New Year in spendiferous snowy Bled
And so it was... the end of the year that was 2007, a year that seemed to have more than its fair share of births, deaths, marriages, tragedies and comedies.
Spent the last two days of it in absolute bliss in Bled, a town of 6000 local people (as well as every Italian, Austrian, Slovenian and Croatian who"s got the sense to have a holiday house here!) that"s up north in Slovenia quite close to the Austrian border. Essentially, it"s a lake about the size of Lake Wendouree for my Ballarat buddies or just a bit bigger than Albert Park Lake (for those in Melbourne) - i.e. about 6kms in circumference. Major difference being that unlike Australian lakes, this one"s actually got water in it. Planted in the middle of the lake is a small island with a church on it (why not?), and on the northern side up a massive cliff face is the requisite castle.
I"m staying in a fantastic Hotel (Berc), run by a guy called Luka who"s a bit manic but is pretty fantastic. Rates are 45euro/night ($65ish including great breakfast) and I can"t describe it well enough except to say that it"s pretty much the opposite of my previous communist office! There"s only 15 rooms and it"s more like a big house than a hotel.
The hotel isn"t quite on the lake but only two minutes walk down a snowy road so I headed down for the midnight fireworks tonight... was a bit strange having gotten "happy new year" messages from all my Aus friends when I hadn"t gotten there yet! There was so much snow and fog tonight that the fireworks sort of disappeared into the ether - just had the effect of making lots (and lots) of noise but not much of a show.
Hardly matters though - it was ten below zero, snowing, I was in the most beautiful place in the world, and there"s a whole new year ahead.
Heading to Trencin tomorrow in far northwestern Slovakia, which entails 12 hours on five different trains through three countries.
Happy New Year everyone ;-)
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