Natural Beauty of Slovenia

Days 1 & 2 - Piran to Ljubljiana 

Our overnight flight ended with a fantastic view of the Alps from 30,000 feet.  Somehow the peaks are still covered in snow.

Then, as we landed we got a beautiful view of Venice.  If you can zoom in to this image, you can really see everything!

After a two hour drive on the highway, we arrived in Piran.  First let me say the roads here are spectacularly better than home.  Every road seems to be freshly paved, no potholes in sight, and we watched them building a new overpass using the coolest equipment we don't have at home.

Back to Piran, we arrived at our place in Portoroz, which was this super pretty little neighborhood, and took a 10 minute bus ride into Piran.  There is no driving in Piran becuase it's just a town of little cobblestone streets. But man was it pretty!

Little cobble stone streets reminded us of Uzes a little.

I love old doors

Beautiful Church overlooking the town

I was so surprized by the beauty of this church inside.

View from the church steps.

As do many of these towns, there is a square where town gatherings happen, while we were there there was a band playing Slovenian music, which kind of reminded me of Turkish music a little.  It was like my theme music :) 

And we enjoyed a little lunch in the square, too.

Next we tackled the town walls.  The city is built on a peninsula, so there was this beautiful, tall wall all along the border with the mainland.  We climbed up and walked along it for some stunning views.

 

Looking back at the mainland

After the day of exploring, we went back to our apartment to freshen up, then enjoyed a dinner at a little local place that was delicious and, like everything here, so inexpensive, and hit the sack hard! We were exhausted.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast in our town of Portoroz, which reminded us a bit of Palma or Bodrum, but on a smaller scale.

Breakfast! (It's just iced coffee)

After breakfast, our first stop was one of the over 10,000 caves in tiny Slovenia. This one is set up for tourists and is 25km deep. 

The building at the entrance was even pretty, this place is just lovely!

entrance to the cave

Once inside, we saw the coolest formations.  Millions of years ago, this was all underwater, and as the water receded, these caverns were left. And as the waters in the earth dripped down, they deposited minerals (limestone, calcium, iron) creating these crazy rock formations.  It takes 20-30 years for these rocks to grow 1mm.  Insane! 

Next we headed to Pradjama Castle, which was built right into one of these cave systems.  The castle was an impenetrable fortress, and they used the the cave part of the castle to hide and to come out another side for provisions while under attack. 

Lunch first

They had rooms set up as they would have been then, with original furniture and all.

You can see where natural cave wall and man made wall meet.

Leading to the cave part of the castle, they added a drawbridge for extra security

Cave part of the castle, where they would hide when necessary. 

By the way, this was our tiny car that Jason hates! 

Once we finished enjoying the castle, we headed to Ljubljana, which Jason remembers so fondly, but was worried it was not what he remembered from 17 years ago.  As we pulled up to our Airbnb, his fears were really growing.  The neighborhood was kind of sketchy.  The apartment itself was clean and modern and had all of the amenities it said it would, but really, it was not what we wanted for 2 nights, so we just ate the money we spent on that place and booked a fabulous hotel we found right in the center of town.  As I was checking in, they said Jason stayed here before! He didn't remember this was the place he stayed, but it was! Our room was on the top floor with a huge balcony and a spectacular view! Well worth the change!

The View from our balcony was breathtaking!

After freshening up, we took to the streets for an evening on the town.  Man is this town pretty, I can't wait to stroll around tomorrow! There was some food festival going on, so we decided to take part for dinner.

 

Then we walked the streets and hit a few cafes for some wine and beer and went to bed.  Tomorrow we will properly explore this whole city, it's churches, castles, bridges, and all! 

Tour of Turkey

Day 5:  Cappadocia

After yesterday's "worst vacation day ever," we couldn't have asked for a better follow up day.  To just wrap yesterday up, we wound up sleeping for about an hour on the airport seats, then sleeping the whole hour and 10 minutes on the plane to Cappadocia.  That's it.  But let me tell you something, when we got to Cappadocia, everything from yesterday felt like it was so far away.  This place, the people, the vibe here is just peaceful and calming.  If it weren't for the fact that I'm exhausted beyond words, this could be one of the best vacation days ever.

We picked up our rental car and got to the cave hotel where the staff couldn't have been kinder or more welcoming.  They showed us to our room and I can't even describe it to you.  when I say cave, I mean it's dug out from inside of the face of a mountain, with all of the walls from the different rooms, all of the nooks and crannies, all of the ceilings, are the mountain.  It's spectacular.  Easily the coolest place we ever slept in (and we've slept in a 5 story real log cabin, among other very cool places).  There is a hole in the ceiling where they would once use to ventilate the smoke from the fire pit.  Jade's bed is where they once made their wine.  The giant bathroom is where the animals were kept over the winter, it's just amazing.

Once we were settled in and had a cup of coffee, the owners gave us an itinerary to get us a few hours of sightseeing in and suggested we come back and finish the day with them.  Our journey started with a castle carved into the tallest peak in the area.  It was so cool, we wound up exploring and hiking all around this place and probably spent too much time here, but we just couldn't help ourselves.  I bought a few things from the local vendors, and the people here are seriously so nice.

Castle:  We need to get to that flag way up there!

What a journey

Made it!

We moved on and saw some amazing views and cool caves, had lunch and headed back to get some rest.

After I took a nap and we had some more coffee, the next part of our day was with Cem, the owner's son.  He took us to one of the oldest caves, a Hittite home carved into a mountain side, and then an ancient Roman Church carved into the same mountain.

Ancient church

Jade in front of the oldest house we ever saw.

Then we went to learn a bit about the millenniums old pottery making that is still happening using the same techniques and materials as in biblical times.  Jade event got to try!

We went to do some more sightseeing

until I finally broke.  We went home, and I uploaded pictures after a much needed shower while Jason and Jade had a little alone time walking the streets of this adorable town.  Afterwards, we went up to the terrace to have a beer and take in the town at night.

Tomorrow morning we are getting up super early (4:30am) for our hot air balloon ride.  It's going to be amazing to see this landscape from that vantage point.  I just cannot wait!