Central Europe trip, Post 6: Schladming and Slovenia

On December 27th, we farewelled Peter, Rosi, Kat, Trev, Sharon, Matt and Dan, and set off for Lake Bled, Slovenia, where we would be spending the night en route to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

Before leaving Austria, however, we stopped for lunch in the town of Schladming, which is a special place for us... as it's where Ben proposed to me! (He proposed during our trip to Europe with his family and our friends for Matt and Kat's wedding in mid 2006. The scenic mountainous region of Austria where their wedding was held is a couple of hours from Peter's house.)

Once we arrived in Schladming (which was much more of a ski resort town than the romantic little mountain village of my memories!), of course we tried to re-trace our steps from that memorable day 7.5 years ago. :)

First, Ben went to the booth where he thought he had purchased the newspaper from that day. They were all sold out of die Kleine Zeitung (the "Little Newspaper") though!

Then, we headed to the bench seat where the actual proposal had taken place. Alas, the seat was gone... and on that street corner there was now some sort of bar or nightclub!! Again, it was more romantic in my memories...

This was the spot...

...but there was definitely no club behind us back then!

7.5 years later, and now we are three! :D

Then we went and ate lunch in the restaurant where we'd eaten lunch that day (pre-proposal) with all the guests that had arrived so far for the next day's wedding. The restaurant was completely different inside to the layout we vaguely recalled - I guess it had been renovated. However, the waitresses still wore the traditional Austrian dress like we remembered. And the meal was yummy!

Schladming pedestrian zone

Outside the restaurant

My lunch

After a bit of wandering through the shops and streets of Schladming, it was time to carry on towards Slovenia.

Hours later, after darkness had fallen and as we approached our destination, we were wondering if the GPS was leading us up the garden path! We were driving on little residential roads on the side of a mountain, with no lights of a township in sight. Luckily, I already knew that Bled was a small town and that our B&B was a little way outside it, so we carried on. And thankfully our GPS was right on the mark!

The next morning, after eating breakfast and packing up, we went outside and finally saw the stunning setting of our B&B. It was surrounded by green fields and quaint houses, with a sizeable snow-covered mountain rising up in the distance and peeking through a layer of cloud in the bright blue sky. Slovenia looked to be a very beautiful country indeed!

B&B

There's a huge mountain there somewhere...

Down in the town, we drove slowly around the edge of famous Lake Bled, gaping in awe at the spectacular view. Across the lake, an island monastery rose out of the still water above its shimmering reflection. Off to the side, we could see a massive château perched atop a rocky cliff, with an imposing snow-capped mountain in the background.

We had time to stop and take a few quick photos, but wanted to make the most of Finley's nap time to cover some ground towards Zagreb... so we couldn't stay and take a horse and carriage ride around the lake, or a boat ride out to the island, like a handful of other tourists were doing. But WOW - what a gorgeous place!

Photos taken by Ben from the edge of the lake...

Phone snaps taken by me from the back seat as we drove...

After leaving Bled, we crossed the border from Slovenia into Croatia, and broke up the drive by spending a couple of hours in a random but unremarkable Croatian town.

In the late afternoon, we arrived in the capital city, Zagreb, where our hotel in the city centre would be home for the next 3 nights. To be continued...