Slovenia: From Ballet to Tractors

From Ljubljana we headed to Lake Bled where we were picked up by Florjan, our next couchsurfing host. He took us around the lake where we got to photograph what must be the most prolific postcard setting ever: a little island with a church in the middle of the lake. We also got to go up to the castle to have the traditional view of the lake from up above. However, as per Florjan and his cousin, there really isn’t much at Lake Bled and the locals don’t really understand why all the tourists seem to always go there.

So the rest of the day’s itinerary was left in their hands. We first headed to what used to be his family farm. Now the farm serves only their needs as opposed to being a business operation. There we were greeted by his grandma and grandpa (93 years old) where I got interrogated by his grandfather in German about how we know him, what we do, where we are traveling, the political situation in Poland and my relationship status. We also met his mother, uncle and aunt as well a number of other cousins.

After a delicious snack of homemade juice, fresh bread, good cheese and homemade salami we headed out into the fields on their tractor. Since Julita had mentioned earlier that she used to drive a tractor when she was younger, he insisted that she give it a go and later on made me have a go on it as well. It was truly the last thing I ever expected to do in my life, and definitely not on this trip, much less a mere 12 hours or so after watching ballet in the main square of Ljubljana.

From the stunning views of the fields, with horses in the foreground, church towers somewhere in the distance and the Alps in the background, we were taken up to Kravecen, their local ski resort. The views would have been stunning if not for the clouds that had rolled in. Nevertheless we went on a walk through the green ski slopes and admired the number of chairlifts and routs available (all for a mere 20 Euros per day).

With the evening upon us, we headed back down and were told that we’d be picking up Florjan’s brother from somewhere. This turned out to be a mere rouse to get us up on yet another hill. Here, instead of chairlifts at the summit, there was a beautiful hotel. Turns out that it is a family business and that this would be our accommodations for the following three nights. (From the top of the hotel you can see nearly 20% of all of Slovenia.) We even got to go into the local chapel, climb into the bell tower and ring the giant (and incredibly loud) bells so that our wishes could come true. After a dinner with his cousins and his mom we retired into our luxurious accommodations and went to sleep still in awe of the hospitality that we had been shown and the entire day’s events.