Austria and Slovenia (27/02-06/03) Updated 21-3

Feb 27th

We set foot on Vienna late that night as it has become another trade mark of our travels. Fortunately, this time, the hostel was only 3 block away from the train station.
The cultural change was again quite remarkable; the Hungarian politeness was replaced by a rather cold Germanic reception. Needless to mention, the financial aspects of our travels changed as dramatically as the languages at hand. While in Romania and Hungary our daily budget would rarely go over €20, inclusive of travels expenditures. In Vienna, on the other hand, only the hostel chopped €24 of our savings per day!

Feb 28th

Among several other things we wanted to do in Vienna, seeing Mozart's and Beethoven's former residences and eating chocolate croissants were at the top of our list. We were fortunate enough to be in Vienna on a Sunday, when most Museums and art galleries are either half-price or free! In particular, the Clock Museum was one of them; this place was really neat. Consisting of three floors overburdened with clocks, arranged in chronological order (ironically enough), the Clock Museum hosts the biggest collection of clocks in Europe. Two of them were particularly amazing: the piece de resistance, an astronomical clock of 1663 (incredibly complex clock) and an astrological one; in the shape of a sphere representing earth, this clock follows the motion of various celestial bodies that are relevant for astrological predictions.
Later on that afternoon, after paying almost €6 for a chocolate croissant and a coffee, Ellen and I decided that our visit to Vienna was destined to end eerily soon. We had plans to stop by Graz on our way to Ljubljana, maybe for a day or so, but this place was way beyond our budget. More so than Vienna!

Lovely!

La casa de Mozart

The main square in Vienna

March 1st:

Without knowing what to expect from Slovenia, we arrived at the unpronounceable capital of Ljubljana sometime after 9 pm. Actually the name becomes a lot easier if you pronounce the "js" as "ys"!!!

The Dragon Bridge

Our hostel for the night was probably the only one worth mentioning out of all of the ones we stayed at so far. The essence of this hostel (Celica) was that of a military prison, literally! The actual building is a former prison remodeled into a hostel, with every room designed by a Slovene artist. It was, by all measures, the best hostel I've ever seen. Moreover, the first floor was an art gallery, again with art pieces from Slovene artists, standing just a few feet away from the trendiest bar in Slovenia.

March 2nd:

After realizing how neat Celica is, we wanted to stay for a second night. Unfortunately, the prices, for whatever wicked reason may be, went up way too much for the next night. This propelled us to find a more suitable alternative somewhere else in Ljubljana. The hostel of choice was Aladdin's Hostel. At first it seemed rather nice, but what manifested ITSELF at night time was what got us to flee such misery of a dump for good!
Before so, we roamed aimlessly around the beautiful capital of Slovenia. The medieval Old Town surrounds a hill with a castle perched atop and is inhabited by countless coffee and pastry shop. The mood of Ljubljana is rather chill and young, perfect for our short stay in such place. One thing in particular seemed a bit hard to digest though. Horse burgers that is!! Yup, bun-horse-bun meals were advertised in a few places around Ljubljana as if they were regular Kebabs or Hot dogs!

As advertised!

Finally it was time to go back "home," the hostel that is. We have some dinner and just as we're about to finish cleaning up the area the kitchen door slams open by what seemed to be nothing but a karate kick. Stumbling and cursing in Slovene, a rather young and wasted, fellow makes his way into the kitchen. He then, unexpectedly, tells us that he is the security guard of the hostel and not to "fuck with him or he will fuck with us." This self declared paranoid-schizophrenic proceeds to bend my wrist in search of the time and offer us cocaine or marijuana to ease our stay in that dump of a place. Needless to mention how quickly we left this weirdo alone with excuses of tiredness and such. Once we entered our room, part 2 begun. The sheets were literally covered with hairs that were too dark to be Ellen's and too long to be mine. This was accompanied with some lovely yellow stains on the pillows; some resembling some popular political figures :) I mean, I've stayed in some really bad hostels, but this was nuts!
Quite early the next morning we left hell behind and, with our tails in between our legs, returned to Celica; that by an act of goodness dropped their prices back to normal.

March 3rd

After devouring our free breakfast provided by Celica, out again we went to finalize our visit to Ljubljana. The weather this day was particularly wet, which forced us to stay in the hostel and munch on some incredible Slovenian pastries for what remained of the third day of March.

March 4th

In search of the Julian Alps, we left our beloved, young and hip Ljubljana this same morning. A 2 hour bus ride ended in Bled, a quiet and dreamy town that sits on the end of a lake in the heart of the Julian Alps. The lake is home to a Lilliputian island with a church built on top and a castle, built atop one of the many mountains that surrounds Bled, oversees the entire area from above. Accompanied by a constant drizzle we embarked on a 6 km walk around this beautiful lake, who was plagued with ducks and geese. On the other hand, Bled is absolutely dead on this time of year, so any trail or outdoor activity is postponed until summer due to meters upon meters of snow!

Not a bad view!

Bled

A think I might have taken at least 20 pics of this

March 5th

Just a few minutes West of Bled lies Bohinj National Park; a handful of towns, a few lakes and the Julian Alps decorate this place, to look like something out of a fairy tale. We arrived somewhere around noon, had a few bites to eat and commenced our usual aimless walks around the area. At about 2 pm the sky complete cleared up to reveal the incredible mountain range that was disguised by the clouds before so. After being spoiled by this scenery we embarked on our way back to Bled in search of some food and shelter.

A town in Bohinj National Park

Frrrrrozen lake

March 6th

The weather, as capricious as it is, made it almost impossible for us to leave Bled; with the sun shinning on our backs we hopped on a train that was destined to arrive, that same afternoon, in Zagreb, Croatia!
Our first impression of Zagreb was unexpected. The city looked, undoubtedly, beautiful. Given that our train ride took most of our day, we had only time to have some dinner and party with quite an international crew. Davor, the hostel owner, was the heart of this part. This fun loving Croatian fellow decided to, as drunk as he was, lecture us on former Yugoslavia, Religion, God and woman! Awesome night indeed!

....out of time again, stay tuned!......