Alright, I've decided that the only thing I say about my brother's and my trip to Slovenia absolutely CANNOT be about the random guy in the hostel.
I thought it was only last year, but it was actually November of 2006! Gees how time flies!
I went to London to visit my brother for Thanksgiving. I was there for about a week, but my bother took a couple of days off work so that we could take a side trip somewhere. Matt has travelled so many places and I wanted to go somewhere he hadn't been and somehow he discovered Slovenia and that's where we went!
Slovenia is in Central Europe, just to the west of Italy. We flew into the capital Ljubljana and immediately hopped on a bus to Bled. (btw- I'm writing all of this on the fly and this was two years ago...) We walked around for what seemed like hours to me in freezing cold weather until we finally stumbled upon our hostel. I believe this was after finding the local grocery which is always where I would go stand in the chocolate aisle while Matt found some bread and somehow ordered some cheese and meat for us from behind the counter (this was a daily happening).
We woke up bright and early the next morning to start our hike around Lake Bled. Since the sun had already set by the time our plane landed the night before, neither Matt nor I had any idea about the beauty that surrounded us as we wondered the streets in search of our hostel. There is no way my words can do it justice... and the pictures below can give you an idea, but there is nothing that can replace being there experiencing what can only be described as a gift from God first hand.
This was literally the view we walked out of our hostel and saw in the morning. We hiked up to the castle on the cliff later in the day.
As we headed around the lake, we saw a look-out point up on a mountain. We didn't see a path up to it so we forged straight up the mountain through the trees.
This was the view from the lookout point. It was completely worth the hike up the side of the mountain! On the island in the middle of the lake is a church that we rowed out to!
However, once up there, we saw a fancy little stairway leading right up to it from the path... oh well...
We then hiked our way on around the lake and up to the Castle. This is a view of the city from up there. There wasn't much other than the view that was spectacular about the castle, however we did buy some really great wine (okay, the bottles were great) from a Monk while up there!
We then rowed out to the Church on the Island. Matt rowed the way there, I rowed the way back.
This is inside the church.
Lake Bled was our Morning and Lake Bohinj was our afternoon.
This was the view from the lookout point. It was completely worth the hike up the side of the mountain! On the island in the middle of the lake is a church that we rowed out to! However, once up there, we saw a fancy little stairway leading right up to it from the path... oh well...We then hiked our way on around the lake and up to the Castle. This is a view of the city from up there. There wasn't much other than the view that was spectacular about the castle, however we did buy some really great wine (okay, the bottles were great) from a Monk while up there!We then rowed out to the Church on the Island. Matt rowed the way there, I rowed the way back.This is inside the church.Lake Bled was our Morning and Lake Bohinj was our afternoon. Once we got down from the castle in Bled, we hopped on a bus to Bohinj where we made the hike around another lake. Again, words cannot describe...
Typically in order to get those kind of pay-off views, you have to expend a tremendous amount of effort and time making your way up a mountain. However, this was literally the toughest terrain we crossed around Lake Bohinj...
We made our way back to our hostel that night and that is when we found our "roommate". This is a pic of our beds. My brother's was the closest one, I was in the middle and random guy was against the wall.
The next morning we hiked our way through the countryside to find this place. We had a bit of trouble finding it, but again, completely worth it. I will have to say that I did get a little (maybe more than a little) testy here...
Typically in order to get those kind of pay-off views, you have to expend a tremendous amount of effort and time making your way up a mountain. However, this was literally the toughest terrain we crossed around Lake Bohinj...We made our way back to our hostel that night and that is when we found our "roommate". This is a pic of our beds. My brother's was the closest one, I was in the middle and random guy was against the wall.The next morning we hiked our way through the countryside to find this place. We had a bit of trouble finding it, but again, completely worth it. I will have to say that I did get a little (maybe more than a little) testy here... One, because there was a sign saying not to enter the area when we got there and we walked right past it... so of course, I was sure we were going to die the whole time...
Two, my hands were freezing! They stung incredibly bad! I put on both mine and my brother's gloves and that finally helped... yes, I have a really great brother!
And finally, I had to go to the bathroom... which meant pulling down my pants in freezing weather when I'm already cold... I did it, but definitely wasn't happy about it!
We then meandered our way back through the countryside into town and caught a bus back to the capital Ljubljana. I really don't have any great pictures of the city here... I'm not sure why... probably just pictured out at this point... But here is a shot from the castle there.
This is the stairwell we climbed in the castle to get to the overlook.
This is the blood sausage I ordered from the fancy restaurant we went to in Ljubljana. Yep, leave it to me to order one of the nastiest things on the menu! But hey! It's sausage!!! I absolutely could not resist! 
Here is a photo recap Matt sent me from our trip...
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