Slovenia

Spent the night in Ljubljana, then rented a car and headed south to the Skocjan caves. Typically when I travel I stick to museums and city sites, so it was fabulous to head to a natural wonder of the country. The caves where HUGE, and we were jazzed to see a cluster of bats towards the exit. Our guide may or may not have been a really cute Slovenian man which may or may not have made the caves even better. After, we decided to check out the Italian coastal town Trieste, just over the border (30-45 min from the caves), with a detour to a fancy horse ranch (we were just looking for bikes to rent, and were led there!). We ate pastries and got a quick history lesson from a local pastry chef, then ate delicious Italian lasagna before dipping our feet into the Mediterranean with the help of a drunk local. Gelatto stop, then meandered back to the car. Trieste was fascinating, both because of its history of occupation (has been occupied by Austria, Italy, Germany, the US, itself, and is now back to Italy all within 100 years) and because of its Austrian architecture. It felt much more like Vienna to me than Florence, and our friendly local told us that the city identified more with Austria than with Italy. Fascinating. Drove out of the city (took forever-very confusing exit) and drove through/over a forest fire! Huge smoke clouds were billowing up from below the freeway! Crazy. Drove to Lake Bled where our small hotel was closed, so we had to scramble for another place to stay. Hooray for hostels that are open later than 10 pm.