Mood:
happyIt was a busy weekend and a four day weekend for Ryan. Jacoby’s last day of school was Thursday (June 11th) – so Friday was officially our first day of summer. We woke up early and headed back to Cinque Terre – only this time instead of going by bus trip Ryan drove, so we could take our time and explore without feeling rushed. We revisited each of the five towns, (It was Sabrina’s first time seeing them.) and stopped in all of the little shops, but we skipped the long part of the trail this time – the one without much of a view but with an insane amount of stairs (all leading up). At the last town, Monterosso, we wandered a bit farther than we had before and discovered the large statue of a man carved into the cliff face. Before heading home we gave the kids a chance to play around in the Mediterranean. It was cold so they only ventured in as far as their ankles. While Jacoby tried his hand at skipping stones, Sabrina and I sifted through the pebbles that had been polished by the ocean waves.
On Saturday Ryan finished up some work from the office and then we headed to the movie theater for a double feature.
Sunday morning we got up early so we could visit Lake Bled in Slovenia. Interestingly, the fastest route from Italy to this lake in Slovenia goes up and through Austria – even though Slovenia is right next to Italy. About an hour and a half into our three hour trip the GPS blinked off. Ryan pressed the power button – it came on again – and we were back in business…for about five minutes until it shut down a second time. It turns out that the power cord had not been working at all during the trip and we had now exhausted the battery supply. So, we had to get to Slovenia the old fashioned way – using maps and road signs.
Lake Bled is beautiful with very bright light blue water – not unlike the super oxygenated water of Huka Falls in New Zealand. In the middle of the lake there is an island – Slovenia’s only island. People can get to the island by either swimming to it or renting a boat. We chose to simply view it from a distance because the island is quite small and holds little more than a church. We hiked the trail all the way around the lake and stopped at a restaurant for lunch. The food was delicious and I am happy to say that pizza was nowhere on the menu. Apparently Lake Bled is known for a type of cake affectionately referred to as the million calorie cake. One of Ryan’s coworkers could not stop raving about it – nor could one of the online travel reviews of the area – so of course we had to have some. We gleefully partook of said cake and, I’m sad to say, we found it to be only average. Oh well. Back on the trail we took the path leading to the castle. The views from the top were magnificent, but I think the thing that impressed us the most was that from the top of the castle perched on the top of a large cliff, we could look down into the lake and see huge fish whose enormous size was even more evident when we compared them to the people swimming beside them. We came. We saw. We ate. We left happy. Slovenia – check.
On Monday we went back to the pet store to see if they had gotten any more rabbits in. They did not – but what they did have were baby chipmunks. Chipmunks are a lot cheaper here than they were in Germany… We are now the proud owners of a small fuzzy chipmunk named Armani (because he’s Italian and wears a little striped suit).
