Garett and I decided to end our year of travel here in Ljubljana, Slovenia. For us it was an easy decision to come back. The people are friendly, the city is full of trees and shops, and the surrounding countryside is surreally beautiful. Take a look at this picture from our day trip to Bled, a nearby town. Anastasiia, a friend who lives here, says that people come to Slovenia simply because they see pictures of this city. We had to hike for a while to get this shot. Those are the Julian Alps in the distance.

Since we already did a report on the city itself in January, I’m going to just talk a little about our day trips. Anastasiia, her mom, stepdad, Garett, and I went to the Logarska Valley one Sunday. It’s in the north, very close to the border with Austria. It’s quite difficult to get to–Anastasiia and her family had rented a car–so there were very few tourists and people still had tolerance for us stopping and taking pictures on their private property.

Here I am with Anastasiia!

Garett on a suspension bridge. One of our guides told us that no one really knows what makes the waters here in Slovenia that particular shade of blue-green.

We also took a day trip to visit the Škocjanske Caves. They were absolutely unbelievable. We hope to come back to see them again one day. Pictures weren’t allowed inside the caves, but here is a picture of one of the entrances. We had walked about 3 km under the earth for about an hour and a half, so seeing this much light and greenery at the end was like a revelation.

The surrounding countryside was also lovely. We’d love to come back and do some hiking.

We visited the small city of Piran in the southern part of the country; it’s right next to Italy on the Adriatic. I think that Slovenia only has about 40 km of coastline, so this is one of its few beach towns. It was hot enough that the central plaza was deserted; I think everyone was swimming in the sea.

Here is Predjama Castle, which is built right into the limestone. There are enough secret passageways through the caves out of the castle that during times of war, it was extremely difficult to sack. The people inside always had access to food and water through the passages.

We have had such a good year. I thought about writing some sort of reflections here at the end, but I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin. We are looking forward to coming back to the States and to moving to Philadelphia, but it’s sad to see the end of such freedom. Thank you everyone for following our blog and for supporting us. We are looking forward to seeing you again!