[amitwlele]

Awesome snaps mr.sinha. The snaps remind me of postcards or calendars which typically have such vistas on it.

I remember you mentioning about your not so good photography skills in one of the posts above. I think you are being modest.

[Sam Kapasi]

Not surprisingly, I found a Chinese restaurant

Finally reached the shores of Bohinj Lake.

.

Did you not try slovenian food? Pretty good.

Personally, I found Bohinj far more mystical and appealing than Bled. So happy you went there.
And lovely photos too.

[rahul_sinha]

Mr Sinha,
Splendid travelogue, especially travelling all alone in chilly winters of Europe. Awaiting the full story. Each photographs is a poetry in itself. The places and your photography both are awesome
Rated 5 stars!

[motomaverick]

Lovely photos and travel log, aptly depicting the winter in eastern Europe. One thing i noticed in the pictures is there are hardly any people in the streets, consideirng the population i can agree but aren't there any tourists as well?

[Figopian]

I am getting jealous, not just because you could visit these wonderful places but because you could do it alone It gives you complete flexibility to take any diversions and do exactly what you want to! The snaps are wonderful, postcards!!

[sachinj12]

Amazing log. Simply brilliant pics! And great narration too!

Glued to this thread. Post quickly.

Rating this thread a well deserved 5-star

[adg_andy]

Awesome travelogue I must say!! The 7th last pic in your last post is stuff that beautiful dreams are made of Nice way of narration (This coming from a Baba Samananada bhakt). Rated a well deserved 5 stars. Since you say that your photography is modest, I guess the credit should then go to your viewfinder which helped us view such amazing pics .

[IronH4WK]

Mr.Sinha, this travelogue of yours is really something!! beautiful pictures and very good narration!

thanks a lot for sharing; made my day

[goandude]

Excellent narrative and fabulous images. any one could be a postcard. The countryside you have caught reveals more about the place than any promo material

[Swanand Inamdar]

Originally Posted by mr.sinha

. They say there are three things which come up first in a new settlement. First is a church or a place of worship, next a bar, and the third, a brothel. It can be safely said that the fourth business which comes up there is a Chinese restaurant. They seem to be in every small town in every country around the world.

.

Awesome TL Mr. Sinha. The photos are lovely too.
Awaiting the next installments.

Suddenly, there is going to be a rise in the number of Indians visiting Crotia and Slovenia, thanks to you and Sam.

Carry on.

[Rudra Sen]

Originally Posted by mr.sinha

I tried my best. I am no Rudra Sen but I hope you all enjoy the photos.

Why this suddenly? Your images are immensely enjoyable and so is the reading. Loving each and every capture I see here. From your second group of images, that fourth one (hope I'm correct) has a tremendous similarity with Dal Lake.

Ok, please don't take so much time post more images. Loads of hungry types waiting here.

[mr.sinha]

Thank you all for your comments. All of these make my day too. I am glad you like the photographs as well, though personally I am not pleased with many of them. Rudra Sen was kind enough to share some post processing tips with me which I hope to apply in my yet unprocessed snaps.

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Did you not try slovenian food? Pretty good.

And lovely photos too.

Unless you count the breakfast served at the authentic Slovenian hotel I was staying in , I can't say I did.

Originally Posted by motomaverick

One thing i noticed in the pictures is there are hardly any people in the streets, consideirng the population i can agree but aren't there any tourists as well?

There were very few tourists too. The weather was just not good enough for tourism. That said, it was also my penchance to take vista photos without including people in them, so I had waited patiently on many occasions till the frame was free of the crowd. In some of the later days of the trip, whenever the weather was sunny and warmer,there were a lot more people walking on the streets which were captured in my photos.

Originally Posted by Figopian

It gives you complete flexibility to take any diversions and do exactly what you want to! The snaps are wonderful, postcards!!

Absolutely. I could never have done the things I did or the roads I travelled on or the risks I took in this trip if I was there with the family.

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

Suddenly, there is going to be a rise in the number of Indians visiting Crotia and Slovenia, thanks to you and Sam.

Carry on.

I hope so. That part of Europe is indeed so beautiful my photographs do not do proper justice at all. Underdeveloped, less touristy, raw beauty, and comparatively cheaper than Western Europe.

Originally Posted by Rudra Sen

Why this suddenly?

Because your photographs are some of the absolute best I have seen on this forum. Getting to your level of photography is an amateur photographer's dream, including mine. No kidding.

[mr.sinha]

The travelogue continues.This is the rest of Day 2.



The road leading out from under the yellow house. Imagine you are in the bedroom above doing what you do best, on a busy traffic day. The rumble from the passing cars underneath could give you some cheap thrills, I imagine.



After driving around for a few hours, I reached this hut near a ski slope. It was snowy and icy but not enough snow to ski. There were a few locals hanging around, so I got in there to get a coffee.



Back on the road to Triglav, and passed through some more villages on the way.



You can see the ski slope in the distance.







Inside Triglav, reached this place with a small ski slope where kids and adults were having fun, and some cross-country skiing.






It was around late afternoon, and with not much daylight left, I decided to head back to Bled.

A few photographs on the way.




As I was approaching the city of Bled, I noticed a signboard with directions to Bled castle. So I thought, why not visit that too. It was on the top of a mountain and a short drive up.

This is the base of the castle with ample space for parking.



The city of Bled from the ramp of the approach road into the castle.



Entry fee: 8 Euros.

Inside the castle grounds:






The island in the middle of Lake Bled, as seen from the castle.



On the way out of the castle. Fraulein not feeling cold on her legs.



It was already dark by the time I reached Bled city. A few night time shots of the castle and a church along Lake Bled.






