Ok, we didn't see lions or tigers, but we did see bears! Check out our itinerary bellow. Thanks to Alex and Jack for planning the trip, and to Jill for taking care of the kiddos while we were gone.
Video to the tune of Blind Melon's "No Rain" and also a Grateful Dead song. You can find it here or
Day 1: Arrive in Ljubljana,
stay near Bled Castle
Fun Fact: How do you pronounce the capital of Slovenia? Apparently
the –lj –
connection inside the word is pronounced similarly to the English word
“million” or saying “call you” with no pause, as “J”s in Slovenian are
pronounced as “Y”s in English. That said, Slovenians often do not pronounce
“J”s inside the word – Lublana.
Day 2: White water rafting in
the Soca River
Fun Fact: The Narnia movie was filmed over months with hundreds of
people and thousands of dollars. They even built their own bridge over the
water. How long was the clip? A couple minutes, whew! Here’s the clip.
Day 3: Hiking for a full day to
Waterfall Savica
Fun Fact: The Savica Waterfall is one of, if not, the
most famous waterfall in Slovenia. Cascading some 256 feet into a crystal clear
pool below, it was imortalised by Slovene poet France Prešeren in his poem
'Krst pri Savici'. It is fed underground from the slopes of Komarča and the Seven Lakes
Valley and forms part of upper section of the Sava Bohinjka
River.
The Postojna Cave is also home to the "human fish”
proteus, a salamander that gave rise to the legend of the "dragon's
offspring." It looks like a pale, anemic
human. The proteus can live up to 100 years, and when food sources are scarce,
can go without food for up to 14 years. The olm has sightless eyes but has
extremely good chemo-receptors for picking up on small crabs and insects. Creeps!
Fun Fact 2: The Predjama castle is a pretty amazing fortress built into a mountain. It isn’t fancy, but the Robin Hood story is a fun one with a bummer ending. The story goes that
Erazem Lueger was a robber baron who owned the castle in the second half of the 15th century. Erazem’s best friend died at the hands of a commander of the imperial army, and so he took it upon himself to avenge is buddy’s death. The king then ordered Erazem to be imprisoned for life.
Erazem was not excited about that plan, so he took cover within the walls of this Predjama Castle. Being the Robin Hood that he is, he robbed the richest of the rich – the Habsburgs. This made him even more unpopular with the king, and the king sent a ton of soldiers to Predjama to catch Erazem, dead or alive. For an entire year, these soldiers tried to cut off supplies but failed to complete their mission. Why? Because there was a hidden passage for Erazem to go into the mountains and on the other side to get food. And then being the Robin Hood Man of Tights that he is, Erazem enjoyed to mock the soldiers by throwing buckets full with cherries at them (seriously!).
However, everything changed when one of Erazem’s servants was bribed to betray his master. The deal was that the servant had to announce the troops when Erazem was in the toilet, which was at the upper level of the huge fortress so that they could throw a cannonball at him. Said and done. And this is the sad story of how brave knight Erazem died. Way to go out with a bang!
Day 5: Travel to Ljubljana to pick up
Jack, visit a castle, and head to Croatia
Fun Fact: Jack is Alex’s childhood buddy from Hudson. Jack and his
family are in Slovenia for 6 months, while Jack is on a Fulbright doing bear
research.
Day 6: Shuttle to start of 3-day hike
Day 7: Gorgeous hike through forest, mountains, and beautiful coast. Windy and rainy…
Fresh bear prints
Day 8: Grizzly bear encounter – We run
into 3 cubs with their mama!
Fun Fact: If you’re hiking in bear territory, it’s best to hike in a
group of 3 or more. And if you ever run into a bear, don’t run (you won’t stand
a chance and will get hunted down). Back away slowly and don’t look the bear in
the eye. If the bear charges you, make yourself big, and don’t run. The bear is
likely testing you. If the bear actually does attack, remember that with black
bears, you’ll want to aggressively fight back. But for brown bears, lay on the
ground, cover your head with your hands, use your pack (if you have one) as
protection, and play dead. Hopefully you won’t get trashed too much, and the
bear will get bored. Easy stuff to remember, right?
Do you see the Mama bear poking her head out to check us out?
Day 9: Beach day at Krk, Croatia
Fun Fact: Krk – yep, who needs vowels? Krk is one of Croatia’s most
popular islands, and one of its biggest (of a whopping 1,200). We did some
kayaking and checked out the nude beaches – ha!
Day 10: Plitvice Lakes National Park
Day 11: Ljubljana – city tour in
the morning with Jack and little Johnny and fly out in the afternoon
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