Day 3, Part I
Bad Ischl, Austria – Bled, Slovenia
The morning came to leave Austria and head South to new and green-ish pastures. Well, new for me, at least. Heather and Dai already left before us to go to Vienna for the weekend, and me and Rob set off, but not without stopping for five minutes by the river first for some photos, even though the day was a bit grey and dull.
The route to Slovenia was different from the rest in Austria. The mountains were no longer towering above you as you drove down the winding roads; the snow had already melted by this point and the forests became less and less dense. The valleys became much wider than they had been and the land was dotted with villages. But these villages and their buildings looked slightly different from the ones we saw in Austria and in the Alps. They had a more Eastern design to them.
The buildings we’ve already seen in Austria have had the typical Alpine look to them. The wooden huts and chalets in the mountains, with thickly snow-covered roofs stretching out over the paths and entrances to shelter them of frequent and often heavy snow and rain. The windows often have decorative carvings and shapes for their wooden frames, sometimes in warming colours, contrasting the climate of the area.
The buildings are normally terraced in the villages, but they are all irregular in size and shape and sometimes architecture. The façades are normally high with stepped slopes; sometimes they may have statuettes or something similar. The windows all have shutters on them, covering a faded painting or mural when open. The shops would have old fashioned and nostalgic signs hanging over the doors, normally in decorative and elegant designs. The streets would be usually cobbled and only open to pedestrians, some of who would find it difficult to walk right on such uneven surfaces.
But the villages changed as we travelled southwards. They didn’t seem as Alpine, but more Balkan or East European. They were nearly all white in colour with red roofs. They didn’t have any elegant architecture to them, but were plain. The land changed, too. There were not so many rocky mountains, but more rolling and flat plains. It was much more greener, more grass and fields and straighter roads.
Towards the border, it got a bit more mountainous. Tunnels started to reappear and the Autobahn had to be reduced to a single lane to go through the wall of a sheer cliff, and on the other side, there was the border control. For Slovenia, the border controls were still in force, but laxed. I’m not sure if Slovenia is in the Schengen Zone, but we still had to stop for passport checks and to purchase a Vignette for the roads. For Slovenia, we only had the option to buy a Vignette for half a year, and it was not the most suitable amount of time as we were only there for two days. However, we had to pay for it at a total of 37 Euros. But according to the guy at the booth, they were expensive but beautiful. Personally, I would find them boring after handing them out day after day.
And this was the first of many countries to add to my list on this trip of new places that I’ve visited and it started off all peachy!
We got to Bled with out any problems, either, and it was relatively easy to find some place to park the car, especially as it isn’t the biggest place on Earth. As soon as we stopped the car, the attendant was already eagerly waiting for us to pay up, as if he was perching high above us with his eyes poised on fresh meat.
Fortunately, the car park was right next to the lake. As we walked on the path alongside the lake, we took in the surroundings. The lake was clear and still and also with good reflections, even though there was a bit more cloud this time. The castle was balancing right on the edge of the cliff, nearly hanging over the lakeside. There were small, wooden boats tied up to the small, wooden piers lining the banks, which took tourists and visitors around the lake to admire the landscape surrounding it, and also the small isle in the middle, dominated by a tall, white tower of the church occupying it.
We came across an aged musician and his accordion. He was dressed in what seemed to be a local and traditional costume. But the way he was playing attracted our attention to him. He just sat there facing the ground. He looked tired and somewhat sad. His face gave the impression that he may be wise and knew a lot about life and the world with all its big questions and mysterious. And with his thick, white eyebrows and high, prominent cheekbones, his eyes were set back. And he just played. I don’t know what he played, but it seemed faultless, and even more extraordinary to find out that he was actually blind.
I thought I’d take the opportunity to photograph the serenity and contemplation in his expressions as he played the music, but not without some other guy coming up to me and grunted something in Slovenian. I used my Slovenian skills, consisting of pointing and shrugging, and assumed he was there with the musician. He may have said something about having to pay the musician because I took a photo of him, which I thought it was fair enough, but did he have to pimp him out like that? I’m sure he could have waited until I actually finished taking the photo or if I was walking off after without giving him a Euro or something, which I would have done anyway.
We noticed something here, which would be occurring over again throughout the trip. On the lake there were many ducks, but they seemed to be always in pairs. These pairs were always made up of one dull and brown coloured duck, which are female, and a more colourful partner, which could only be the male. As common sense would prevail, we put two and two together and realised it must be something to do with the mating season, especially with being Spring and that. If Spring is the mating season for ducks, that is. But what struck us most was that they were basically stuck to each other. They always kept each other by their sides, as if there was some kind of string attaching them together. We didn’t really know that ducks behaved like this, we knew swans had life long partners, but we were unaware that ducks also had a similar way of doing things. Maybe it was just for the mating season, or maybe they do the same as swans and stay together. I can’t really see ducks as players, but I think that’s how the cookie crumbles.
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