Our last stop in Slovenia was two nights at Lake Bohinj. A quick drive from Bled, Lake Bohinj is a little deeper in the mountains, a little higher in elevation, and fully twice the size of Lake Bled. It is, in fact, the largest lake in the country, situated in Slovenia’s largest national park. OK, it’s the only national park in Slovenia. It may not be quite as beautiful as Bled, but surrounded in mountains as it is it’s a pretty good stop for a couple days.

What else to note about Bohinj? Definitely another good lake for swimming: even Mark went in a few times. Given that nearly all our beach time over the years has been in oceans and seas, we were both amused to note how much less buoyant fresh water is than salt water. Who knew?

We did one really good hike, some four miles up into the mountains to a gorge and the Mostnice waterfall. Now to be honest the gorge was all but invisible; there were times when it was apparent that there might be a stream down there somewhere but you could never really see it. And the waterfall was, well, decidedly modest, a creek running over some rocks. The hike itself, though, irrespective of the anticlimactic destination, was beautiful: some 90 minutes of alternating open fields with views of the mountains and then deep in forests. And the entire outbound trail utterly on our own; we got out pretty early and had the trail to ourselves. On the return there was the occasional hiker headed in, but we had it to ourselves going in.

OK, one weird thing about the hike. When you leave the little town by the lake headed north, the road on both the paper map the hotel gave us with the trail marked and on Google Maps was labeled Stara Fužina, Old Fužina. Fair enough. But literally every other road up there, every time there was a fork or alternative road, was called Stara Fužina. Literally every road. Bizarre. It’s as though some local traveled outside of the region and got confused with all these roads using different names. Solution? All roads use the same name. As we passed through a little village along the way you would see an address, like 96 Stara Fužina. How is that supposed to distinguish it from all the other 96 Stara Fužinas? Damned if we know.

So that’s Slovenia. Great food, really good wine, beautiful lakes, great hiking, friendly locals, lively little capital. Nothing not to like. It’s funny to think that little more than 30 years ago this was a sad Communist, significantly dysfunctional place. Glad things got straightened around for our visit!

Tomorrow morning we’re off to Trieste where we’ll have lunch in the little northeastern corner of Italy. Now that’s exciting.

If you google Slovenia, the first image that pops up is of postcard-perfect Bled. It’s a lovely vacation town that sits on a stunning lake with that oh-so-pretty island with a church in the middle. Though it’s just barely an hour from Ljubljana, we picked up a car and drove here to facilitate the next parts of our journey.

When I was backpacking in Europe in college, my parents and two siblings came over and met up with me for a day in Florence. Before that they had courageously wandered into Yugoslavia to a place called Bled. Yugoslavia sure sounded exotic at that time. And this obscure town of Bled sounded surprisingly nice. It took me another 38 years to get here myself.

Despite having seen all those postcard images of Lake Bled, we were still blown away by the beauty of this place. You can walk around the lake in about an hour, and it’s gorgeous from every angle. The color of the water is stunning. A castle rises over one side of the lake. Pretty chalets are sprinkled all around. It’s all ringed by the craggy peaks of the Julian Alps. And that island church is so perfect.

Though we came to Europe to escape the heat and humidity of July in New York, it’s actually been unseasonably hot in much of Europe. In fact, it’s been hotter in Slovenia this week than in New York. Cool blue Lake Bled has been a nice antidote to that.

For another escape from the heat, we hiked about an hour out of town to the Vintgar Gorge. There it takes about an hour to traverse the gorge on a series of boardwalks and footbridges. The air is cool and refreshing, and the river winds and crashes below you. Now we know where the word ‘gorgeous’ comes from. We were again stunned by the beauty of the place. And here we were afraid we were too jaded to be impressed any more!

On one of my walks around the lake I wondered how different it looked when my parents were here in the Yugoslavia of 1984. Was it as beautiful then? Were there as many tourists? Were the pathways as attractive and well maintained? Did my parents walk all the way around the lake? Then I did some math and realized that when they were here they were 11 years younger than I am right now. And 20 years younger than Jim. Now that’s weird.

It’s been a long time since we’ve really “travelled,” and we’re pretty excited to be back at it again. Since COVID came along we’ve been on a few trips, but this is the first time we’ve set out on a real adventure since we completed the big one 3-1/2 years ago.

We love New York, but we love it less in July and August when oppressive heat and humidity set in. So this year we decided to take eight weeks off for some of the old travel adventure. We began our trip here in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. We’ll spend the eight weeks in Slovenia, Croatia, Norway, Sweden, plus one little corner of Italy.

Why Slovenia? It’s a lovely little country on the edge of the Alps that we’ve just never managed to get to before. It takes a bit of effort to get here. Now that I’ve finally made it, this leaves Belarus as the only one of the 44 countries in Europe I’ve not been to. Jim will be able to make the same claim after we get to Norway in a month.

We’ve looked forward to this trip with some lingering concerns. Will we like this kind of travel as much as we used to? Or will it feel like a chore? Are we jaded after our big adventure a few years ago? Are we now just checking boxes, trying to squeeze in places we didn’t get to before?

Our concerns were quickly abated by Ljubljana’s oversized charms. For a little known capital, it’s got a really nice vibe. A compact historic core is packed with classic architecture, lovely cobbled streets, and buzzing nightlife. The river Ljubljanica is lined with lively cafes and restaurants. And there is an impressive foodie scene.

We had surprisingly great food at every meal in this town. But our last dinner was the best. We went to a place called Çompa. It was a bit removed from the pretty streets that line the river. It was in a grittier part of town, the place looked comparatively downscale, and it was packed with locals. Çompa is renowned for its meats — including beef, pork, and horse. We had some of all three, and we were blown away by how delicious everything was. Pics below.

One of the highlights of our visit was an evening with two fascinating locals — Zoran and Daniça Kus — who were introduced to us by our friend Kiša back in New York. Zoran recently retired from a long career working with the Slovenian government and international organizations as an expert on environment and climate change. Daniça is a photographer who travels the world to capture great architecture. She is currently commissioned to document the work of Jože Plečnik, the Slovenian architect who rebuilt Ljubljana in the early to mid-20th century, and whose fingerprints are on everything in this town.

This has been a lovely start to our summer mini-adventure. Now we head toward the Julian Alps in Northwestern Slovenia.