Good morning, I am honestly so happy to be back on the blog after a very long time away! When I got back from my summer travels I had all of 7 days to unpack and repack for my big move to Amsterdam. I am now all settled in and am finally getting on to fill you in on what I got up to for the summer.
Once we finished up our time in France and Italy with our families we set off to Slovenia which by the way is such a beautiful country, it certainly did not disappoint! We did only allocate a couple of days before heading off to Croatia but what we did see was incredible....highly recommend you adding it to your endless list of places to visit.
Once our week was up at Lake Idro in Italy we took a Flix Bus from Brescia which was the nearest city to us all the way to Ljubljana, Slovenia. We had originally planned on getting the train and starting our InterRail pass from Italy but because the Flix Bus was so cheap we decided to save our travel days until we actually got there. By the way, if you are ever planning on traveling to various different cities or even counties check out Flix Bus, they seem to be everywhere these days and their service is excellent! I am not usually a bus lover but I have been using Flix Bus for over two years and it is so handy During my Erasmus in Austria, I traveled for over 24 hours to surprise my Mam in Le Mans, France ...Mad I know!
Once we arrived at the bus station in Ljubljana we walked straight to the main train station to get our tickets to Bled. We were actually so surprised at how cheap it was to get around in Slovenia by both train and bus. Our train tickets from Ljubljana to Lesce Bled were €5 for the domestic train and the journey was about an hour give or take.
We are both studying for at least another year so we were on a student budget but the accommodation we booked was absolutely perfect for what we paid and the staff were so helpful.
We stayed in the 1A Adventure Hostel for two nights which we booked with Booking.com and it was the perfect amount of time to relax and see everything in the area without rushing. The hostel did have an excellent reputation for organising cool day trips but we were there just to see Lake Bled and the area before heading onto our next destination. On our first day, we rented bikes from the hostel and cycled all around the area and of course Lake Bled which I highly recommend doing. Renting bikes is not necessary at all but it was really nice to do.
You can easily go to Lake Bled for a day and see pretty much everything but because we had been traveling a lot overnight and also wanted to take our time we decided to stay for 2 nights in our accommodation. I am not going to lie, we are not exactly huge hostel fans and I guess traveling Asia on such a small budget last year really spoiled us however our hostel was absolutely perfect for our stay in Bled.
We spent the first day at Bled exploring around the lake on our bikes which was so nice and then on our second day after a much needed rest we explored the entire area by foot which was also incredible! We hiked up to the castle and got to see the amazing views of the lake but one thing I highly recommend is renting a little boat on the lake. It only cost €15 to rent and we got to go to the island in the center which was so worth doing.
We didn't want to leave Slovenia without getting to see Ljubljana which is the capital so we took an early train back to the city and left our bags in the station for the day. The station in Ljubljana has excellent bag storage which we found very safe, it just meant we could leave our luggage in the lockers for the day and not have to carry them around the city. We didn't really research anything about the city before we arrived so we had no idea what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised. The weather was absolutely stunning and the city was just so beautiful. So many people were out enjoying cocktails in the sun and the overall atmosphere was fab.
We walked all around the city, to the park and also to Ljubljana Castle and once we had enough exploring and walking in the heat, we went to Slovenska Hisa for drinks. We ended up staying there for a couple of hours chatting in the sun before heading back to the station to get our night train all the way to Split, Croatia. We didn't have food there but the food did look incredible. It was just such a nice spot to sit out and enjoy the atmosphere in the city.
We honestly had the best time while we were here! If there is anything I left out do feel free to pop me a message.
Next stop.....CROATIA!!!
Have a fab day,
Éadaoin x