the starrs: sLOVEnia

I can't claim to have come up with sLOVEnia on my own, it was all over their tourist-y shirts...but we did LOVE Slovenia so I thought it was fitting. ;)

Ever since I found out we were moving to the UK, I had visions of skiing all the time. Well, it turned out England is flat and not as cold as I thought, so the only skiing available here is indoor skiing, which I refuse to participate in. We shifted our sights to skiing in the Alps at least once while we are stationed over here, and this year worked out perfectly. I originally started by researching the Swiss Alps and French Alps, but it seemed those locations were geared towards one week stays, and staying for less than a week was exorbitantly more expensive for some reason.Someone mentioned Lake Bled, Slovenia to me via Facebook, and as soon as I looked up pictures online I knew we must go there!

Normally I make us take public transportation to get places (you know, because I'm cheap), but poor Thomas always wants to take a taxi (I hate taxis). This time I decided I'd be a nice wife, and I arranged a car to pick us up at the airport and take us to our hotel. It also worked out that it was only 3 Euros more per person than taking the bus, and would take us 1/3 of the time to get to Bled...so everyone wins! ;) I highly recommend this service if anyone ever needs to travel from Ljubljana to Bled - the driver was so friendly and even gave us a mini tour of the city and pointed out the Tourist Office and good places to eat before dropping us off at our hotel.

Once we got to our supposedly three star hotel, that was more like a one star stuck in the 70's, we bundled up and headed out to get our lift tickets for the next couple of days, walk around the lake, and check out the castle. The city and area around the lake was simply beautiful, and even though it was pretty chilly outside there were a ton of people wandering around everywhere - it was a beautifully sunny day! We made the trek up to the castle, but the billions of stairs were worth it when we saw the views from the top. There was a nicely done museum inside of the castle, and my favorite part was the castle's forge. The blacksmith that creates the items for the castle is from the fourth generation of blacksmiths, and he uses the ore that is prevalent around the castle to create the items. I couldn't resist an iron key from the forge, it was my one and only souvenir of the trip. :)

After a quick nap we decided to check out the local nightlife - we only ended up going to one pub, mainly because they kept bringing us free drinks! We got to try some Slovenian beer and whiskey, and once the bartender found out we were from the States and Phoenix Suns fans...the drinks kept coming! Eastern European countries tend to enjoy basketball a lot, and our bartender knew that Slovenian basketball player Goran Dragić played for the Suns, so he was excited to talk to us, and we really enjoyed getting to talk to him. Then we were off to bed to prepare for a day of skiing in the morning!