Kira’s Solo Romp (pt 1)

Hello and welcome to this guest post as I (Kira) have been on a solo adventure since parting from Jaryd early last week.

Warning that this is my first blogger use and so the formatting may be weird.

Summary

I flew from Skopje to Ljubljana, Slovenia. I spent 2 nights there and did a day trip to Lake Bled. Then I went to Bovec which is a small town in the mountains where I spent 4 nights. After that I took the train to Salzburg. I had a couple days to walk around the city and did a day trip to the Lake District nearby. 

    

    Map of Slovenia and Austria

    Full map with flight from Skopje

 

Ljubljana

Overall I really enjoyed Slovenia. Ljubljana was a very clean city, all the buildings were colourful, and it wasn’t too crowded! I spent some time walking around the city exploring, including this cool area filled with street art / graffiti. My hostel was right on the river so I got to take lots of peaceful river walks. 

    Church in the main square

    Garden & museum in the park    

    River that my hostel was on

    Graffiti / street art

    View of city from castle

Lake Bled

I decided that since Ljubljana was small, I could afford to do a day trip to a nearby lake that is super popular for tourists. I had seen photos of the lake and it didn’t look too spectacular but it was 1000x better being in person. I was also pleasantly surprised at how quiet it was when I got there in the morning! I walked to a nearby gorge and on the way I got a nice view of the field. When I made my way back to the lake I hiked up to a viewpoint. I got rained on but it was worth it because when I got to the top there was a rainbow! Overall it ended up being a super long day, I hit over 44000 steps, but definitely one of the highlights of my trip so far. 

    Lake with church in middle

    Lake Bled castle

    Field to get to gorge

    View of field

    

    Vintgar Gorge

    Waterfalls at end of gorge

    View of Lake Bled with rainbow

Bovec

Bovec is a small town in the mountains near Triglav National Park, where I spent 4 days. It’s known as a base for outdoor sports. I spent a couple of days hiking, one up a mountain pass and another along the river. I also did a beginner white water kayaking course which was super fun! I had some close calls, but managed to not flip. Overall, being in the mountains & the river sort of reminded me of Alberta (but with more blue water).

    Road along river to get to Bovec 

    Soca river

    Source of the Soca river

    Skinny path to get to the source

    Kayaking!

    Photos from the hikes:

Salzburg

Next was Salzburg! Between being the film location of the Sound of Music and the birthplace of Mozart, there’s musical stuff everywhere! I did the classic walking tour and saw all the main city sights. My first night there I met a friend (Erin) who gave me tons of recommendations as she had already been there for 4 days. On the top of those were the free student music concerts at Mozarteum University, and a day trip to the Lake District, just east of the city. The concerts are rehearsals for the students that are free and open to the public so they can practice performing in front of people. I went to oboe and a jazz/pop one and I was so impressed!

    Mirabell Gardens

    St. Peter's cemetery

    Photo dump from the city:

    Jazz group!

    Red Bull headquarters

    View of St. Gilgen

    St. Gilgen

Mozart:

    Mozart's birthplace

    Mozart's residence

They are definitely more proud of Mozart than the Sound of Music. There was Mozart stuff everywhere and tons of things named after him. Here are just some of them:

    Mozart chocolate selection at grocery store

    Store on the shopping street

    Mozart perfume

    Cafe Mozart

That’s all for me (no food review cause Jaryd isn’t here anymore and so food standards have significantly dropped). So far I’ve really enjoyed being solo and have met lots of cool people! Stay tuned for a (possible) part 2 when I wrap up my trip in a couple of weeks.