Category: Personal

Yesterday I thought I might make it to another hike in Logarska Dolina, but when I got up this morning it was raining heavily in the valley. I decided to continue straight to my next destination, Škocjan Caves. The karstic caves are huge and amazingly beautiful. Not only that, but there’s also a river flowing straight through them. I was lucky enough to see the river fiercely flowing through the cave at 50 cubic meters per second because it was raining lately. Most of the time the river (called “Reka Reka”, which means “the river River”) flows slowly inside the cave. Unfortunately it’s prohibited to take photos inside the cave, but if you’re interested you can see some in the official site.

After that I crossed over to Croatia. My destination was Plitvice Lakes National Park, which is where I am now. The drive was longer than I expected and driving through misty mountains in the rain on curvy narrow roads is less than optimal. On the other hand, I also got to drive highways at 130 km/h (that’s the speed limit) through magnificent scenery.

I’m spending the night very close to the park, hoping that by tomorrow it will rain less and I can go tour it. I still have to decide where to go afterwards. I might try Zagreb, even though I prefer nature over a city for this trip.

As you can see, there are just two pictures from the exit of Škocjan Caves and one of my dinner. The video is from this morning in Logarska Donlina.

I decided to take it easy today, even if this means missing out on things. But I think I did pretty well, as the pictures and video show. I saw a waterfall (Slap Savica) near Lake Bohinj, went up the cable car to mount Vogel for a great view of the lake, then drove to Logarska Dolina.

Logarska Dolina, a valley in the Kamnic Alps with only 35 residents, deserves a paragraph of its own. Words cannot describe how beautiful this place is. It’s like a painting of a scene from a fairytale. It has a big waterfall (Slap Rinka) and plenty of hiking routes. When I got here I drove straight to the waterfall, fearing that it will start raining or get dark. But then I saw an opportunity – a hiking trail up above the waterfall that only takes 45 minutes, so I did that hike even though I thought today would be about relaxation.

People I meet on the way are surprised of how I choose hiking trails. I decided to name this Spontaneous Hiking. Spontaneous Hiking is when you get to a place, see a trail and decide to hike it without planning. It immediately puts me on 5/10 in the being-out-of-my-comfort-zone scale because I have no idea what the trail will be like or where it would lead me. Hiking alone is a mental activity as much as it is physical.

After getting back from the hike I just walked around the valley and returned to the place where I will spend the night, right in the middle of this amazing place (see the pictures below.)

Tomorrow I think I will do another hike in the area (there are another 2 valleys) and then maybe a cave. I’ll try to make it to Croatia tomorrow as well, but I’m not sure I can make it.

If yesterday was themed with water, then today was a hiking day. I went up two trails in the Triglav National Park. Both hikes were pretty demanding physically, but the view from the top of the trails was totally worth it, as you can see in the pictures and videos.

(By the way, the pictures that appear smaller or cropped are actually high resolution, so watching them in full screen is recommended)

The first hike, to Mojstrovka, started at Vršič Pass, which is a high mountain pass across the Julian Alps. The second hike was supposed to be a 4 hour hike in the Triglav National park, but I didn’t make it on time to start such a long hike, so instead I walked up to the Ljuknja pass, a mere 2 hour hike.

I’m completely exhausted. I arrived at the beautiful Lake Bohinj but still have no idea what I’ll do here tomorrow. I still have other plans that I wish to do before moving on to Croatia, but I’m not sure I’ll manage to execute all of them. Also, it looks like it’s going to rain starting tomorrow, which may foil some of my plans.

Again I had trouble finding a single room in a place that has Internet and doesn’t cost like a high-end hotel. So tonight I’m staying at a hostel. The downside is that there’s Wi-Fi only in the lobby and not in the rooms. The upside is that I can do my laundry, something that I really needed after a day of hiking and seating.

After a good night’s sleep I went on to begin my trip. The hotel I slept in was very close to Lake Bled so I just walked over to the very beautiful lake and started walking around it. I also went up to the castle watching it.

If I try to describe the rest of the places I visited, I will quickly run out of words to say how beautiful these places were, so I’ll just name the names and you can see for yourselves in the pictures: Vintgar Gorge, Kozjak waterfall and a small part of the Soca river.

While my driving has improved, I still can’t drive like the locals here, who drive 90kph in mountain roads that I don’t dare go over 50 in. I usually stop on the side of the road and let them pass me before they get upset.

Finding a place to stay for the night was a small challenge – most places rent apartments and the owners refuse to rent to a single person even if he/she is willing to pay the price (“it’s impossible” is the answer.) I wonder why that is.

Today my trip was a little messy in terms of planning. While I enjoy the scenic driving very much, I don’t think my route is as optimal as it could be. I have to plan my days here better.

I arrived to Slovenia around 10pm without proper planning. Got my Hyundai i20 with stick shift (manual transmission) and started driving very slowly to Bled, my first destination. My GPS took me through some very curvy countryside roads until I realized the toll avoidance was on. I was so happy I found that out because the roads were getting curvier and narrower by the minute. Also, there is one very lucky deer, that nearly met its maker tonight, running around somewhere.

In Bled there was no place to stay that was open. The “Sobe”s (as they’re called) are usually privately managed and the owners go to sleep the same time as the guests. Eventually I found a hotel around 12:30am with a very nice woman at the reception who saw I was strung out and helped me a lot (mostly explained me about the surroundings, which calmed me down.)

I like being out of my comfort zone, e.g. driving in an unknown place in the middle of the night, looking for a place to stay and nearly deciding on sleeping in the car. But I only like it if I can get back to my comfort zone and there’s a happy ending. Live to tell the tale, so to speak. Today was a little frightening. 6 out of 10 in getting out of my comfort zone. Not too bad for day 1 of this trip :)

Today I continued to walk around and went to Lycabettus Hill, a great place to get a view of the city. On the way up I met J, an extremely smart and lovely girl, and we walked around a bit to the National Garden and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Hopefully she’ll come to The Prodigy show tonight with me.

Even though this is my 9th show over the past 18 months, I’m still very excited. Right now I’m back in my room, preparing mentally and physically by resting :)

This has never happened to me before – my flight was an hour early. The security person said this was normal since I bought the ticket before Israel switched to daylight savings time. The flight attendant said it was a mistake. Either way, I’m on my way to Athens, blogging from my phone, for the first time ever, out of sheer boredom.

As I arrived it turned out that my plans to take the metro to the station nearest to my hotel are not going to work out since a section of the metro, including said station, is going through the period in its existence some people may call “renovation” but I would call “the stupid fuckers should provide some assistance for uninformed tourists.”

I was saved by a free Wi-Fi network (thanks ONTelecoms, whoever you are), the GPS in my phone and brut maps, which together provided me walking directions to my hotel. Without these things I would have been forced to try and communicate with the natives, something undesirable as I’m sure you’ll agree.

My hotel room wasn’t ready yet so with help from Alex, the very nice guy at the hotel reception, I embarked on my traditional aimless walk of the local streets. This time it turned out well – as you can see from the pictures, I got to very nice places.

From a sleep apnea point of view – I’m normal.

My exes surely disagree :)