The Julian Alps - You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

On Tuesday night we ran into two Canadian girls at the Post Office (both teachers in fact) and they told us about this Excursion they went on the day before that was absolutely the BEST part of their trip.  Called the Emerald River Adventure, they traveled to the Alps and went rafting and swimming and hiking and saw all of these amazing things.  They were trying to convince us to do the Adventure, as it was so amazing.  So, Tuesday night as we ate our pizza and Cream Cake by the lake we debated and agonized over whether or not we should do it.  We are uptight, and have a plan for our trip and it wasn't in our plans....and we had planned to rent a car the next day and drive through the Alps to end up in Ljubljana.....so after much debate, we stuck with our plans.  But, we vowed that we were going to have our own "Emerald River Adventure."  And we did.  Details below.

Lake Bled in the morning- the first day we saw the mountains in the distance without clouds.

We hit the ground running pretty early and had already  broken a good sweat by the time we got in our rental car.  The rental car guy said that it was supposed to be 37 degrees C.  We later found out that that is precisely body temperature.  98.6 degrees..  This picture (abo ve) is just outside of Bled (near Zasip) where we pulled ovet to eat breakfast.

45 minutes into the drive we got our first real glimpse of some intense Alps. 

This was our first pullover- a crystal clear pond.

Behind the pond, an old river bed.  The rocks are white from talc which makes a lot of things beautiful and makes the water (rivers and lakes) an emerald green color.

Then, we commenced climbing Vrsic pass- a very high pass through the Alps comprised of 24 intense driving switchbacks.  Throughout the drive there were amazing views, Alpine meadows, wandering cows and crazy bikers doing the clmb.  The road was built during WWI by Russain POWs to supply troops in the Soca Front (see Hemingway's book "A Farewell to Arms" for more about the region and the war.

An idea of scale: there  is a hole in the mountainside shown on the right side that is big enough for the Statue of Liberty to fit through.

Cows and cobbled switchbacks for better traction.  The car had to be in 1st gear to make the turns.

View from cow switchback.

Our first hike, from the top of Vrsic pass.  This was a very steep endeavor (maybe 1500 feet straight up).  We are resting and eating 1st lunch here.  Janna is a happy hiker.

We continued on from our lunch spot and saw real mountainclimbers attacking the rockier mountaintops.

Janna still a happy (but hot) hiker.

Because of the time of day, the faster we hiked to a higher altitude, the better we avoided the increasing heat down below.

We turned back here because our Adventure had only just begun.

On the way back down- the mountain took the slightly crooked picture.

After descending the pass via more switchbacks, we pulled off for another little hike.  We climbed (very steeply) to the head of the Soca River.  Look how happy Janna still looks.

Just before we reached the source, the only way to walk was holding onto the cables.  Very exciting.

Here is the source of the river.  The picture might be decieving, but the water is really clear and you can probably see 30 or 40 feet below.

It should be noted that we ate our second lunch here.  Bread, cheese, mustard.

Later, further down the Soca river, this is a picture from a very rickety suspension footbridge.  Probably 50 feet down to the water.

Rickety bridge.  See above.

Old WWI military post on the Italian border.  We snapped a picture out the window, too tired to get out and walk around.

This is on our third and "most adventurous" hike.  We were attempting to see the Boka waterfall.  When we arrived at the pulloff, we saw lots of happy kids in bathing suits and were very excited to swim in teh beautiful emerald green river.  Needless to say, we took the wrong path and after 30 minutes of very vertical climbing (in our bathing suits and flipflops), we realized that the swimming area is probably at the bottom of the waterfall, not the top.  Luckily for Sue, it was Janna who kept insisting that this was the right path (despite Sue's voiced inklings to the contrary).  Once we got to the bottom (1 sweaty hour later) we were so disgusted that we got in the car and continued on our journey rather than swimming.  The picture above is before the hike gets really steep.  You should keep in mind that this waterfall is Slovenia's second highest waterfall...and they have a LOT of high waterfalls.

In the car, recuperating from three major hikes, drinking "Cockta", the Soviet answer to Coca-Cola and eating Paprika Chips (which are very good).  Janna drove Sue to drink soda and eat chips here.  Even Sue is tired now.  Note:  still wearing bathing suits.

Hike number 4.  After stopping at the WWI museum (which was very interesting, though we had trouble focusing our tired eyes on all the pictures and captions) we were determined to still get a swim in.  So, we tried to find a "hidden gem" of a waterfall whose name I can't come close to spelling.  We did find it, but it required another mile of hiking in each direction to reach it.  The river was very green and the waterfall was very cool, but when we reached it there was no way to get to the pool to swim in it, and it was quite cold in the caves where the waterfall was.

A WWI cave we saw on our way out from our non-swimming waterfall hike.

Suspension bridge over the Soca river near the waterfall.  Note the amazing water color and the distance above the water we are and therefore the reason we were unable to swim in it yet again.

The rest of our Adventure, sans pictures. 

At this point, it is 7:30 pm.  We left our hotel at 8:00 am so needless to say, we are quite tired.  We have a 2 plus hour drive in front of us so we get moving through the beautiful tiny hilltowns of Slovenia.  Slovenian roads are very narrow and very windy and Slovenian drivers are not super concerned about that pesky "dividing line" in the middle of the road.  It was a breathtaking experience, driving those roads, but we survived.

We stopped for pizza somewhere in the middle of nowhere (note that this is three days in a row with pizza for dinner).  We ordered the "Vegi" pizza from the nice Slovenian waitress, and when we opened it up in the car we found that here a veggie pizza consists of crust, cheese, tomatoes, green olives, zucchini and mustard for sauce.  Interesting.  Not bad.

Finally we got to Ljubljana, figured out how to get petrol (more than 5 euros per gallon) and tried to return our rental car to the specified place.  For the life of us, we could not find a drop box for the key...and we were very very tired from our day.  We decided to lock the car, write a note, and take the key, to return in the morning....We hailed a cab (this is a big deal for us, first time really!), and ten euros later and some intense English language swearing by our cab driving about getting lost, we arrived at our hostel.  Phew.

Love the Alps.

Tomorrow we will be on a pizza, cheese and bread fast.  None allowed for the whole day.