LAUREN

Road trip from Vienna to Lake Bled!

Lou Blake and Scott picked up the car, while I stayed behind on snack duty. We got on the road at 10 am. Bags fit in all good (thank goodness as Scott's bag is like the trouble child that doesn't always fit in).

4 hours later and we arrive in Lake Bled, woo-hoo! We had been told to try the cream cake of Lake Bled (aka kremsnita), so Lou and I were looking forward to that tasty treat after our hike up the stairs to see the view of the lake.

We passed through a 8km tunnel through the mountain to lake bled cost 7.20€.

The scenery is very similar to Switzerland.

Lake Bled was gorgeous, especially with the cute castle sitting pretty on top of the lake. We all hiked up to a view point to get some snaps of the picturesque view. It was lush and grassy and green and fairly steep- enough so that it looks like it is a skiing/snowboarding place in winter. Many kids around enjoying the flying fox, high ropes course and toboggan down to the bottom of the hill.

The legend of Lake Bled and how it came to be involves fairies and sheperds. Legend has it the lake used to be a beautiful grassy field and the fairies would dance and play there. Then the sheperds came with their sheep and grazed all the grass away. The fairied warned them to leave but they ignored them. The fairies upset flooded the once grassy area to create the beautiful blue green lake.bled that exists today.

A bit hot and bothered after hiking all the way up, we went to the Park Cafe Restaurant. we get some refreshments and the famous kremsnita (cream cake) a delish tasty slovenian treat that you can only get at lake bled. Blake reckoned it tasted pretty much like a vanilla slice. Lou and I were v. happy with the cream and custard and pastry! Park Cafe claims they were the restaurant that made the original version of the cream cake. They make over 500,000 kremsnita each year!!

Next stop was Vintgar gorge which was stunning, with leafy foliage, steep rock walls and clear water running through. There were boardwalks running along the side of the gorge with a few bridges crossing over a few times. At the end was a massive waterfall. There were heaps and heaps of the rock stacks along the side of the river. One little kid was being a menace and knocking down everyone's rock stacks!!

We made it to our penthouse apartment at 7.30pm, and the airbnb host's mum (Renee's mumma! Named Luba)let us in through the boom gate and took us up to the studio apartment. It was on the top floor and as promised, had a view of the Ljubljana castle. Luba was really cute old lady and introduced us to her daughter's dog, kiki who she left in the apartment with us as we left- we had a dog! (For about 5 minutes when kiki wanted to back downstairs to Luba).

We were all pretty tired so we had a feed and an american food joint and Lou even had a beer! Or more like a peach radler as she said (still a beer).

The compulsory holiday icecream spot was Cacao, the icecreamery voted number 1 in Slovenia for 2017, which really was delish. I had yoghurt with mango, Lou Tiramasu, Blake stratecella and chocolate, and Scott waffle flavour. Ljubljana is small, quaint with oodles of character, cobble streets, river running through dragon bridges and a castle.

Some fun facts about the Ljubljana dragon:

In Slovenia, instead of rampant horse and warrior statues like in the rest of Europe, there are dragon statues everywhere. Cue the Ljubljana dragon which is basically the mascot of the country and town. It is on top of the castle tower in the coats-of-arms, also on number plates and apparently the soccer team too.

The Legend goes that the city was founded by the Greek mythological hero Jason, who had stolen the Golden Fleece from King Aetes and fled with his friends on a ship called Argo across the Black Sea and up the Danube, Sava and Ljubljanica rivers. They stumbled across the Ljubljana dragon and it was suffocated at the hands of Jason. Now the dragon stands as mighty statues at the four corners of the famous Dragon Bridge - very majestic!!