Three countries in 11 minutes.
Trip Start
Aug 20, 2009
1
9
10
Trip End
Sep 08, 2009
Tolmin, Slovenia
Monday, August 31, 2009
Below is a blog written by Myra, who is much better at writing! This Myra's first time traveling with us!
8/31/09 by Myra
I'm a Europe
newbie. For my first trip to Europe, I followed my cool friends to some countries that
are definitely less traveled. That is
why, after my constant pleading, they agreed to take me to two countries that
weren’t originally on the itinerary.
Today, we started out from Lake Bled
early in the morning at 7:30. It would
be a busy day. We stopped by the world’s
longest ski jump first. After posing for
a few pictures, we jumped backed in the car to drive across the border to Italy at
9:05. We then hopped back on the freeway
and drove across the Austrian border at 9:16.
We all thought it was the funniest thing and took pictures to document
the momentous occasion. The only let
down was that the border immigration booths were deserted, thus we were unable
to adorn our passports with more stamps.
April, who is a great collector, was saddened.
Since we were already in Austria, we stopped into the city of Villach. With no research done before this detour was
decided, we only had time to stop into a supermarket to do some grocery
shopping before we continued on our tour.
Next, up was the Julian
Alps where professional driver, Lawrence was able to navigate the
50 hairpin turns ( 26 driving up, 24 driving down) easily. I was slightly nauseated, but felt better
after a break for air at a stop at a church and a small suspension bridge.
In Kobarid, we visited the World
War 1 museum. Everyone thought it was
just so so, but apparently the rest of Europe
and Rick Steves really likes it.
Then, Lawrence drove like a mad man to make the
last car train of the day. The ride
through Tolmin to get to the train was full of windy roads and since we didn’t
want to miss this train, we were driving European style (fast!). My motion sickness was renewed yet again at
this point and I had to keep the eyes closed and try to stay unconscious for
most of it to survive. Yes, a car
train. It’s a train that carries whole
cars on the train bed with the passengers still in them. It took us through a tunnel that went through
the mountains and brought us 30 minutes away from Bled. Yay! The
ride through the tunnel took 10-12 minutes.
That’s a long time to hold your breath.
But it saved us some driving time and allowed us to experience something
totally new and ultimately cool!
Last but not least, we returned to
Bled early enough to catch the Dali exhibit.
Needless to say, Dali was a very eccentric artist with a crazy
personality to go with his striking and thought provoking art.
The end of the day brought us more
crema rzina. One piece per person this
time. Dinner was a recommendation by the
apartment owner. The spaghetti Bolognese
was fresh, yummy and was one forth the size of an American portion, one
twentieth the size of Buca di Beppo’s.
The end.
