15. Apr, 2016

MONDAY 25-5-15

It was not the best of starts to the day this morning, as, having had a lie-in, I went for a shower at 09:00, hung the dressing gown up, stuck the 'Head & Shoulders' in my hair, turned the shower on and ...... no hot water left. So there I was, rinsing my hair under a cold shower, getting the rest of me a bit splashed before returning 'home' for a rub over with my electric shaver. Clearly the answer is to get up early and beat the Germans to the showers.

The weather had been a bit brighter than we'd expected given the forecast. It seems we've got a depression sitting over this whole area and it's not moving. Based on this we decided to set off around Lake Bled, with jumpers but minus waterproofs. Cameras and spare batteries etc were stuffed in to my backpack and off we went.

It is a lovely spot, and a very nice walk, best known for its church on the island in the lake. Since this is the only visit we intend making here we decided to splash out on a trip across to the island. Twenty-four Euros later we were on our way, being rowed across with about a dozen other people. Amongst this motley shower was a couple, their grown up son, and their dog, an ugly thing in my opinion with short, white pointy ears, with a face like a pug. Well these people were fussing over this poor dog so much and kissing it on its lips, etc, a most abnormal and unhealthy relationship with an animal. I thought it  might be foreplay and I was about to witness a public doggie-goosing or something right there before my eyes.

We would be stopping for about thirty minutes before heading back, and whilst we were killing thirty minutes on the tiny island, the boat owner was making his killing by squeezing in another trip. I calculated that this boatman is making about twelve Euros a minute, every minute, not bad work if you can get it.

There wasn’t a great deal to see on the tiny island, but you just have to play tourist sometimes don’t you?

Following our boat trip we made our way further round the lake to Bled for lunch. I had in mind something fast foody, but The Chef suggested we pop in to a restaurant with an open air dining area with a view of the lake, and so we did. I ordered a beer, Rosina said she's wait until she decided what she was eating, in the end it turned out to be just mushroom soup as there was not really anything else she fancied on the menu. I, by then had decided on the roast lamb. Well the food took ages to come and when it did it was disappointing. The Chef didn't like her soup and hardly touched it. My lamb was cooked ok but they butcher their meat differently here, so it was sort of lumps of varying shapes and sizes of lamb, which was difficult to separate from the fat and gristle, plus chips of sorts and grilled vegetables. I managed to eat a good part of it but didn't really enjoy it. The bill was about €30, about £23, so The Chef is now banned from choosing eating venues for the rest of this trip.

We were scheduled to spend three nights here, with us leaving on Wednesday heading for Venice, but given that tomorrow afternoon and evening are due to be wet we've decided to move on tomorrow and travel there in the wet. We may as well do that as sit indoors reading or watching TV, there's nothing else here we want to see or do, and as there's still quite a lot of mud around following the amount of rain which has fallen on this area over the past few days, it doesn't even make sitting out a pleasure.

I am now getting everything charged up before we leave tomorrow. I like to try and keep on top of things like camera batteries, shaver and toothbrushes.

15. Apr, 2016

15. Apr, 2016

15. Apr, 2016

15. Apr, 2016

SUNDAY 24-5-15

The rain finally stopped yesterday evening which meant we didn't have to turn the telly up extra loud to offset the noise of the rain on the roof.

Whilst I was wandering to the shower block I was looking at the vignettes in other motorhome windscreens and they were all displaying the cheaper car version, half of what we paid. When we get on the road this morning we'll have to see if there are any clues on the toll roads themselves. 

It's off to Lake Bled today for just a couple of days, it's not too far away, about an hour or so, after that it's the challenge of Venice.

Fortunately the fault in the Satnav was resolved. It had clearly not been charging as we drove along on the way here and the battery had run itself flat enough to just freeze completely, and after a full charge overnight was fine again. This was due to a bad connection on a 3-way socket extension I use to power both the Satnav and dashcam. Fortunately I managed to find a replacement from a 'Chinese' shop (these are similar to Poundland's in that they sell a huge number of lines at very reasonable prices, though not at a pound, and from our experience, they're very popular in Spain).

Interestingly The Chef and I have had very few Brits to talk to since we left the UK, but we don't mind that, I find it very interesting to chat to foreign travellers.

We must be getting closer to home. In Ljubljana we've seen Guinness for sale. We’ve also seen horse meat which is sold here by many butchers, and clearly labelled as such. So this is where the racehorses that don't win races finish up. The Yanks may have catchy slogans like 'We Love Winners', but the Slovenians can go one better with 'We Eat Losers'.

The Chef's shoes were now nice and dry thanks to 24 hours in the bathroom with the skylight open and the hot-air central heating blowing all over them. After a quick chat to a Brit whilst our engine was running prior to lift-off, we made our way around the corner to dump all of our waste water and take on a bit of fresh then off we went.

Our big regret was that we didn't get to see Ljubljana on a bright sunny day, it's so lovely and the photographs would have been so much better.  We didn't feel like tourists whilst we were there, we just blended in which was lovely - and no rip-off tourist prices. If you fancy a nice weekend away go to Ljubljana, only get there before Putin and his Russian Mafia mates discover it, or worse still the British Stag Do weekend-away fraternity, move in and spoil it all.

 As we approached the toll road we spotted the signage, and it would appear we did indeed pay too much for our vignette. We are a 3500kg vehicle and classed as a car (€15), those over 3500kg, a truck (€30), so for seven days we are to be a big heavy motorhome or truck. Annoying really, but I know the lass in the Post Office where we bought it was doing her best to help us, says he through gritted teeth.  

The scenery on our journey to Lake Bled was lovely, again, Austrian-like meadows, alpine chalets, and dramatic mountains in the background (I did tell The Chef that I wanted no more pictures of crash barriers, that she was only to take pictures out of the front windscreen).

So we're here - Lake Bled, with the village of Bled itself on its shore. Having booked in to Camping Bled (GPS: ,N46.361724º E14.082155º) we decided on a stroll around part of the four mile walk around the lake. Next thing we knew we'd walked more than half way, and so it was a shorter distance to keep going.Tomorrow we'll do it all again, only this time carrying the cameras.

This evening has been spent enjoying our evening meal from three tin cans to lighten the load in the back, together with a bit of lubrication from some very nice liquid grapes.