Volleyball Visits Bled, Slovenia Before Playing Maribor Club
May 24, 2016 | Women's Volleyball
The European Trip continues as the Cardinals leave Italy and head for Slovenia.
The Cardinals enjoyed a spa morning at our hotel outside Venice and we didn't leave until noon after swimming in a thermal pool after sleeping in and getting a good breakfast.
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Our bus driver drove us four hours north to Bled, Slovenia. It is a very mountainous region with roads that seem like interstates but then go into little towns with twisty roundabouts and then back into interstates except with lots of tunnels through mountains and switchback S-curves that our bus driver took at 100 km/hr. The towns had very narrow streets and he powered through with all the finesse of a tank driver.
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At the border of Italy and Slovenia there was the remains of a checkpoint between the two countries. Before Slovenia was in the European Union, people had to show their passports to cross over. Our Italian guide, Fedrica said that she played in a volleyball tournament that was so close to the border that the officials made her show her passport when she changed sides of the net. She said she wasn't sure if they were serious but she did it anyway.
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Bled is a beautiful town on a beautiful, crystal clear lake. We stayed at Hotel Krim, which is a relic from the Communist era and Tito's reign. The rooms were small but immaculate and estimated last time of redecoration was circa 1967. The owner was awesomely gregarious and spoke English, Russian, Slovenian and Italian, often in the same sentence. We walked around the lakefront and had a great dinner of "mixed meat" and French fries. Mixed meat was a sausage selection, a kielbasa selection and a piece of chicken. Then we had Lake Bled's signature dessert, kremšnita, which is like vanilla cream pie. We peeked into their casino and harassed the local swan with our GoPros before heading back to Hotel Krim. Since the weather was a bit rainy and stormy, we were unable to take our boat ride on the lake, so Fedrica, our guide, pulled some strings to have our boat ride moved to 8 a.m. before we left for Maribor, Slovenia.
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TESS CLARK ON THE BLOG
"Hi Cards fans! Today was day five of our trip. We stayed at the nicest hotel outside Venice. We took advantage of all the naturally heated hot spring pool which was fantastic. We then headed to Lake Bled in Slovenia. The five hour drive was in between huge mountains covered with fog and snow and it really looked like we were in a movie scene. After we got to the hotel, we checked in and went out to dinner for a three-course meal that included authentic Slovenian food. The weather got to be a little too much after dinner so we sprinted up the hill through the rain before turning in for the night."
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Bled Island is a small island in the middle of the lake and is home to Assumption of Mary Pilgrimage Church; visitors frequently ring its bell for good luck.  Once again, the Catholic Church has a ruthless development director, as it costs five euros to ring the bell to make a wish. Before the church was built, there was a temple consecrated to Živa, the Slavic goddess of love and fertility. We got to the island on a traditional flat-bottomed wooden boat called a pletna that was piloted by a very handsome retired Slovenian soldier. The island on Lake Bled has 99 steps up from the shore to the church. A local tradition at weddings is for the husband to carry his new bride up these steps, during which the bride must remain silent.
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We loaded up the bus and drove two hours to Maribor, Slovenia to a training facility that is connected to a nice hotel.  Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia, about 111,000 people. We got off the bus and changed into our uniforms and started warming up. We played the Slovenian junior national team before heading up the mountain for dinner.Â
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Our bus driver drove us four hours north to Bled, Slovenia. It is a very mountainous region with roads that seem like interstates but then go into little towns with twisty roundabouts and then back into interstates except with lots of tunnels through mountains and switchback S-curves that our bus driver took at 100 km/hr. The towns had very narrow streets and he powered through with all the finesse of a tank driver.
Â
At the border of Italy and Slovenia there was the remains of a checkpoint between the two countries. Before Slovenia was in the European Union, people had to show their passports to cross over. Our Italian guide, Fedrica said that she played in a volleyball tournament that was so close to the border that the officials made her show her passport when she changed sides of the net. She said she wasn't sure if they were serious but she did it anyway.
Â
Bled is a beautiful town on a beautiful, crystal clear lake. We stayed at Hotel Krim, which is a relic from the Communist era and Tito's reign. The rooms were small but immaculate and estimated last time of redecoration was circa 1967. The owner was awesomely gregarious and spoke English, Russian, Slovenian and Italian, often in the same sentence. We walked around the lakefront and had a great dinner of "mixed meat" and French fries. Mixed meat was a sausage selection, a kielbasa selection and a piece of chicken. Then we had Lake Bled's signature dessert, kremšnita, which is like vanilla cream pie. We peeked into their casino and harassed the local swan with our GoPros before heading back to Hotel Krim. Since the weather was a bit rainy and stormy, we were unable to take our boat ride on the lake, so Fedrica, our guide, pulled some strings to have our boat ride moved to 8 a.m. before we left for Maribor, Slovenia.
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TESS CLARK ON THE BLOG
"Hi Cards fans! Today was day five of our trip. We stayed at the nicest hotel outside Venice. We took advantage of all the naturally heated hot spring pool which was fantastic. We then headed to Lake Bled in Slovenia. The five hour drive was in between huge mountains covered with fog and snow and it really looked like we were in a movie scene. After we got to the hotel, we checked in and went out to dinner for a three-course meal that included authentic Slovenian food. The weather got to be a little too much after dinner so we sprinted up the hill through the rain before turning in for the night."
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Bled Island is a small island in the middle of the lake and is home to Assumption of Mary Pilgrimage Church; visitors frequently ring its bell for good luck.  Once again, the Catholic Church has a ruthless development director, as it costs five euros to ring the bell to make a wish. Before the church was built, there was a temple consecrated to Živa, the Slavic goddess of love and fertility. We got to the island on a traditional flat-bottomed wooden boat called a pletna that was piloted by a very handsome retired Slovenian soldier. The island on Lake Bled has 99 steps up from the shore to the church. A local tradition at weddings is for the husband to carry his new bride up these steps, during which the bride must remain silent.
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We loaded up the bus and drove two hours to Maribor, Slovenia to a training facility that is connected to a nice hotel.  Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia, about 111,000 people. We got off the bus and changed into our uniforms and started warming up. We played the Slovenian junior national team before heading up the mountain for dinner.Â
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