Slovenia

Culture shock in the Netherlands has been mild since most of the Dutch speak english and many of their customs aren't radically different from our own.  The topographic adjustment on the other hand has not been more noticeable. The Netherlands is flat. Really, really flat.  So, while the weather was still good and while Anna was still off working in Italy, I decided to head for some hills. For this trip I teamed up with a good friend from college, Cris Diaz. Cris has seen most countries in Europe thanks to his former life as a pirate (he tells us he worked on a cruise ship but we're not so sure) and so it was initially a challenge to agree on a place that neither of us had been to before. Luckily, Slovenia was still on both of our bucketlists and so the deal was sealed and plane tickets were purchased.

We flew into the capital city of Ljubljana (nicknamed L'juju for the rest of the trip to avoid pronunciation), rented a car, and drove straight to Lake Bled (pictured above).  One amazing feature we noticed about Slovenia right off the bat was how close everything was.  Within 30 minutes of the airport was the beautiful town of Bled and the lake of the same name. This place was unreal. The iconic landmarks consisted of a massive castle on a cliffside overlooking the lake and a tiny island in the middle of the lake with a castle of its own. To round out this amazing scene there were also the Julian Alps towering in the background.

After enjoying our fill of Lake Bled, we took to the gorges. The turquoise waters from Vintgar Gorge (pictured below) left an impression that I won't soon forget. 

  

Waterfalls are always a treat. Another goodie from Vintgar Gorge above.

Lake Bohinj (above) was a definite highlight of the trip. The first photo in this post was taken to prove to Anna that I stayed good on my "Always Swim" pact. The idea is simple - if given the opportunity, always swim. I made good on this at Lake Bled as well, but that is a story for another time.

On the last day of this quick trip, I dropped Cris off at the airport with a half day to kill before my own flight took off. Again, since everything in Slovenia was so close and I still had the rental car, I decided to head for the coast. I made it to Piran (above) before noon and spent midday exploring this gem. From the northern shoreline you could see Trieste, Italy. Funny story - I paid 1 euro to climb the big bell tower that you can see in this picture without realizing that it was 5 minutes til the hour. When I got to the top, all that I was thinking about was the view until "GONGGG!!!" I was within a foot of the massive bell when the thing went off. I think it cracked a rib. 

Slovenia was incredible. It is definitely a place that I would recommend, especially if you want to pack mountains, rivers, lakes, city, and coastline all into a long weekend.

In-n-out of Interlaken

At the end of our first day in Switzerland we headed into the Alps.  On the drive between Lucerne and Interlaken we caught our first glipse of the famous blue-green lakes surrounded by classic chalets. Of course, 'blue-green' does not do justice to the uniqueness of these lakes. This was a color that neither of us had ever seen before.  Exploring these lakes would have been a trip in itself but we had more to see!

On our first full day we woke up in Interlaken and headed straight for hills. We drove into Grindelwald first and found lots of clouds pouring through the valley.  The clouds mixed with the morning light in a really cool way which of course meant lots of pictures!

After getting to Grindelwald we decided to explore the upper parts of the town by car. This ended up being pretty treacherous since the roads were super steep and barely wide enough for our little compact rental. But of course, the views made it alllll worth it.  

You know those moments when you can barely believe that what you are looking at is real? Usually it is seeing a sunset or seeing Yosemite or some place that is just unimaginably beautiful.  Well it was only Day 1 of this trip and we were experiencing more of these moments than we could count.

After Grindelwald we drove out to the Lauterbrunnen valley which is one of the places that we have both been dying to visit for years! The valley is surrounded by massive cliffs and dozens of waterfalls that come pouring out of the mountains into the valley below. Even with the clouds blocking some of the high peaks in the distance, this place definitely lived up to the hype and proved to be one of our favorite stops on the trip. 

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