We started out in Slovenia and headed to the "touristy" Lake Bled. I mean, it's touristy for Slovenia but it's still pretty tranquil and isn't nearly as bad as other places in Europe (ahem, Eiffel Tower).
Behind me is a castle on a hill. Slovenia is loaded with castles.
The four of us (Philippe, me, Chico, and Cris) rented a boat to paddle out to the island in the middle of the lake. We made the boys do most of the work. You can see the church on the island off in the distance.
Closer shot of the island.
View of the lake and surrounding mountains from the island.
Philippe eating some ice cream on the main steps up to the top of the island.
Then we decided to ride these toboggan things down a ski slope (their way of making money during the summer).
Here's me coming down.
Here's a video Philippe took while going down the hill. He eventually catches up to Chico (and maybe it's just me but Chico totally looks like a villain in Batman - they are always really big villains on really small modes of transportation).
Next we headed to Pula, a town in northern Croatia that used to be under Venetian rule (among other rulers). This is the ampitheater.
Cris and Chico inside the ampitheater.
They still hold concerts and events there.
The first beach we went to.
Another beach. That big white thing is an "iceberg climbing rock" - you climb up and jump off. It was OK but in general I don't like going in water that deep (I'm a baby). However, when a stupid fish bit me, I felt entirely justified.
Philippe and me at the main town square.
We didn't book many of our hotels/hostels in advance so we stayed in some random places since most of the cities were fully booked. This is someone's house we stayed at - they have an extension built on that is a two-room apartment. The tourist board recommended them and it was really nice and totally cheap.
Next we headed to Rovinj, another formerly Venetian-ruled city.
A very attractive couple
Then we headed to Lake Balaton in Hungary. This is one of about 40 pictures Philippe took of road signs. Hungarian is a totally crazy language and we couldn't even guess how to pronounce anything.
For anyone familiar with Missouri (and Lake of the Ozarks), Lake Balaton is pretty much the exact same, except with Hungarians and Germans. There's a main strip with bars and restaurants and arcade games and stuff. There are also LOADS of spiders. I seriously don't think I've ever seen as many spiders in my life as I saw during our two days there. You'd be walking down a tree-lined street and there would just be spiders dangling from tree branches on their webs. Gag me! I'm so arachnophobic I couldn't even sleep at night because I knew they were in our room too.
Next we moved on to Budapest, where I only saw 2 spiders.
The castle.
The Parliament building.
Philippe on the wall of this cool-looking thing, but I don't know what it was.
Another castle.
On our way out of the city we stopped at the Communist Statue Park, a desolate but interesting place that houses statues from formerly Communist Eastern Europe. This is Philippe in a dorky pose.
Aw, Philippe and I are so made for each other.
Next we headed back to Slovenia, this time to the mountains on the western border of the country. It only took about 3 hours to get there from Budapest - Slovenia is about the size of New Jersey.
A lot of the towns look like Swiss or Austrian Alpine towns, which makes sense since these are the Alps are well. Very cute.
We went whitewater rafting down the Soca River. It was tons of fun and our guide would purposely have us hit rocks and stuff. All the other people on our raft were Austrian and so our guide would shout a few of the more important commands in German, like 'faster' (schnell). So at one point we had to paddle really fast to get past the current so we wouldn't flip and he shouts "Schnell, schnell!" and the girls in the front are like "Was?" and someone else shouted "SCHNELLLLLLLLLL!" Maybe you had to be there.
Me, lookin' good. And by 'good' I mean 'really, really bad'. Wet suits and life jackets are not flattering.
Back in Ljubljana for our final day, we toured the city. This is the main square.
This is the famous Triple Bridge. After WWI, the Hapsburg monarchy gave Ljubljana money to fix the city and gave them extra money to fix the bridge. However, the bridge wasn't actually broken so they just used the money to make it look really cool. It's hard to tell from the picture but there are actually three bridges going across, all right next to each other.
