Darting Around Slovenia

I left Venice in the evening of May 16, finding it somewhat funny that the day after my 19th birthday would also be the first day I would spend in a country that could be clearly labeled as "Eastern Europe", where the language was something that I could not decipher (I could somewhat figure out Italian). Near me on the train were a bunch of Italian people but also one English guy who was also traveling with Interrail. I swapped some stories with him for a while but decided to go to sleep at around 10:30, knowing that I would get to Slovenia very early and probably would not sleep after that.
Slovenia is a tiny country, part of the EU and advanced for Eastern Europe. It is also relatively unknown for a European nation, in fact many Slovenes are happy that their soccer team is in the same group as Slovakia for this year's World Cup, so that people stop mixing up the two countries. I am sure that many people, especially those who do not live in Europe, barely even know that Slovenia and Slovakia are even two different countries.
I made it to Ljubljana, the hard to pronounce Slovene capital, at around 2 in the morning, too early to really do anything but to late to try and find a place to sleep. That being the case, I determined the first thing that I would want to see there and searched for the first train that would get me there. I decided on the acclaimed Lake Bled, and the first train in that direction was at just before 5, giving me almost 3 hours to get by.
The consequence of that was that I got to see the sunrise as my train weaved its way through the mountainous north of the country, an impressive view especially given the lack of mountain views up to that point in my trip. I was impressed with the sights, and when I finally stepped into the crisp morning I realized that the lake was nowhere to be seen.
I had to take a bus to get there, and they sis not accept my Interrail pass, but the fare was reasonable. I got to Bled (the name of the town) and found the lake in a couple minutes. For something so well known to tourists and locals, the city of Bled was tiny, mostly filled wit hotels and tourist shops. I was also surprised at the size of the lake. Coming from the Great Lakes region and having been to Lake Constance in Southern Germany, I was surprised that this body of water, which I managed to circumnavigate in a couple hours and could easily see across, had gotten that title.
But a few minutes was all I needed to realize why this lake was famous. The scenery around it was amazing, forest that eventually got gobbled up by the mountains towering in the distance, defiantly flaunting snowy summits even as summer conquered the rest of the world. I took a path through the woods and reached the top of one of the hills, where the whole lake lay before me like a painting. The most remarkable feature was an island that houses a church and which is the destination of several ferries every day.
I did not have time for that though, so I settled with just walking around the lake and taking in the sight of the area from every possible angle. After that, I got another bus back to the train station, and had some lunch. I must comment that I got a very large and delicious meal for just over 4 euros, and that was a great deal that made me very happy to be in one of the easternmost countries where the euro is legal tender (not counting Greece and Slovakia). Then I got a train back to Ljubljana and set my sights on the famous cave systems in the south that had convinced me to stop in Slovenia in the first place.
The journey in total took me about 2 and a half hours, not bad considering that I was traveling across half of the country. When I got to Postonja I had to walk another 30 minutes before finally reaching the entrance to the cave system, then had to wait again for the next tour. When I finally got into the cave, it was worth it.
I have seen caves before, even some very big ones, but nothing could compare to the variety of different rock formations and colors that I saw there. I took a roller coaster like device through some of the caverns before the tour continued on foot. The guide was a French man who had been there for several months, and the history of the cave proved to be very interesting. The more notable features include the Russian bridge (built by Russian prisoners of war during the first world war) and the Red, White, and Spaghetti galleries some distance across it.
Eventually the tour ended, and as the afternoon grew old I had to loop back to the capital on my way to Novo Mesto, where I would spend the night. I met someone on the train who was also going to the same city, and in the end she was nice enough to show me where the hostel that I was staying at was, which probably saved me about half an hour of wandering around with the help of Google Earth. This hostel was one of the best that I have stayed in, and like my lunch, it was reasonably priced. This is a great country.