).
At a certain point we get stuck in heavy traffic. We’re stopped a lot, not moving. Our GPS says it’s because of an accident. The highway has two lanes in each direction. The left lane automatically gets way over to the left. The right lane gets way over to the right. This leaves a lane for emergency vehicles in the middle. Brilliant! At one point an ambulance does come through and is able to get by without delay. We could learn a thing or two.
The traffic jam eats up a ton of time and soon we’re ready for lunch. Ron and Karen prepared a picnic from various leftovers including the pork. We eat in a park under an enormous ginkgo tree. It’s a long walk from where we parked the car to the park for lunch. Our GPS takes us on a walk right through a local neighborhood so we get a close up view of the houses, yards, and schools. It’s all pretty nice. It’s different than back home. We also see clues that this area gets lots of snow.
Our target today is a bit beyond the Lake Bled area. Our route takes us around Ljubljana and past the Ljubljana Airport. We’ll be back to stay in and explore Ljubljana in a few days and then will be flying to Paris from the Ljubljana Airport after that.
At Lake Bled we drive around it and in about 30 more minutes to our hotel in Bohinjska, the Sunrose7. We’re close to lake Bohinjska Jezero which is a good bit larger than Bled, and there are the Julian Alp mountains towering all around.
We’re tickled to find we’re in an “adults only hotel”. No kids. Their cut-off age for pesky young-ups is 18 years of age. Nice. There is a huge water park on the other side of a big garden and we’re welcome to use it. I do a blog entry while others hike around the area around the hotel.
Before dinner we have drinks beside the waterfall, near the hotel. Our waiter is a mountain of a man with a huge beard and a very dry sense of humor. Nancy wants a gin and tonic but doesn’t want the gin too “peppery”. He repeatedly assures her she’ll get pepper gin.
The hotel is the Sunrose7. It’s eclectic. The chandeliers are collections of cut glass decanters with their bottoms cut off. There’s a deer, maybe, over fireplace. It has horns but its skin and ears are a patchwork of different colors and types of fabric.
In your room, when you sit on the toilet a sign behind the door says “It looks like you have some time on your hands…” and launches into an explaintion about towels on the floor will be replaced but those hung up will be assumed to be for re-use. It closes with “Friends don’t let friends run out of toilet paper”.
The Do Not Disturb sign, to hang on the doorknob, just says “You’re out there and we’re in here… let’s say we just keep it that way for a while”
The Clean My Room sign says “I like my room dirty, said no one ever… Please clean my room”
At the end of the hall, a sign on the emergency exit door explains that a heated argument with your spouse does not constitute an emergency. On another floor the emergency exit sign explains that running out of wine doesn’t constitute an emergency.
We have dinner at the hotel. The tall fuzzy-faced mountain man is one of our servers. It’s a great dinner. We book dinner here at the hotel again for tomorrow night.
The forecast for tomorrow doesn’t look promising for our hike around the lake, so we hope the weather man is wrong.
Photos
One last morning in Istria. Taking all the same pictures again.
Fog once again in the valleys
Drinking the coffee. Checking the news.
This man walked his three gorgeous dogs every day around our house. Mike and Nancy get the scoop.
Group photo time
Knee-jerk reaction. Every left and right for the emergency vehicles automatically. What a concept.
Lunch under the ginkgo tree
Into our adults only hotel, the Sunrose7
Nice grounds, but then again everything around here is really beautiful. We can imagine it would look really pretty in the bright sunshine (hint, hint)
Delicious, pretty food. Amuse bouche with toasted buckwheat.
Nasturtiums on the fish appetizer
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