Tuesday, September 18th, we boarded the bus to go to Lake Bled at 8:30 a.m.  We must have panicked the bus driver, however, because every member of the tour was outside the hotel when he drove up and our tour guide told us during the ride that we did NOT need to be outside 20 minutes early.  He's a new guide who is doing his first trip with a group.  Everyone is always outside early because no one wants to be the person who holds up the entire day by starting out late.

Anyway, we started off and drove through the Alps.  What beautiful scenery, the mountains here truly are spectacular.  We have pictures! and have finally found the link that lets us insert images.  Yayyy!

And here it is! It only took 10 minues to download.  Might not be adding some others tonight since it's 10 pm here but I'll add some more later.

We arrived at Lake Bled where there is a castle and an island toward one end of the lake that has a church on it. There is a walking path around the lake and we thought that we'd do that because it's 3 miles and is estimated to take an hour and a half.  That doesn't sound right, it must be longer than that.  But first we went to the castle and hiked up "heart attack hill" as some people put it, to the entrance.  It was a steep cobblestone path.  You know, one of those things where you hike uphill both ways.  The view from the castle over the lake was pretty astounding but after that walk, we decided maybe we'd take the boat out to the island to see the church.  For 12 euros, which is about $15 US, a gondola with a guy rowing you out there takes 20 minutes, one way.  We had 30 minutes there.  Another steep hike up to the church.  Legend has it that if you make wish and ring the church bell three times, it will come true. Well, that's an offer we couldn't refuse so we paid another 3 euros and went inside to ring the bell.  The rope hangs down in front of the altar.  We waited while two people prayed and made the sign of the cross.  I knew this was going to be harder than it sounds when it took both of them to make the bell ring. 

Then it was my turn.  I had to pull and pull and pull.  No sound.  Pull, pull, pull.  I thought it was going to jerk me off my feet when the woman behind Stella told her that she should help me.  She was moving to do that when I heard the smallest "ding" and then I finally got it to ring three times.  Actually, it rang about six times because once I got it going, I couldn't get it to stop.  Kind of defeated the purpose of 3 rings and a wish granted. 

We walked from the gondola up the hill instead of the 99 stairs on the other side of the church.  Local "lore" has it that when a couple go to the island church to get married, the groom has to carry his bride up all 99 steps for the marriage to last.  I'd like to see someone try that.  It brings all kinds of images to mind.

After having lunch, we all loaded up onto the bus and were off to our destination of Kobarid.  We took the scenic route over the mountains, stopping to view the ski jumps.  You have to be out of your mind to ski jump.  Adrenaline junkies, here's your sport.

Back on the bus, we continued up 24 switchbacks (they're numbered, probably for emergency purposes) to the top of the pass.  It was 5315 feet in elevation, which didn't bother us any but everyone else on the tour lives at much lower elevations, like sea level (Seattle area, Phoenix, Washington DC).  We took a break there to look at the scenery and have a toast with Slovenian brandy.  I thought it was pretty good, but some of the others weren't so enthused.  Then it was down the other side, 26 switchbacks to the bottom.  We were very impressed with our bus driver because some of those turns were so tight that he made them by inches going about two mph. 

In Kobarid, we had a group dinner.  On these tours, at the first meeting, everyone has to choose a buddy so when we get ready to somewhere, there's a "buddy check" and if your buddy isn't there, you have to tell the tour guide.  Your buddy cannot be the person you are traveling with.  Tuesday evening, we were all supposed to have learned things about our buddy and we had to introduce them and tell the things we had learned.  There are no rules for this, you can make up stories which a lot of people did.  Beverly's buddy, Carol, got up and talked about how they'd met last year on the India trip, which was true, and then she talked about the excitement in Bev's life.  How she'd woken up to smoke at the cabin, and was rescued by a firefighter while she was wearing pink bunny slippers.  It was really funny.  Stella's buddy, Harry, hurried over to me and wanted to "know some dirt" on her.  So I immediately gave up the information that she was the Idaho State Women's Bowling Champion, which is true.  He used it in his presentation, of course.  Everyone was suitably impressed, but she doesn't usually tell people that.

It was 9:30 pm before that "liar's session" was over, which is why I'm late on this blog.

My computer is being very annoying so I'm going to end this and continue with today's adventure tomorrow.  The internet connection isn't the best here.


To be continued.