AC's Journal Entry 8, Tuesday, 9/30/08

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Time seems to be flying by all of a sudden, now that we only have a few days left.
Olga served a huge breakfast, one thing of note was her honey (I regret not buying some). After we ate we strolled around the property and took some pictures of the fantastic view. I had looked at the map the night before to see determine what location to put in Bella and since our location was the farm, she took us the most direct route which coincided with the map I had. Little did we know it was up and over several mountains with narrow roads but truly expansive vistas – the unfortunate part of it was it added hours to our commute so that didn’t go over very big in either car. We made it to Bohinj Lake, strolled around it a bit, took some pictures, had a cup of coffee (Dot and Carol were hoping for gelato, but they weren’t serving food yet) and hit the road again toward Bled.
Everyone had told us of the two lakes, Bohinj was the most beautiful and least touristy. It was beautiful but since we WERE tourists, we found it somewhat lacking in everything except the beauty, that’s why we didn’t spend much time there. Bled on the other hand is very built up and it too is beautiful. We both found parking places and had our only fast food in Slovenia which no one was very happy with. Guess all that home cooking we were used to spoiled us! Before lunch Buzz and I had stopped into a shop to buy Carly a gift. While he was paying I went outside and then went back in and when I re-entered, the young man there shook my hand, looked me right in the eye, and said “I’m honored to meet you”. HUH? Well, guess what? Buzz had told him about Oton and this man was extremely impressed. He was so sincere in his words, it took me by surprise. After that pleasant encounter and after lunch we headed down to the lake and found that to get to the island there are large gondolas with one rower per boat. All the rowers were lounging in their boats and they have the next one out system, so it wasn’t like they were all hounding us to use them. On the island we walked up the hill to the top (Dot is such a trooper!) and went in the museum where there was an exhibit of nativity scenes (read that Slovenia is the only country that has a dedication to Nativity scene art etc. and the Nativity scene is center stage in their homes). Nothing else to do on the island so we went back down to the boat and we were rowed over to shore, hit the head, and drove to find bee country (an article John had sent from the WSJ on the Slovenia bee country peaked my interest in visiting one particular bee keeper because he sold Nativity sets made of beeswax and since I collect them, I thought I’d buy one)
Found the small town called Begunje na Gorenjsekm at the foot of the Julian alps and proceeded to try to find the bee keeper based on the sparse directions in the article. The streets in this town are extremely narrow and as we were driving through a neighborhood (which was also the main road through town) we saw 2 men working in their yard, so I stopped to ask them for directions. The older man didn’t speak English, but his son did and while he was talking to me they motioned Judy to pull in their driveway. Dorothy showed them the article and asked him for directions to the town, and he said “here, you’re here” then we showed him the name of the beekeeper and he gave us directions. Meanwhile, the woman of the house looked out the window, saw Judy’s car in the driveway and came out with a plate of apple strudel to offer to them. Both men declined, but Judy took one then yelled over to me “I got a piece of strudel!” (sort of like a “nananana, I got a piece and you didn’t). By this time I had turned the car around so I stopped abruptly and yelled back “strudel!!!!” and the kind lady brought the plate over to us. You can bet your life all three of us in my car took a piece. We were absolutely stunned by the gesture. (Buzz tells this story somewhat differently…he thinks she was bringing it out for the men working and Judy said “is that strudel” to her, so what could she do…she offered it. That’s why he didn’t take a piece. But I like Judy’s interpretation better and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!)
Made it to the beekeepers, with one more stop for directions (no strudel at this one), and the son came over from the hives since he spoke English. They led us down to their basement shop and we all bought goodies made of beeswax. The nativity sets were way too large (too many pieces, I was looking for the three main figures only), plus the price was much higher than the journal quoted. BTW, the owners knew nothing of the article and were stunned by it, we were the first Americans to show up, so we gave them our copy of the article. We all bought what we wanted including honey and honey brandy. Some of the beeswax articles we bought we saw in LBJ the next day for 2.5 times the price!!!
Jelena meanwhile had been in contact with us regarding a place to stay so we turned Bella back on and headed to Zbila lake and the pension she had booked for us. A pension is a step up from the farms, full service, and of course a huge breakfast, but slightly higher in price (still cheap though). We checked in and everyone was happy with it, especially Dot since her room was on the first floor this time and she didn’t have to climb steps. The owner was a young lady with a baby on her hip who was extremely friendly (both her and the baby). She directed us to a restaurant on the lake for dinner so we walked down, but since it was late the lake wasn’t visible. We enjoyed the dinner and shared many laughs. Judy had ordered veal stew and they told her she had to have buckwheat mush with it so she ordered that too. It came with what she thought was apples and cinammon on it but with one bite she knew exactly what it was - minced lard. That ended that! Back to pension to bed.