Phot-o' the Day: The Sava River, outside of Bled, Slovenia

I have posted many pictures of Lake Bled in Slovenia. I'm not yet willing to say that it's the most beautiful acreage on planet earth that I have seen thus far, but I do know it would be under very serious consideration. And the beauty of the area is not limited to the namesake lake. Case in point: the Sava River just outside of town, just over a mountain ridge from the lake.

This is from my "off road" segway tour of Lake Bled back in September 2014.

Phot-o' the Day: Pletna Boats in the Rain, with Castle; Lake Bled, Slovenia

Pass the word the pics are back.

After taking a few weeks off, I'm back to posting phot-o's the day. And I am getting back into the groove by posting a pic from what I consider the most photogenic place on earth, at least among places I've visited. Lake Bled, Slovenia. These are the rowing-powered pletna boats (used to transport us tourists to the island in the middle of the lake with the church on it), at the dock waiting out the rain, with the imposing Bled Castle looming large high atop a rock face, on the other side of the lake.

This was from my first visit to Lake Bled, back in May 2010.

In Honor of National Accordion Month: the Accordion Man of Preseren Square

June is National Accordion Month. It is the time to celebrate that melodious but most maligned of musical instruments. The accordion sounds like a portable organ, with the amplification being supplied by the muscle of the accordionist, whose continual squeezing of the squeezebox forces out those dulcet tones.

And who better to bring out in honor of National Accordion Month but the Accordion Man of Preseren Square in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On a trip to the Slovene capital back in September 2014, the Accordion Man was out there in the most central square in downtown Ljubljana, entertaining the crowds for coins thrown in his accordion case, in the late morning when we met up with our walking tour guide. Then, several hours later, after a leisurely dinner along the waters of the Ljubljanica River that meanders through town, well after dark, the Accordion Man was still squeezing out the dulcet tones in Preseren Square. The Accordion Man truly is the hardest working man in show business. (Well, Slovenian show business at least.)

Happy National Accordion Month from the Accordion Man of Preseren Square.

Phot-o' the Day: Rower; Lake Bled, Slovenia

A rower on the lake. The lake is Lake Bled, Slovenia, as evidenced buy the island with the church on top in the background.

If it seems like Lake Bled is the subject of a lot of Phot-o's the Day, that's because it is. It might be the most photogenic place I've yet visited. This is from the September 2014 visit.

Phot-o' the Day: Lipica Stud Farm, Lipica, Slovenia

Meet a real Lipizzaner stallion. Lipizzaners are those snowy white performing horses that are a major tourist attraction in Vienna. But they are not Austrian. They are Slovene. From Lipica, Slovenia, to be exact.

And you can see the Lipizzaners up close and personal at the Lipica Stud Farm in the southwest of Slovenia. I would say that it is not far from Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, but everything in Slovenia is not far from Ljubljana. Ljubljana is in the dead center of the country, and it's not an especially large country.

Visited October 2019.

Valentine's Phot-o' the Day: Butcher's Bridge, Ljubljana, sLOVEnia

A special "love love love" edition of the "Phot-o' the Day" for the Day of Love, St. Valentine's Day 2020.

This is from the Butcher's Bridge, Ljubljana, sLOVEnia. (Which is how I will spell the name of this country for the duration of the One Single Day Dedicated to Love on the calendar.)  This is from my visit to Ljubljana in September 2014.

sLOVEnia is the only country on the planet with the word "love" embedded in its name. (I believe.) (Please correct me if I am wrong.) (I don't like to be wrong on matters of geography.)  There are a lot of very romantic places in sLOVEnia, including this bridge over the Ljublanica River in Ljubljana, which, incidentally, is the only modern bridge spanning the Ljubljanica in the city's historic core.

This is the first place, in all of my traveling, where I saw one of those "love lock" bridges, where the couple in love locks a lock to the bridge and throws the key into the river because their love will be eternal so long as the lock is locked .  It's a thing now pretty much all over Planet Earth.  (They use bolt cutters to regularly cut them off the Charles Bridge in Prague, for example.  Love is not meant to last in Prague.)  The place I saw this global phenomenon first was the Butcher's Bridge in Ljubljana. Butcher's Bridge?

Where you get locked into love? I hope that's not a metaphor.

Bič, Slovenia: Driving Down Route 105 in Slovenia

The things one finds humorous when one has begun to have a rudimentary grasp of a foreign tongue.

In Slovenian, as in Croatia, the consonant "č," a "c" with a breve over the top of it (thank you wikipedia for finding that name) is pronounced "ch." Which means I found hilarity in this one place name in the Slovenian hinterlands:
Straight ahead, on the way to Ljubljana, Litija, and Šentvid, is a town where you don't want to tangle with the womenfolk.

The sign was all the closer I wanted to get.

Bled, Slovenia: Birthday Dinner

The castle was not available!

I was very much looking forward to having my half-century birthday dinner in the 1000-year-old castle (even older than me!) towering over Lake Bled. I was told that I would not need a reservation this time of year. Turns out, the castle was booked. By some hotel. No castle.

So, of course, I moped. Momentarily.

Luka, the owner of the Garni Hotel Berc, saw that I was disappointed. He called to make me a reservation at the Ostarija Peglez'n in Bled. He kept talking in Slovenian to the person on the other end, so I didn't know what was up. I went to the restaurant, which was a short walk from the hotel. I had a table reserved. In the back. Next to a group -- started as five but grew to seven -- jabbering on and on about international fiberglass. C'mon folks. You are in a beautiful vacation destination and there's five guys yammering as if they had no life other than fiberglass.

Anyway, I had a delicious filet of sole. For the appetizer, I could not decide between the octopus salad (salata od hobotnice, I believe) -- which is really a Dalmatian specialty and is incedibly more delicious than it sounds -- and the Slovenian prosciutto (pršut). So they gave me half and half! Being a birthday boy has its privileges. Both the octopus salad and the pršut were awesome. The sole was light and tasty, served over mixed grilled vegetables. Yum. E.

Then came dessert. And this was an unexpected pleasure. Luka apparently told the owner of the restaurant it was my birthday, so he brought out a tiramisu with a candle in it:

I know I know I know I know. I'm not supposed to eat that! But it was looking so delicious. And it looked like it had far more marscapone than cake. And it would've been ultra-extra-rude for me to refuse.

So I ate it.

And, birthday miracle, I had no "reaction." I will not go into details about what said "reaction" entails, but some of you can fill in the blanks.

I washed it down with a borovnica. What's that? Slovenian blueberry schnapps. And all I have to say about the borovnica is this: Where have you been all of my life?

It was thick and purply-blue and, this is key, very very blueberry. It could be the most awesomestly delicious ice cream topping of all time!

So, if you're ever in Bled, I would heartily recommend Ostarija Peglez'n.

And, birthday miracles continue, by the conclusion of my dinner, the rain had let up and it was almost sunny. Time to walk off dinner with a stroll around the lake.