Day 6: Ljubliana via Lake Bled

Budapest has been a blast, but time to hop back on the bus and move on - and this day, we were on the bus for almost the whole day, but not without making 1 significant pit stop.

We crossed the border into Slovenia and late in the afternoon, made it to Lake Bled, a large glacial lake not too far from Ljubljana, the capital.

It wasn't a long stop, and the sun was blasting my eyes in just the area where we arrived at the Lakeside itself. I was blinded a bit while taking pictures and am kind of amazed some of them came as well as they did. Aaaand typical that the sun moved on just as we were leaving...

Anyway, onto the lake itself, it is really pretty, and the water is pretty clear, due to it being a glacial lake from the mountains.
It is in fact clear enough to swim in if you want to - but only in certain areas. I didn't take a dip, though much of Team Contiki did.... Not in one of the right areas, though only noticing once everyone had gone in.... Ooops

If you don't fancy swimming, you can if you want take a boat out to the church in the middle of the island. Alas, we wouldn't have had enough time to do that, but it looked absolutely beautiful 😍

As I didn't take a dip, I went along to one of the little cafes along the lakeside (yes there's touriststy spots along the lake left right and centre, kind of disappointing at first) and tried one of their famous vanilla cakes. Its pretty tasty, like a vanilla slice but with more custard and whipped cream, and pastry only on the top and bottom instead of with more layers. I wish I had shared mine with someone as it was A LOT and a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. Even for someone with a sweet tooth like me and I couldn't finish it.

Slovenia is a country that has to adapt a lot of 

cultures from its neighbours

After the cake and picking up a couple of postcards and a really cute bowl from the gift shop, it was back on the bus towards Ljubljana, while Darius gave us a mini history on Slovenia, as he did with every country we've visited thus far.
Like Hungary, Slovenia is a country that has been under occupation a lot in its history. It became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire when it was part of Czechoslovakia. Then during WW1, it literally became part of Germany, so many fled to nearby Italy - only for them to be persecuted when Mussolini's Fascists joined Hitler in WW2.
As a result, Slovenian culture has become an amalgamation of lots of different countries surrounding it, including Italy, Austria and Hungary. One of the true Slovenian things you can get is in fact the vanilla cakes I had at Lake Bled.

It wasn't until around 7pm that we made it to the centre of Ljubljana, where Tiago our driver dropped us off. After a quick walk into the main square, we all separated off for a bit of free time and food. I went off to Bethany, Benji and Callum to explore the waterfront and to find a nice place to eat. And it was so pretty, especially as dusk was falling with all the lights along the bridges. I would imagine it's a good place for couples of take a romantic stroll 😘

Eventually, we found a nice resturant right on the riverfront. I cannot remember the name of it for the life of me, but we all agreed it was one of the nicest meals on the trip - and made a change from all the schnitzel we had. I had a dish with torn up lamb shank (it does work, trust me) and beans, washed down with a glass of orange wine....
Yes you read that right, it is not wine and orange juice, but actually orange. It's apparently something to do with the tanning system when making it. And yes, it was pretty nice. I've heard blue wine exists now, guess that's next on the list.

Oh - for anyone who has been to Ljubljana, why is there an apple on the table in restaurants and cafes? I forgot to ask the waiter and I'm intrigued.

Finishing off with an ice cream stall not too far away from the restaurant (I cannot remember what flavour I had for the life of me), it was back to the bus for Tiago to take us to our accommodation. It was the Ljubljana Resort, and I'm not sure what exactly to call it - the only thing I can think of is something like Butlins, as it has a caravan site, plus apartment-like rooms which we stayed in. They were pretty comfy :D

When we had got settled in, I had every intention of nipping out to the restort bar with the others one I had done my notes.... Buuut I was drinking the leftover red wine from the River Cruise in Budapest (we got to take it away with us) aaaand DISASTER!! My clutz-y face managed to spill some right down my shirt - and it was white!! 🙀 Sooo that meant going out was out of the window as I had to pronto change into pjs and spend my night performing emergency-wine-stain-removing manoeuvres. Oooops.

We only had the 1 night in Slovenia - maybe I'll come back and explore it a bit more 😊

Next stop - Italia!! 😁