Slovenia: A Story of Unexpected Adventures & Extraordinary Strangers

One day back in 2012, I was reading over the latest posts from Young Adventuress (a successful travel blogger who participated in the same program in Spain that I’m working in now) when an idyllic photo caught my eye. It was an impossibly perfect turquoise lake with a castle in the middle perched on a tiny island and surrounded by bright green mountains. Taking a closer look, I found that this lovely place was called Lake Bled and is located in Slovenia. Reading a little more about the many biking, hiking, boating experiences to be had in the area and thoroughly devouring all the photo eye candy that is this picturesque oasis, I decided right then and there that I had to visit this place one day.

Source

Fast-forward to a cold winter day in 2013, I was getting a head start on my Spring break planning when a friend invited me to visit her in Vienna, Austria. Having heard only wonderful things about the city and jumping at the chance to see an old friend and get a tour from an experienced native, I bought my flight right away. With a total of 6 days to travel outside Spain (a luxuriously long time in my long weekend trained, travel planning brain), I pulled out a map and began to search for other cities I might visit during my trip.

Most other travelers would look at that map and immediately see the chance to visit places like Prague and Budapest, but oh no, not me… the first thing I saw was Slovenia, just past the southern Austrian border. All of the sudden that perfectly blue lake with its castle on an island and surrounded by spring flowers filled my mind. It didn’t take much more consideration to realize I was going to Lake Bled by the end of March.

An example of tunnel vision

Fast-forward another three months. I’ve just spent an amazing few days in Vienna, taking in the endless scene of monuments and even more monumental buildings and eating my way through schnitzel (cuts of meat pounded super thin, breaded and deep fried), goulash (a stew of meat and noodles in strong, dark, paprika based sauce), Austrian sausages (super tasty, especially from a late night food stand), and sachertorte (Viennese chocolate cake).

Finally, the night before my much awaited Slovenia trip arrived. I had been watching the weather forecast for days and despite various predictions of snow I didn’t pay much attention. Perhaps I was in denial, that ever-present picture of the oasis still swirling in my head… How much could the weather really affect such a perfect place? Yes, of course it’s 6 hours and 3 train rides away, but when will I ever be this close to Bled again in my life? I pushed forward with my original plan and trudged through the snow in Vienna to buy my not so reasonably priced train tickets at the station the next morning.

I boarded my first train and picked my seat. Only a few minutes into the journey I realized I had picked perhaps the only seat in the whole train across from two young guys speaking Spanish. Just my luck. But of course, I couldn’t get up the courage to talk to them the whole 4-hour ride to the Austrian-Slovenian border. I was too nervous thinking about my next train transfer, which was a nail bitingly short time of only seven minutes. After sleeping intermittently and only half paying attention to the book I had brought with me, I finally heard the words I had been waiting for: “Next station: Villach.”

I jumped up quickly, grabbed by bag and just before bolting for the door I heard my seatmates ask me, in Spanish, if this stop was Villach. As excited as I was to hear Spanish for the first time on this trip, I was on a mission to get off that train. I replied with a quick sí and ran, climbing over a baby stroller, to pry open the train door. I jumped off and turned around just in time to see the two Spanish-speaking guys leaping off the train behind me, the train starting to move away, and a train employee yelling at us about something I couldn’t understand in German. Turning back around, it took just anther belated second to realize, this was not my stop, the train was already leaving… and I had brought these two guys with me on an ill-fated journey.

So much for that seven minute connection. It was all I could do to hold it together. This was only the first leg in a long series of trains I had to catch that day and I had already screwed it up. In my fog of “what do I do now” a voice made it into my head saying “traaaanqui, amiga… no pasa naaada ¿de dónde sos?” I immediately recognized the accent. These guys were from Argentina. With a quick roll of the eyes up to God in heaven, clearly letting Him know this wasn’t funny and my luck just wasn’t that good, I turned around and formally introduced myself to my new friends. Just to be clear, I hadn’t met another Argentine since I left the country over two years ago and hearing that accent was like music to my ears. It was possibly one of the most comforting things that could have happened to me in that moment.

Oh how I had missed this accent... and this food :)

With continued reassurances, we walked down the platform to look at the schedule for the next train that would take us to the correct station. It came to our station within minutes but took over twenty minutes to arrive in Villach which I soon found out would mean a four hour layover waiting for the next train to Jesenice, Slovenia. But instead of sitting on my butt for those four hours by myself, some sort of destiny caused me to end up spending two of those hours hanging out in a pizza shop with two new Argentine friends, catching up on news from down south and brushing up on my accent (which, for those who might be wondering, is nothing at all as Argentine as it used to be… Spain has officially taken control of me ;). Later, after exchanging names (for facebook purposes, of course), I wished my friends goodbye as they boarded a bus bound for Venice.

