Had a nice trip to Lake Bled. Nice roads; two lanes with lots of switch-backs as we crossed the mountains from Austria into Slovenia. It seemed a little earie to pass through abandoned border crossings (since the creation of the Europeon Union). Lake Bled is a small place (about 7,000 people) in a truly picture post-card setting. Our hotel room overlooked the lake (a medium sized lake -- something a little larger than Lake Louise (Alberta), with views to a large old church on Bled Island, an old church across the lake and a castle on the cliffs directly across the lake. We took a gondola to the island, then walked over to the church across the lake, and hiked up the paths on the cliffs to the castle. We also toured to the Postonjna Cave - a networks of 23km of caves that are on three levels (although level 1 is primarily a river). Some very large caverns, and just full of stalagtites and stalagmites that have grown from the constant dripping of the limestone saturated water. The average age of the columns that we saw was 8,000 years; growth is approx. 1mm per year. A small electric train took us into the cave about 7km, then we walked some of the caverns once dropped off by the train. On the morning of the last day we went up Mt. Vogal by cable car -- unfortunately it was an overcast day, but the gloom disappeared with the consumption of some celebratory Bluebell Brandy while at a chalet on the mountain. This is a great ski area and available at low cost by North American standards. This is the most easterly portion of the Alps. We finished off our time in Slovenia with a trip into the capital of Ljubljana. Then the border crossing into Croatia - stop to exist Slovenia, stop for immigration into Croatia, then stop for customs into Croatia >> made it; we're in!!!
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