Bled

[googleMap width=”400″ height=”300″ directions_to=”false”]Bled[/googleMap]

We woke to – big surprise – more rain! It actually wasn’t pouring, and when we looked out the window, we saw a bunch of runners passing by – it looked like a race! We got dressed and went out to see what we could find. It looked like a 10k that finished up with a loop around the lake. We were slightly disappointed that we didn’t know about the race, because we may have signed up – although most of the runners had mud-splatter all over their back so they must have hit muddy puddles on the route.

We watched the runners come in to the finish line. It was a pretty small race, but what a gorgeous route! The lake is crystal clear, and there’s a small island with a church, and the castle is on a cliff overhanging the city. Absolutely beautiful. It was starting to rain again, so we went to the hotel for breakfast, then went looking for another room for the night since our place was full. We went to a travel agency so we didn’t have to run around, and they got us a place that was reasonable priced, in a good location. Not the nicest place, but good enough.

We checked out of the hotel and transferred everything to the new place, then headed to Radovljica, a small, very nice little village on the Sava River. It was raining when we got there, and looked completely deserted. There’s a pedestrian zone in the center of town, which has a memorial to Anton Tomazh Linhart and a drinking fountain built in the memory of the town’s benefactor Josipina Hocevarjeva. There are also many old houses from the 16th century.

We found a place to eat lunch and had goulash (Larry) and roasted pork (me). Lunch was pretty good, and it seemed like it was mostly locals there.

The bee museum is devoted to Slovenian apiculture (bee keeping). It has exibits showing the evolution bee keeping in Slovenia, a working hive (we couldn’t find the queen), and a collection of painted front boards from old hive boxes. The painted boards were the most interesting because they depict all sorts of religious, folk and historical scenes. We bought some honey and a couple of reproductions of the front boards – my favorite is the hunter’s funeral, where all of the animals are happily carrying the dead hunter, but the dog is very sad.

After we left the museum, we went back to our favorite coffee shop for cake and tea/hot chocolate. Delicious kremna rezina! It was a nice, relaxing way to spend the afternoon. We went back to the hotel for a nap, then I worked on re-packing everything for the flight back to London. We had seven bottles of wine to keep safe on the trip back! It’s good we bought the spare duffle, because we needed it.

We decided to have dinner at a local pub – but unfortunately, it was closed. So we ended up back at Pizza Rustica, where we split another salad and a pizza. The pizza wasn’t as good as the previous night, but still good.