Ljubljana

This place was a surprise! It was not bad at all. After a long train journey from Budapest (it actually went into Croatia before turning back towards Slovenia) we arrived ready for a long walk to the hostel. It in fact took no time at all, this place was tiny. Our hostel was not actually finished being renovated, which turned out to be an excuse for crappy facilities and this was not the worst of it. But I will come back to this later as I don't want to overshadow the city with this experience.

As the Capital of Slovenia it was the political centre but it was more of a university town. We found a cool cafe called La petit Cafe and found ourselves spending a entire afternoon there! As it provided free wi-fi we took the opportunity to book most of our Italy trip and a flight to Portugal from Marseille (trying to fit as much of europe in to three months as we are able). The prices in Ljubljana had yet to reach the point of ridiculousness as they had only had the Euro for less than a year. No doubt prices would soon rise to equal their EU neighbours. But for now we could enjoy coffee and food at real world prices, and so we indulged. We spent some time walking around the city and headed up to the castle on the hill top via the funicular (they're are everywhere over here) and then went to grab some dinner.

The next day, feeling a little guilty for spending an afternoon on the net we caught a bus to Lake Bled in the Alps region of Slovenia. We were rewarded for our efforts by a crystal clear lake with a spectacular alpine backdrop, in the centre an island with a church and steeple completing a view made for postcards. The water was a deep blue and in parts you could see right to the bottom! You could actually see the fish swimming and there were hundreds. Evan and Couch you guys would have loved fishing here. Although, we passed some blokes camping at one end with at least three rods each. Didn't see them with that many fish though. I guess the water is so clear the fish can see the line and hook! We managed to fit in a walk right around the lake as a storm was rolling in across the mountains, it was great having thunder cracking across the mountain sides around us as we soaked up the view.

After lunch we bussed it back to Ljubljana in time to pick up our laundry (14 Euros!), eat dinner, pack and wait for the 230am train to Venice.

It wasn't until the next day on arrival in Florence that the welts started to appear, but while in Ljubljana I got intimately acquainted, one could even say slept with, some blood thirsty locals. These were not mosquitoes, those guys I could handle, it was in fact a family of every backpackers nightmare... Bed Bugs! On arrival in Florence I found I had lines of welts appearing on my arms, legs, back, hands, stomach and even my eye lid! It was fascinating but creepy to see where they had walked over me in the night stopping along the way to have a little bite here and there. I was glad I was wearing jocks not boxer shorts or i may have been telling more of a horror story. Unfortunately (looking back now) I didn't take an photos of the evidence, it was a little depressing at the time, but it has taken a couple of weeks for them to disappear!

see the monster fish lurking below

I was thinking about having a swim

Its got the thumbs up from Ems!

Real Coffee

the city from the hill