Then proceeded to a good dinner, while chatting up with Leya, a beautiful bartender who spoke excellent English. She was a student at Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia - 'j' pronounced as 'y-a-w') University, and regaled me with many tourist stories.

Apparently Italians comprise the biggest group of tourists to Slovenia, followed by the Germans, but unlike the prim and proper, well-behaved Germans, the Italians are very loud, rowdy and noisy, and don't tip, and the locals there really hate them. I smiled thinking about the somewhat similar culture that I myself belonged to. Yeah, we Indians are loud and noisy too, I think.

So that was the end of Day 2 of my trip. Up until now the trip was more or less sedate. Tomorrow would turn out to be an interesting day, in fact one of the rare sunny days I got, and a very memorable drive (in a negative way) on the road to Plitvicka Jezera in Croatia.

[subodh]

That is one amazing travelogue, Mr. Sinha. The photos are amazing. Loved every single one of it. Your narration is also witty, adding more fun to an already amazing TL.

Suddenly, the urge to visit Eastern Europe has gone up by a notch or two.
Please continue. Probably, by the end of your TL, I might just be tempted to make a trip there .

[mr.sinha]

Day 3 (Dec 25, 2011):

Christmas Day. Today the plan was to head back into Croatia, but hit some cities along the west Adriatic coast first, before finally heading east to Plitvicka in interior Croatia.

So after another good sized portion of the free breakfast, I checked out of the hotel. I had a feeling that on Christmas Day, I wouldn't get too many shops or restaurants open. As it turned out, I wasn't too wrong.

Being Christmas and all, I left some tips for the room cleaning staff.

Tips: 5 Euro

Noticed these cars in the hotel parking lot.

ESTEEM is sold as SWIFT in Slovenia.



Fiat PUNTO is rebadged BRAVO.



Before leaving Bled, one more shot of Bled lake and the island. Here I wished I had a zoom lens though.



Some swans hanging around near the shoreline.





I also filled up gas. Coming from the US, petrol was considerably expensive at Euro 1.33 per Liter = USD 1.7 per liter = USD 6.5 per Gallon. Now compare that to USD 3.5 per gallon in the USA.

Even In India, petrol is slightly cheaper than Slovenia. At INR 74/liter and an exchange rate of 1 Euro = INR 65, it comes to Euro 1.14/liter in India.

I filled up 25 liters. Noticed that the right front tire had lost some air pressure, so filled up air in that tire too. It was a long drive ahead.

Gas: 33 Euros.
Air: free
Water (1.5 L): 1 Euro

I started driving around 9 am and I was hoping that I would finish visiting the coastal cities in Croatia by 3 pm and start the approximately 2.5-3 hours drive from Rijeka (on the coast) to Plitvicka which would give me enough daylight hours. I wanted to reach Plitvicka before it got too dark, because Plitvicka is right in the middle of the mountains and the terrain is not too conducive to high speed driving particularly at night.

But man proposes, God disposes. Or maybe I should say, the bloody GPS disposes in my case.



After about 2 hours of driving, I crossed into Croatia and was driving along the countryside on the way to Rovinj.



Castle on top of a mountain in the village of Buzet.



Passing thru a two-bit deserted Croatian village on the way to Rovinj.



Rovinj is a very beautiful coastal town in Croatia.

It was a warm and sunny day. My just-in-case light fleece jacket which I had packed came in handy. It was too warm for the heavy down jacket.

Some shots of the seaside, marina and the Rovinj Grad.





It was around 10 degrees C and people were sitting around soaking in the sun. The facade of the bank building looked beautiful.



One more shot of the marina before getting back into the car.



Saw this beautiful old yellow Mustang parked along the quay.



As I headed out of Rovinj towards my next stop, Pula, I saw this beautiful stone village house.




Ladies and Gentlemen, the Coliseum or whatevers left of it.



No, I had not driven into Rome. Apparently the Romans really liked to watch Russell Crowe fight with the savages at every opportunity, so they built a few more of these coliseums wherever they ruled.

This one is in the city of Pula.



Some more shots.





On Christmas Day, the center of the city was deserted.



All the restaurants were closed. This one got its consonants wrong.



An electric outlet cover on the road. Remember your Roman numerals? I figure this reads 1995.



I was very hungry, but even McDonalds was closed. I was definitely not loving it.



The only thing open was this tent where they were getting ready for a rock concert in the evening. No food.

i just munched on some of my peanut bars.



It was already 4 pm and I was running late. I had intended to start driving to Plitvicka around 3 pm. A couple of more shots before hurrying back to the car.

No cable TV in these houses.



This, I believe is the Temple of Augustus.



Last shot of the coliseum.




After about an hour of driving on country roads and passing through Rijeka, I hit the Zagreb-Split highway (also called the A1 highway) for a 100 km long stretch before the real fun began.

A Croatian sunset by the side of the highway where I had stopped for an emergency bio-break. And in case you are wondering, I did use a hand sanitizer before touching my camera. Biwi ka training



The Zagreb-Split highway was really one of the best highways to drive on in this region. It has 4-lanes, two on each side and is maintained very well. It passes through a lot of hilly and mountainous terrain though. On the 100km stretch, I had to go through 25-30 tunnels but was able to maintain an average speed of 80-100 km/h. Its a tolled highway, but paying the toll was worth it.

Total toll paid: 55 Kuna

Why paying the toll was worth it became apparent as I was approaching the Plitvicka region. There was heavy snowfall earlier in the day in that area, but the highway was nicely ploughed and cleared up. The heavy amount of snowfall was apparent from the huge piles of snow on both sides of the road and beyond.
I would guess that the region had received at least 10-12 inches of snowfall in the past 12 hours.

The next three hours would turn out to be particularly tough, exhausting and something I'd remember for a long time.