Lake Bled, Slovenia

Picture heavy post today because Lake Bled is that beautiful.  Seriously, this might have been my favorite day of the whole trip.  Autumn leaves, mountains, a lake with an island only accessible by row boat, a quaint church with a wishing bell, a castle on the cliff, famous bled cake, and pizza that I still dream about.  

We stayed:  Pension Pletna
We ate:  Bled cream cake,  Pizzeria Rustika
We saw: bled island, bled castle, the church on bled island (renting a row boat to row out the the island was the best decision of the whole day).

Predjama Castle

Predjama castle has everything a proper castle should:  a damp/cold interior, an amory, folk-lore (including ghost stories and a Robinhood-esque legend), a proper siege story.  The fact that it's built into the mouth of a cave just makes it that much cooler.

Škocjan Caves

Škocjan caves are incredible.  It is a world heritage site, and a living cave.  I believe it is one of the largest underground canyons in the world.  It was huge.  There were crazy stalactite and stalagmite formations, as well as a river flowing through part of it.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to take pictures inside except at the very end of the tour.  It's worth googling some images if you're interested.

We were running late (of course) and almost missed the tour.  But we were able to catch up after a furious half mile jog. 

The very end of the tour where we were allowed to take pictures.

The forest around the cave was beautiful. 

After the caves we went in search of some lunch and ended up at a restaurant (Gastolina Muha) in Lokev for some delicious salad and pork.  The restaurant is just a few miles from the Lipica horse farm, so we decided to drive through it and see if we'd be lucky enough to see a famous Lipizzaner horse.  No such luck, but the drive was beautiful.

Gostilna Muha

Piran, Slovenia

We landed in Venice, Italy on a Monday morning.  We rented a car at the airport and drove 2 hours to Piran, Slovenia making one quick stop at a gas station near the border to buy a vignette (sticker that allows travel on toll roads).  My first impression of Slovenia:  it's beautiful.  Piran is a small town on a small peninsula on the Adriatic Sea.  It is a town with narrow streets, colorful houses, and red tile roofs.  A perfect place for wandering with minimal map use.  We were only there for a day, but we felt like we had a pretty good feel of the place after a few hours of exploring.

We stayed:  Hotel Piran,  It was right on the water, and right in the middle of the town.

We ate:  We weren't super hungry our first day, most likely because of jet lag.  So we didn't eat too much.  We did try a croissant type pastry at Pekarna Rina.  We had a yummy breakfast (yogurt, nuts, dried fruit, olives, cheese, and croissants) Tuesday morning at our hotel. 

We saw:  St George's Cathedral.  We went up into the bell tower, for an awesome view of Piran.
Piranski Soline (Pirane salt shop) and learning a little about the salt pans and how sea salt is collected.

Marco Polo Airport

Driving into Piran

The fact of the day in the hotel lobby was about Vermont

View from the hotel

Tartini Square

The square and statue of Giuseppe Tartini

Tartini Square from the bell tower of St George's Cathedral

Castle on the hill

Our biggest regret...we didn't swim, but at least we put our feet in.

I love that church right on the tip of the pennisula

Streets Alleyways of Piran

We walked up the hill to the castle, but we were too jet lagged to go in.

St George Cathedral from the castle

Salt shop

Breakfast

Fall Trackout 2016

The girls had 3 weeks off school last month, and we decided to spend all of it away from home.  We dropped off our kiddos in Denver for some quality time with the grandparents, then Jacob and I flew to Europe.  We spent a whirlwind 2 weeks in Slovenia, Austria and Italy before returning to Denver to spend a few days with family.  We've been back for less than a month, and I'm already daydreaming about our next trip.  I'm hoping to post more photos and details about our trip in the next few days.  Until then here are a few highlights...