Friday, October 31, 2014

Ljubljana and Bled

Working our way back north near the end of our trip we spent two days in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a lovely city with a canal running through it. The city was full of college students but we never saw the college; actually we did see bits and pieces. Ljubljana has an excellent university, it just doesn't have a campus.  College classes are in buildings scattered all over town. I really enjoyed Ljubljana and the fact that their were lots of gelato stands made it even more fun.
After Ljubljana we traveled to Bled and were taken across the lake there in a pletna boat to visit a beautiful 17th century cathedral (modest on the outside, beautiful Baroque interior) where we took turns ringing the "wishing bell" for luck and admired the flight of 90 steps leading up from the docks to the cathedral.  Traditionally, grooms carried their brides up the 90 steps to the wedding.  Makes "over the threshold" seem like a piece of cake.
While we admired the view of the cathedral and the castle across the lake, we also, I must admit, enjoyed the view of our plenta oarsman.  The plenta is a sort of super-size gondola that holds about 18 people and is rowed by a man standing at the back, a very good looking, extremely fit young man in our case.  Obviously standing up and rowing a big old boat back and forth across a lake is a wonderful form of exercise.

No comments:

Post a Comment