Pictures from Slovenia and Italy

 Hey! So these are pictures that I took while traveling through Slovenia and Italy.  We spent a day in Ljubljana, two days in Bled, a day in Piran, and then three days in Venice and a day in Padova.  I traveled with Kelli, Abby, Peter, Bert, and Danny, all of whom are in the IES program and are incidentally string players of some sort (except Bert plays Accordion, but has not been caught by the Austrian police yet.  It's only a matter of time).  I hope you enjoy seeing the countryside and natural beauty of Slovenia, as well as the romantic city of Venice and lastly the magnificent Medieval cathedral of St. Anthony in Padova.

Squeezin' the Juice! From left to right: Kelli, Abby, Bert, Danny, and Peter

Ljubljana

Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana

Kelli, Abby and me on Dragon Bridge before grabbing lunch at the Saturday morning market

The steep pathway up to the fortress that is in the middle of the city.  The fortress was built in the 1500s to fortify against the Turks.

We climbed the tower of the fortress and could see all of Ljubljana

My new Roman 'do in the Slovenian History Museum, with Danny silently judging my fashion sense in the background.

 This is Lake Bled! We took a bus here the next day after we had spent a full day in Ljubljana.  We found our hostel and then walked around the lake in search of a place to swim.  After we swam in the water, we walked some more, and then decided to take rowboats to the small island in the middle of the lake.

Bert was a natural at rowing.  I rowed on the way back and it was HARD!!  Bert had made it look so easy!!

On the island of Lake Bled

There is a small chapel on the island.  I accidentally evaded paying to enter the chapel, somehow...I just didn't see the kiosk to pay and went right in.  There's a long rope in the middle of the room that is connected to a bell that you can ring.  When I was first in there, I was the only person, so I rang the bell :)

 After spending the day and evening on Lake Bled, the next day we walked about an hour away from the lake to a gorge.  We saw pastoral scenes like this along the way, and then the gorge was like being in the mountains--crisp, cool, leaves changing color--it was beautiful.

 And then this was I think my favorite part of Slovenia: Piran.  It is on the coast of the Adriatic and is a stone's throw from Italy.  In fact, I think it might have been Italy at some point in history before 1848 when the nation borders were redrawn following war.  We swam here too, and after dinner we skipped rocks on the beach.  We also discovered that the violinist Tortelli was born here, which was a nice surprise for the string players among us.

And then VENICE! I was in heaven here.  I would occasionally slap myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.  I was very, very happy in Venice!

our apartment in Venice

We cooked dinner at our apartment!

Only downside: there were lots and lots of people there like us touring.  San Marco was a nuthouse.

Rockin' my 12 euro Italian sunglasses, lol.

My mom took a picture in front of this bridge when she came to Venice as a young woman, so I thought I should do the same out of tradition.  However, you may notice that the Bridge of Sighs looks a little strange behind me...that's because it is!  They put this blue skyline wallpaper up on either side of it, I think because they are doing construction around it, but it looks super weird!

Our apartment was down this street, near what used to be the Jewish ghetto of Venice.

 Last but not least, Padova and the incredible basilica of St. Anthony! We just happened to go into the basilica--we were just going to get food, but then we saw that this was still open so we decided to run in.  It is a huge cathedral, possibly as big as the cathedral in Cologne, if not bigger.  St. Anthony's tomb is also there.  There was a mass going on when I went in, but people were allowed to walk through the cathedral during.  Honestly, the space was so big that it wouldn't really disrupt anything.  People were praying at the tomb of St. Anthony, one mother was lifting up her son so he could put his hands on the green marble, his feet dangling on the small ledge of the tomb. Even though I'm not Catholic, it was moving to witness people's faith.