The train ride to Jesenice was uneventful and a short 50 minutes. However, when I got off, I found myself in an entirely new environment. Somehow in those 50 minutes I had been transported from the modernity and cleanliness of an Austrian train station to a dark, dingy, half a century old Slovenian station, complete with graffiti, barred and locked doorways and a deserted ticket office. In fact, within minutes of getting off the train I discovered I was waiting alone with only a group of miscreant teenagers to keep me company. Cold and without a single bench to sit on, I paced the platform and street outside the station, trying to entertain myself for an hour and half while waiting for my next (and thankfully last) train.

As it got progressively darker, I finally saw a train chugging in from a distance. Seeing its heavily painted, graffitied exterior did not lift my spirits much and as I filed into the car with the five other people waiting on the platform I had new fears about missing my stop in Bled.  There were no announcements made about next stations and the only indication of each stop were the station name signs as we pulled into each new destination, barely visible through the dark, snowy night outside my window. Needless to say, after nearly 12 hours of traveling and waiting I was on edge and might have lost it right there and then.

But, once again, God had other plans: sitting in the seats next to me were two boys about my age from Malaysia. Rather than most train rides where little is said between strangers in the same car, these two, chatty guys wanted to know everything about me, leaving me little time to worry about my current situation. They said they had been studying in Finland and were now traveling a bit for vacation (they enjoyed the snow and cold very much after spending their whole lives in the heat). I told them a little about myself and my travels and they were amazed to hear I was a teacher… “But you so young.”

Remarkably, the company of these two friendly, strangers managed to calm me down, and about the time my stop was approaching they jumped up eagerly to confirm with the train attendant that I needed to get off there. Much relieved, I left them quickly with my name scribbled on the back of a ticket, wished them a very sincere nice to meet you, and hopped off the train… right into a snowdrift.

Apparently, the Bled train station does not have a platform. And with a single street lamp shining down on me I could only squint through the snow to see a solitary man standing across the way in a conductor’s uniform, motioning me forward. I was the only one that got off the train. I asked the man if there was a bus that passed by this station and he replied with a nearly laughing… “No, but you can walk.” Yes, I had planned to walk the 2 km to the hostel earlier in the day, when I thought it would be a clear, sunny afternoon. But now, at 8pm a 30-minute walk through the pitch black forest didn’t sound so romantic. Seeing my incredulous face, the man then offered to call me a taxi, to which I replied in somewhat fewer words: yes, sir, I do believe that would be the more intelligent decision.

Waiting outside the station in the drifting snow, I wondered at how (and even why) I had arrived at this far away, deserted place.

Finally arriving at the hostel, the woman who checked me in did not raise my spirits. She explained that with so much snow and ice in the area heading out on a bike was not possible, boating was not available, hiking was not advisable and most everything in town was closed due to the lack of tourism. To top it all off, my obviously excellent planning up until this point had allowed me exactly 24 hours in Bled and having arrived late and after dark I had already lost the better part of that time. My last possible train out of Bled and back to Vienna to arrive on time for my flight to Spain was at 1pm the following day.

Extremely disappointed but trying as hard as ever to maintain my glass half full perspective, I went to bed early that night, resolving to get up literally at the crack of dawn to get out and explore what little I could.

As it turns out, my positivity was not in vain. The next morning, I was greeted with soft sunlight creeping in my window and snow still falling slowly outside. Once out and about I found a quaint bar to have a coffee and picked up two pastries for the road from a local bakery. Wading carefully through the snow in the direction of the lake, I found myself face to face with the perfect winter wonderland, completely white and peacefully quiet.

Over the next three hours I took my time following the path around the lake, stopping to take photos at every turn of the seemingly black and white landscapes and standing in awe of this unlikely and unforeseen paradise. The castle on an island I had been envisioning for so long looked totally different from my original turquoise-green, spring paradise. Nevertheless, it took on an entirely new, equally enchanting hue I never could have expected.

Wandering back into town was like finding myself in a fairytale book of tiny wooden houses placed on a hill, complete with a white, steepled church and medieval castle. The only people I ran into all morning were locals from the area walking their dogs, jogging or going about their business for the day.

At 12:30 I gathered up my things and headed back to the train station. The taxi driver addressed me in a lovely, Eastern European accent, telling me about his life in this small town where he grew up and all its beauty and activity during the warmer months. “Is much more to see in summer, “ he said, “people enjoy a lot.”

As I entered the tiny train station I ran those words over and over again in my head, expecting to feel some sort of regret, sadness at not having been able to have the experience of other tourists. But, somehow that feeling didn’t come. Thinking back over the last 24 hours I could only be thankful. Thankful for having met so many extraordinarily kind strangers, thankful for being able to experience the city in all its winter peacefulness, and above all, thankful for having come to understand one thing about travel… It’s really not the amount of time you spend in a place or the circumstances in which you find it, what matters is through what lens you look upon your experience and what lessons you allow it to teach you.

Thank you, Slovenia, I will be back.