Displaced Beachbums

When we lived in Germany, we made five trips to FM’s motherland: Slovenia. The paternal side of his family hails from the small town of Unec, Slovenia. We always went in the spring and it was a beautiful drive through Austria and into Slovenia. There are SO many tunnels along the way with some being 20-25 km long. The length of time spent inside the tunnels was a little claustrophobic for me. Interestingly, we found out FM’s cell phone worked even in the middle of a long tunnel which I thought was odd.

My good friend, Heidi, joined us on this trip. She LOVES to travel and I was excited to show her a country she hadn’t visited in the past. She’s great to travel with and I still think we could do the Amazing Race together. Maybe we’d be the first all female team to win! What say you, Heidi?

On this particular trip in 2005, we ventured a little farther than usual. We took a day and drove to Piran on the Adriatic Coast.  Not surprisingly, the town had a very Italian feel to it.  One of the things we still laugh about are the “hairy” mussels FM had at a beach-side restaurant. They really had what seemed like hair growing on them.  Yuck.

Here we are enjoying the coast in Piran:

Another day trip was to Bled, Slovenia which is about a 40 minute drive north of Ljubljana and truly one of the most beautiful locations I’ve ever been.  It’s clean and pristine. The walk around the lake is about 6 km and is best done in the early morning when no one else is around. In the past, we’ve stayed in Bled but the hotels were full by the time we tried to book a room.

Here’s Heidi enjoying the view from Lake Bled Castle:

To get to the island in the middle of Lake Bled, you hire a boat rower and the boatman ROWS you out to the island for about a 1/2 hour visit. A half hour is plenty of time to visit the church, ring the bell for good luck (or is it good health?), then it’s a leisurely walk around the island which leads back to the boat. FG getting ready for the trip:

Heidi and FG on the ride to the island:

We stayed at the Union Hotel in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The Union is a grand old hotel in the heart of the city. Ljubljana is a fun city to explore and there are lots of yummy restaurants and my favorite of all ~ the LUSH store.  One of my favorite memories of this trip was sitting outside a tea shop and enjoying a great cup of tea with Heidi. FG and FM were off exploring so it was calm and quiet! 🙂

Another view from the castle:

Normally, we don’t travel back to a place we’ve already vacationed BUT I don’t regret we went to Slovenia 5 times.  Three of the five visits, we were accompanied by family and friends from the states and we enjoyed the country every time we went.