S♥love♥nia

Before moving to Italy, I don't think I had ever heard of the country of Slovenia. But one of our friends in our ward served his mission there and told us about how amazing this country is. Then we realized that Slovenia actually borders Italy and is not that far away from us. So we had a three day weekend and we decided to take a quick trip to explore this little neighboring country.

We were so pleasantly surprised how beautiful and quaint Slovenia is. It is also a great place to visit because it is not very touristy, but pretty much all of the Slovenians speak English. There is lots of fun stuff to do there too.

We began our trip by making the three and a half hour drive to Lake Bled. We had a picnic lunch sitting by the lake and then proceeded to walk around the perimeter of the lake.

Bled Castle (Blejski Grad) to the left and the town of Bled to the right.

In the lake lies a cute little fairytale island, capped with a quaint church.



We decided to go visit this island and church so we rented a little rowboat. Dallin then impressively rowed us out to the island. His rowing merit badge sure has come in handy!

The church on the island is one of the most popular places in Slovenia to get married. With good reason too. It's just so cute! Apparently one of the traditions for  the weddings that take place on the island is that the groom has to carry his bride up the ninety-nine stairs that lead to the church. You can see from the pictures that it's quite a hike! This challenge helps the groom to prove to his bride and all in attendance that he is "fit" for marriage. Haha! When Dallin heard about this tradition, he just had to try it. So he scooped me up and started carrying me up the steps. And of course he made it. Piece of cake! I married a stud.

After  carrying me up the steps. Dallin is "fit' for marriage.

After living through a Slovenian tradition, we got a closer look at the church and explored the tiny island a bit.



Then we got back in our row boat and headed towards the shore. I took a turn at rowing and as I was rowing, we passed by a group of French tourists. They were all laughing and cheering at the fact that I was rowing and Dallin was sitting back and relaxing. It was funny.

After returning our boat, we continued walking around the lake.

On our way we saw a real bride and groom on their way to the island to tie the knot!

Then we started hiking up to the Bled Castle, in hopes to get a good view of the lake.

Me peeking my head through one of the windows of the castle.

We then hiked down the hill that the castle is on into the old town. We had heard that Lake Bled is famous for its yummy desserts, so we decided to stop at a little patisserie in the old town for a treat. We each got a delicious dessert, whose name I cannot pronounce. It's called a kremna rezina. It was delicious! The first layer is a little pastry crust followed by a layer of vanilla custard, then a layer of whipped cream, topped off with another thin pastry layer and sifted powdered sugar. Heavenly.

Two kremna rezinas and a coke to wash it down! Yum!

Dal enjoying his kremna rezina.

It was nice to come to Lake Bled because it was so different from the places we have been lately. Recently we have mostly just seen a lot of big European cities, which are really cool, but it was nice to come to Lake Bled and just admire nature. It was nice and relaxing.

After spending the day at the Lake we headed to Ljubljana, which is the capital of Slovenia, about thirty minutes away. We checked into our hotel and then headed towards the pedestrian area of town in search for some dinner.

Ljubljana is also a beautiful city. It's very quaint and the architecture is very different from Italy, decorated in more of a Viennese Art Nouveau style. I liked seeing the change.

Ljubljana

We had Bosnian food for dinner, which was a first for both of us. It was really good, but I definitely could not eat it everyday. The food is very... heavy. That's the only way I can describe it. We got a lot of meat, some really yummy bread, and this spread called kajmak, which looked like butter but tasted like parmesean cheese. But there were definitely no vegetables on the menu! Nonetheless, it was yummy.

Bosnian Food!

 After dinner we enjoyed a lovely walk along the Ljubljanica river in the twilight. So lovely, in fact, that I, as the navigator, lost track of where we were going. I thought we were heading the right direction, but I got us totally lost. It was dark and we started heading into kind of a sketchier part of town. It was a little scary. Dallin tried navigating a little while, but that got us even farther from our hotel. I finally got a hold of the map again, and Dallin's trust, and I was finally able to figure out where were and how to get back to the hotel. We hardly ever get lost on our adventures, so this experience was pretty frustrating. But we got back to our hotel fine, and then went to sleep.

We began the next morning by checking out of our hotel, packing our suitcases back in the car, and then exploring more of Ljubljana.

This is Preseren Square, the main square in Ljubljana. The square is named after France Preseren, Slovenia's greatest poet. The pink building is the Franciscan Church of St. Mary.

This is Hauptmann House, the only building in Preseren Square to survive Slovenia's devastating 1895 earthquake.

More cute buildings in Ljubljana.

The Old Square

Then we hiked up a trail to the Ljubljana Castle...

Me on the trail.

With some great views along the way.

Rooftops of Ljubljana.

We explored the castle a bit...

And then we headed back down, towards town.

We visited the Dragon Bridge, which is the mascot of Ljubljana; then we perused the market.

The market in Ljubljana, modeled after the agora of Ancient Greece.

Afterwards, we headed to the car and then drove to the Skocjan Caves. I have been in caves before, but touring the Skocjan Caves was an experience unlike any other. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures during our tour of the caves, but of course we snuck some when the tour guide wasn't looking. But our pictures don't do these caves justice or show just how amazing they are!

This was a huge underground canyon, with a subterranean river running through it and everything! It was so COOL. But I would like to quote Dallin to caption this photo: "I felt like Aragorn trying to escape a Balrog in LOTR..." Haha! I love my nerdy hubby!

I'm not a geologist, so I have no idea what these things were called, but they were cool lookin'.

The mouth of the cave.

Looking down on the waterfall that eventually led into the cave's subterranean river. Slovenia is such a beautiful country!

After exploring the caves we hopped in our car and in about two hours we were home. We absolutely loved Slovenia! It is such a charming country, and we will definitely be back for more!