Holiday Photos From Slovenia

Hello everyone, got back from my hols yesterday after a 4am start so was really tired and overslept this morning.
I've got a few photos to share with you of the absolutely beautiful Slovenia which is a little fairytale like in parts. Apparently 70% of the country is covered in forest and I can believe that as when we took off yesterday all I could see through the plane window was miles of trees. We stayed at Lake Bled which is quite a small lake and it's possible to walk all the way round in about an hour (if you don't stop for coffee and cake that is - the Slovenian people love their cake!)
Here's a picture of our hotel which was right by the lake with a gorgeous view of the castle opposite.

The hotel isn't that large but it had enormous rooms used for the restaurant, lounge and so on and free tea, coffee and cakes were served in the afternoon. Lots of walking needed after this!

This is Castle Bled which we could see from our hotel room window. We did climb up there on a path that would cause British Health & Safety to throw a hissy fit!

The lake has an island with a church and we were told that traditionally, if a couple get married there, the groom has to carry the bride up all of those 99 steps! I think this is my best photo too as I really love the way the church is reflected in the water.

This is the waterfall above Lake Bohinj which is the larger of Slovenia's 2 lakes. It may not look very big but the water streamed down around 70 feet and we had to climb up 553 steps to reach it. This made the island steps seem like child's play!!!

We visited the capital Llubljana and this is one of the famous bridges across the river and is called the Carpenters Bridge. We had lunch at the cafe just seen on the right hand side.

This is my hubby Andrew in a slightly angled photo as I was trying to avoid the lady sitting on the table behind! As you can see the river is not a very attractive colour, it really was that shade of green - ugh!

I couldn't resist taking these photos in the flower market at Llubljana which had stalls full of the most beautiful brightly coloured flowers and the lady in the top photo had lots of lovely garlands and posies for sale.

These are pictures of the last place we visited, the Vintgar Gorge which was in a narrow valley behind a mountain near Lake Bled. We caught the bus up to the gorge, walked through along rock pathways and wooden walkways and the most stunning scenery and walked back. This was difficult although it was broken up as we reached a church at the top of the mountain and to our complete surprise found a Pizzeria next to it!!! You can probably guess that we made a pizza stop before the rest of the journey back which was downhill but still very difficult as it was hot.

I can thoroughly recommend Slovenia for a holiday as it wasn't really very touristy and the people are really friendly and helpful. The scenery is really beautiful and has to be seen to be appreciated as my photos don't really do it justice.

I'll be back tomorrow with the next Polka Doodles challenge and also had a piece of very good news today when I was catching up on my reading list and found that I won last week's Spot Prize Challenge on Dezinaworld and have a gorgeous new collage set to play with so many thanks go to June for this as it was such a lovely surprise to come home to. If you haven't had a go at June's new style challenge, do pop over and have a look - click on the link above or the one on my side bar.