Arriving in Bled in the early evening, we spent an hour or so chilling out next to the lake on a jetty and soaked up the last of the day's sun, before settling into the apartment for the first of many evenings of cards and gin. Predictably, we didn't make it up for a 6.00am run around the lake we had planned the night before. Instead, we headed out after breakfast and walked around the lake and to the top of one of the high points in the trees overlooking the beautiful area. In the afternoon we enjoyed some of the famous Bled cake and wandered around the outside of Bled castle, a medieval castle positioned high on a cliff face overlooking the lake. With a spectacular outlook, we all romanticised about moving in, Cormac especially (must be the Scottish in him). Fortuitously, on our way back to the apartment we passed a road heading to the Vintgar gorge, so took our picnic of Burek (pastries filled with meat or cheese- divine) on a detour through small small windy roads to the beginning of the valley. From the carpark the walkway led us downstream and into the gorge. From there, above the rapids and deep blue pools, the walkway wound extraordinarily along and between the sheer 50-100m gorge walls. We spent about an hour walking each way until the others were completely sick of me lagging behind to look at trout and wild flowers, and we headed back to the apartment where I could pour over photos of them.

In the morning we drove south to via lake Bohinj where we stopped for a morning coffee and found an old tree some woodpeckers were hanging around. The loud hammering seems to resonate through the trees, and if we snuck up and stood around long enough, we could watching them pecking away, holding onto the vertical trunks with their unique two forward facing and two backward facing toes.

We took the scenic route from Bohinj to Idrija. It certainly felt like spring was in the air and we stopped to admire the small farms and meadow-like pastures, flawless wood stacks and beehives uniquely arranged in ‘houses’. The houses are so appealing, I couldn't help but find out more about beekeeping in Slovenia. Turns out, the country takes its hives and its honey very seriously. Here's a link to a picture of a typical hive because I never got a really decent photo https://foodtourslovenia.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/beehive.jpg . The arrangement makes the hives easy to access from the back, as well as reducing heat loss as all the hives surround one another. Apart from the practical reasons, they are so delightful to look at they could inspire anyone to have an urge to take up beekeeping. Slovenia has protected its native bee by making it the only bee allowed to be farmed, and the abundance of wildflowers means you can buy a huge variety of types of honey in the local stores.

Around lunchtime we reached the clear Idrija river and found a nice quiet sunny spot to have a picnic. Coincidentally there was a very impressive local diving board on the other side of the river over the pool next to us. The water looked both a lot colder and further away once you were up there, but we couldn't turn down the chance to try it out and it didn't take long to warm up in the sunshine afterwards. Late in the afternoon we reached our cozy accommodation in a small village next to the forest. We stayed here for two nights, visiting the Postojna limestone caves and Predjama castle during the day. The caves were very extensive, requiring a train ride to get to the areas adorned with the most formations. It was very touristy with so many people in the cave at a time, but it didn't take away too much from the its impressiveness. In the afternoon we visited the Predjama castle, a renaissance era castle that was cleverly built in the mouth of a limestone cave. Unsurprisingly, it was cold and damp and not a desirable place to live but this meant it had an interesting history, and the construction within the cave on the side of the cliff was fascinating. We had a delicious Slovenian meal for our last night with Kristi and Cormac at a local pub, and parted ways with them in the morning, Croatia bound.