Slovenia: Predjama & Celje Castles

After we left Trieste, we traveled about 30 miles to the north to Predjama, Slovenia, to find another Castle. We first bought some Kebabs in the town and then drove up to the castle. The road weaved through the mountains and then you come to a castle build into the side of a cliff. It is an impressive sight. Below the castle, the mountain is very steep and leads down do a huge out-cropping that we hiked down to. The trees were very tall and the under brush had leaves about the size of a bed pillow. I just kept looking up at the castle to try and take in all of my surroundings. It was beautiful.

Predjama Castle

We hiked up that trail...

Huge leaves: That euro on the leaf is about the size of a quarter.

My foot and knee really hurt by this time, so Jeff carried me sometimes--something I hate. Whoops, sorry, we didn't get any pictures of that!

Jeff is below, on the bridge.

This is the key hole of one of the doors into the castle. We didn't buy a pass to see it because it was so expensive.

It would be pretty impossible to "storm" this castle. It's on a very steep hill and there's a draw bridge before it's tiny entrance.

Jeff was telling me a story he read about this place. He said they kept one of their kings in here and left him in there to die...? But every so often he would throw grapes or something at the guards out the windows. Well, they figured, he would run out of grapes soon enough--he's locked up in a cave. Little did they know that there was a cave that led to a little village and that's where he got the stuff. He lived in there for a year or so before they killed him. Odd, random little story...

A legitimate drawbridge

Then we had more kebabs...

and our once-every-other-year-or-so Pepsi
Both of our eyes watered on the verge of tears after our first drink.

One more castle/fortress: Celje. (Possibly pronounced "sell-yuh") It was closed by the time we got there, and was too dark to take pictures, but it was cool--at the top of a hill, above Celje, Slovenia.

We listened to classical music the whole way home, and I promised Jeff I would stay awake. As Kim and Jeff put it, I only "nodded" a few times...

She did pretty well, once we got within 45 minutes of home, she had some struggles, but she stayed somewhat conscious. 

All in all, I absolutely loved this trip. Lake Bled Slovenia was something that I found online back in February and have wanted to go to ever since. Slovenia is gorgeous. Venice and Trieste, Italy were well worth the drive. We are very fortunate to live so close to so much history and beautiful places.