Lake Bled, the Mother of God church, and the Zippy Toboggan

 I'm pausing the blog about Sicily (I plan to get back to it!) and switch to Slovenia and our upcoming Rick Steves' Adriatic Tour. We've come a week early to see and experience the things that won't be covered by the tour. While the tour will go to Lake Bled, we wanted extra time to see other things covered in Rick's travel book. Even though I start out with photos of the Mother of God church on the island in the lake, we will get to see it again. Maybe we'll even take a pletna boat out to it. We did walk the 3.5 miles around the lake and made some images...and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

The scenic Vintgar Gorge is a very popular activity and sight in the area. I had reserved 9 a.m. entry tickets online at home in order not to miss out. We ended up taking a dry run by driving there, parking in lot P1, riding the shuttle bus and scanning our tickets in the QR code reader only to have the readout tell us that we "are a day early for entry." What?! My jet-lagged mind said that today was the day but my carefully crafted and detailed itinerary (which I did not consult first) said that it was actually tomorrow. We switched to plan B and decided to take not one but three rides down the toboggan at Straža Bled. We have been known to enjoy a bit of adventure and speed. Plus, the views from up on the mountain of Lake Bled and the castle were amazing.

We rode a chairlift up to the top where the toboggan track starts (seen in the photo).

Ready to fly!

There goes Bob!

He is still smiling at the end!