The journey to Slovenia from Trieste was supposed to be a pretty journey and stress free. It was in fact pretty, the scenery was stunningly picturesque, but as for stress free, that didn't eventuate.

We caught the train from Trieste at about noon to get to Goriza, still on the Italian side of the border, then cross over the border into Slovenian soil at Nova Gorica, Slovenia. But due to a combination of bad directions and the language barrier Emily and I, carrying our packs, were sent in sporadic directions (by well meaning locals) throughout Nova Gorica, in every direction but the direction we need to go to get to the train station to catch our train onwards to Bled, our intended destination. We walked with our backpacks for almost two hours in roundabouts and when eventually we did happen upon the station, simply by walking alongside the railway tracks we had missed our connection to Bled. All in all, we then had to wait a couple more hours to catch a train that arrived in Bled in the dark.

We did manage to arrive in Bled safely and were thankful that there was no more hassles once aboard the train. However, as we had arrived late the towns accommodation was entirely booked out. If it wasn't for the very helpful locals Em and I would have slept in the park, we were truly on our way to the park to lie down, with empty stomachs to add to the authentic experience of being homeless, when we tried one last place and she called and friend who called a friend (at midnight) and well we got a bed. Boy did we sleep well that night, thanks be to god for that woman.

We awoke the next morning starving as we hadn't eaten since lunchtime the previous day. But despite our lack of fuel, we were motivated enough to walk into town to buy some cheap breakfast at the supermarket - which consisted of some fruit, yoghurt and 500 ml of milk poured into a box of Special K and we ate the whole box straight from the box, classy.

Contrary to our cheap breaky and our uneasy arrival into Bled the night before, Bled really is a joy to behold. It is a small village in northern Slovenia situated on a lake of rare beauty. The lake is as placid as a milk pond on these summer days and a brilliant turquoise colour. Lake Bled, as it is appropriately named, also has a resident island (the only natural Slovenian island apparently, not suprising being a landlocked country and all) and contrary to logic there stands on this isolated and small island a rather impressive church. Complementing this church is the medieval Castle that is perched on a cliff overlooking the lake. The scene that greets your arrival in Bled really is so beautiful that it almost feels as if you have happened upon a living fairytale. In the low season it is just the permanent residents that have this Slovenia paradise to themselves, just the 5000 of them, they are lucky folks indeed.

The afternoon of our first full day in Bled our friends from Aus arrived. Lize (one of Em's good girton friends) and her fella, Jack, who have been travelling the Mediterranean had chosen to divert their travel path south to Slovenia from Austria (Em and I had headed north from Italy) to catch up. Bled was the chosen destination to rendezvous, and what an excellent choice it turned out to be. After the usual greetings and catch ups we headed to our little house that was to be our home for the next several days and nights. It was an Austrian style house, very cosy all decked out in wood with geraniums etc. you get the idea. Together the four of us enjoyed a few home cooked dinners, a drink most evenings and the erudite conversation of four all round excellent people (us).

One of the best highlights for Em and I in Bled was when we hired bikes and rode to Vintgar Gorge, which is a beautiful gorge 10 kms outside of Bled. The walk through the gorge was just beautiful, with the vibrant greens of trees foliage and the moss covered stone walls contradicted by the stunningly clear and crisp turquoise waters of the water beneath us. The walk through the gorge, is along a rickety wooden walkway several meters above the flowing chilly waters below. A beautiful part of the word.

From Bled Em and I parted ways with Lize and Jack as they resumed their travel plan as we did ours. We headed south to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia for one night before we pushed on and made it to Croatia.

Ljubljana is a beautiful city, although rather small for a capital city (population of 270,000). It has a long and illustrious history - indeed if you believe what is the ancient history books tell you the city was settled by the Greek legend Jason and his Argonauts after he found some golden fleece or something mythological like that. The architecture of Ljubljana is one of the city's features, strong examples of Baroque and Art Noveau mix in Ljubljana. Its not so much the styling of Ljubljana that interested me, rather it was the character who is largely thought of as Ljubljanas architect, Joze Plecnik. He wasn't a particularly interesting character in an eccentric way or anything, but Ljubljana just loves the man. I guess he did have his fingerprints on many of the major show piece buildings in Ljubljana though, still it interested me that the city chose an architect to idolise.

Without a doubt the most resounding memory that I have of Slovenia though as our travels takes us forward is the warm, welcoming, generous and easy-going nature of the Slovenians. In many ways they resembled Australias, although perhaps they just have a little more tact than Aussies on the whole.

Beyond Slovenia we are headed to the Adriatic coast of Croatia.

(Apologies for the blandness of this blog, I am tired after trying to stay up until 4:30am two mornings in a row to hear Bill Clinton and Barack Obama speak at the Democratic National Convention that was airing at the time of writing.)