When It Rains... Dance.

Today it poured. The entire day. Somehow that didn't deter plans or make it any less of a good day.

Today we got up a bit later than other mornings. It was good to get some extra sleep. I gathered my laundry and brought it down to the main desk. They thankfully will do the laundry if you give them 10 euro which I was more than happy to do. Sink laundry sometimes isn't an option.

I grabbed some breakfast. Most hostels don't have free breakfast it seems but this one did. Nothing fancy but I was happy to not have to buy anything. Then it was out into the rain. I had to walk about 10 minutes to one of the major hotels in the area where the tour bus was meeting people.

Antonio picked us up promptly. He was 28, born and raised in Croatia, with an excellent knowledge of the history of the region. He was going to be the guide for our 8 person small group tour. Also he was cute. Haha

I snagged a seat in the front of the van. We were off. It was about a 30 minute drive to the boarder of Slovenia and Croatia. The ride was nice and quick. There was a very large river we crossed. Border control was easy enough to get through.

Once through we took a quick break before heading to our first stop: Ljubljana. This is the capital of Slovenia. It is a very small capital. We all grabbed our umbrellas and headed out into the rain. Antonio toured us around the heart of the city and the pedestrian zone. Once our tour concluded we had free time.

All of us ended of separating and walking around but everyone ate lunch at this traditional sausage shop that the guide had recommended. The food was good. I window shopped and found my post cards. I also went inside one church and explored some alleys. Needing another break I went inside a cafe and got coffee and dessert. I took several pictures walking around. The buildings were cool but I liked the dragon bridge best. 

After our free time was over we all got back in the bus. It took about an hour to drive to the town of Bled. This was the main attraction of the tour. However it was still raining the entire time. The clouds made it so you could not see the mountains much.

We first went to the castle on the cliffs above Lake Bled. This was a small castle but it has a beautiful view of Lake Bled and it's island with a church on it. The rain made it a little harder to view but still worth it. We had more free time here to explore and thankfully I was able to duck in and out of buildings to get a reprieve from the rain before taking more photos and looking out on the lake and it's surrounding mountains.

Once our time at the castle was over Antonio suggested driving around the lake. We were supposed to go on a boat ride but because of the bad weather it was not safe. The drive gave us other views of the area and we got to hear more stories of the region. We stopped and took more photos. Once we were almost all the way around we had a little more free time to wander around, take photos and explore down at the lake.

With this over the tour was mainly over. We hopped back in the bus and started the drive back to Zagreb. Antonio gave us more stories and history along the way. His knowledge was impressive. He also had a money collection that showed different currencies of the region, and other areas, over the years. We passed border control fairly easily and we're back into Croatia.

The tour was very good despite the rain. Antonio dropped us off at the hotel he picked us up from in the morning and gave food recommendations. I walked to one of the places he recommended in the pedestrian zone of the city. The food was good and the place was busy. After dinner it was back to the hostel to collect my clean laundry and repack. I have to be up early to catch my flight tomorrow morning.