Keith's Blog: Rijeka and Ribcev Laz

From Pazin I was headed to Ljubljana and than on to Bohinj Lake. I had to go via Rijeka so caught a bus from Pazin and on arriving in Rijeka found the next train was a couple of hours away. I got a locker for my bag and headed to the Trsat Castle which had been closed when I had looked around the city on Monday. With some help from a nice lady I caught the right bus up to the castle and church. The church is some type of a site for pilgrims and when I arrived at the church there was a mass taking place so went to the castle to return later to the church.

I was surprised at the castle by a sign that read "Tickets only for organized groups". The door was open so went in. I was pretty sure I was not a group and was positive that I was not organized. I don't think I have ever been somewhere it was free unless you with a group so this was something new for me. The Castle had a great view out over the city and also a pretty cool castle.

Trsat Castle

I returned to the church and mass was still going on so wait some time for it to finish and than looked around the church and took a photo of the statue of John Paul II that set in front of the church.

John Paul II

I had time before my train so took the 538 stairs back down to the main city of Rijeka. On my way down I ran into a group of kids on a field trip going up the stairs. As my mom says do kids ever go to school any more or are they always on a field trip but I enjoyed watching them huff and puff their way up the stairs I had been to lazy to climb.

Childern on the pilgrim stairs to Tsart

When I was once again in the main city I found groups of about 8 teenages wearing matching T-Shirt with some kind of saying on the shirts. The teenages were about college age and were going around throwing flour on other groups and also using squirt guns. They were also singing and shouting and seemed to just be celebrating but I have no idea what they were celebrating.

I enjoyed the train ride to Ljubljana. I had been traveling for over 3 weeks and this was my first train ride of the trip. I was now in Slovenia so time for a new map.

Slovenia Map

The county side from Rijeka to Ljubljana was really pretty the other problem I had was the trees where close to the train and so did not always have much of a view for a lot of the time. I reached Ljubljana but did not have time to see the capatil of Slovenia this day but caught a bus on to a small town Ribcev Laz.

Ribcev Laz is a small town at one end of Bohinj Lake. The lake is part of Triglar National Park and the park is sets within the Julian Alps. The following day I walked to the other end of the lake. On the walk I did not see any wild life other than a squire, birds, fish and cows. Not sure cows are wildlife but when I first saw a big brown animal walking through the trees I was sure it was going to be an elk or deer. I guess the bell should have gave it away that it was a cow.

Bohinj Lake

From the other end of the lake I made the walk up to the Savica waterfall. It was a lot of up up and up getting to the watherfall and it is always a disapointment when you make the walk and get near and there is a big car park with loads of tour busses. I did end up having really good timing though. When I finally reached the waterfall a big group had just gone down and I had the view all to myself for about 10 minutes.