Flying down hills and hunting strudel.

We awoke reasonably warm and enjoyed a breakfast at our Penzion. You know the European brekkie--meat, bread, cheese--very nice I think. We were in Bled and decided to go exploring a bit. Bled is famous for its fairytale castle and big beautiful lake. The lake incidentally freezes over in winter. That would be awesome! However we were there between seasons, so it was a bit chilly and the lake was not able to be swum in even by us swimming kiwis. We missioned up to the castle instead, stopping for a coffee and herbal tea on the way.

We were definitely in a tourist hotspot. Buses and buses of European origin tourists climbed up the cobbled path before us. We had prior to the cobbles, traipsed through the bush and up the hill of course. My knee was okay, but definitely not happy about its retwisting the day before. The castle itself gave us beautiful views of the region, but that was about all there was to see. Muh--(sorry, apart from the beautiful cathedral on an island in middle of the lake etc).

We could see from up there, an awesome looking toboggan track on the opposite side of the lake. It was a long metallic snake twisting and winding its way down the hill. Of course, that was where we were destined to go next.

I've been on the luge in Rotorua many, many times. I love it and was very much doubting whether this Lake Bled Luge would even compare. Well, how wrong was I!
It was the scariest 'toboggan/luge' ride I have ever been on. The toboggan was on a rail, that even though I knew it wasn't going to come flying off, there is always that possibility right? Probably not in this case. However, I heeded the warnings to brake when the signs suggested. It was so fast. The corners were quite sharp really and I could feel my body resisting the urge to fly out of the vehicle. We were seat belted in incidentally, so no fear should have been present. So exhilarating! There were dips and long speedy bits. Whew. We had three goes each. By the third, both of the boys had decided that we should all go down with NO BRAKES. Well, not wanting to be shown up by the boys whom I had already matched in the canyoning, I agreed. First I was to film them hooning down. I seriously doubted whether they'd go brakeless. They sure went fast though! Then it was my turn. I could not do it! I braked. I braked less than the previous turns but I just couldn't do it! Rats. The boys saw that I was braking too and I think a wee glimmer left their eyes. I wasn't in the club anymore. They were both bragging that they'd flown down the rails. Never mind. What a blast! Totally recommend this particular tourist trap. Totally worth the trapping.

Once we were safely back in the car, we realised we'd pretty much 'done Bled'. So of course, we decided to pop off to Austria for lunch. The boys assured me it was only about thirty minutes drive away, so I reluctantly agreed. You have to understand, we had spent a long time in the car so far.
We reached a new tunnel that was still under construction. It took us from Hrusica on the Slovenian side through to Rosenbach in Austria. Not however, before we'd sat in a queue on the Solvene side waiting for the traffic coming through the nine kilometre tunnel toward us. You see, we had not realised, but the construction had the tunnel operating only one of it's lanes. Sigh. We eventually broke through and were starving.

We drove to the nearest little town we could find nameed 'St. Jakob'. Martin was entertaining the idea of apple strudel and I didn't really care at this stage. Do you think we could find anything to eat at all in this place? We went into a pub/cafe type place. They sold 'toast' and big roll things. So maybe I did care and none of us were inspired. So we traipsed up and down the streets but it really was quite dead. We decided, that like the folk of old, we'd suffice on a flagon of beer for lunch (sorry, I'm in the middle of reading 'The Two Towers'). We entered a typically smoky sports bar and holding our breath quickly ordered a half pint of Hoegaarden beer each. Hastily we exited with our 'lunch' and sat on the roadside in a random little Austrian town drinking beer. Passersby seemed slightly intrigued. Whether it was because we were openly drinking outside, or that we were outside at all, I'll never know. Martin managed to smash his beer glass and his beer (or was it Mike's?) so he had to hold his breath a second time and enter the smoke pit again. Gross, gross, gross. It was the worst smoky joint yet.

Feeling a little warmed but disappointed, I drove us back to Slovenia. Knowing that if we caught a red light at the tunnel we'd be waiting for a good fifteen/twenty minutes I drove rather rapidly toward the lights. We could see travellers coming out, which meant that the light was soon going to turn green. Of course, when I was about a hundred metres shy of the light, it turned orange. I stepped on it. Then it turned red, and under the encouragement of the boys we whizzed through. Tut tut. Maybe I redeemed myself slightly? It was spooky though. There were no cars to be seen, and I started getting paranoid that a row of traffic would come rushing toward me. So I drove faster. Finally we burst through the other side on the tail end of the traffic.

We had made a dinner booking at a very popular Lake Bled restaurant called 'Mayer'. Oh yum, oh yum. I had fresh trout on spinach and melt in your mouth spuds for an entree. The boys had a delicious soup each. Mike and I had a typical Slovene venison stew/goulash with dumplings and polenta cakes. Martin had...I can't remember! After the days unsucessful efforts, Martin was delighted to see that apple strudel was on the dessert specials board. Of course we ate that with great enthusiasm and savoured every bite. Oh yum, oh yum.

NB: Though I shared in Martin's dessert after it arrived looking so delicious, it was the first time in our four years together that Martin--and not Lucy, wanted dessert. I was too full! Can you believe it? I'm still in shock.