Stranded In Bled!

Two weeks ago Marta and I set out on our journey to the sea. We had a sweet road-trip planned that ended in Croatia. All was set, the auto was packed, and we hit the open road. Our first planned stop was in Slovenia in a town called Bled. Well, we made it to Bled... barely! As we hit the Austrian/Slovenian border our car started to smoke. Shifting became difficult, and the 7 km single-lane tunnel had us sweating. The closer to Bled we got the harder the car was to drive.

We stopped to take a look under the hood and came to the horrifying discovery that we no longer had any transmission fluid. We got directions to the nearest Volkswagen service and prayed that we could make it.

After driving through a few small villages outside of Bled, we limped up the last hill, and the car died. We actually had to push it onto the lot. We arrived after hours and ended up talking to the mechanic in his European-issue Speedo. ( I wish I was kidding about this part) :) He turned out to be the nicest guy you could meet, and offered to drive us to a campground.

In the next two days we began to realize that there are worse places in the world to be stranded. Bled was absolutely beautiful! We spent the day walking around one of the most beautiful lakes you could imagine. With it's stunning turquoise color, beautiful cliff-hanging castle, and church island, we were in awe. Looking across this lake at the small island, dominated by an adorable church, you really got the feeling that it was all fake. It was too perfect! It looked like something that only your imagination could create. We spent the day relaxing and swimming. Lets just say that it didn't suck.

The next day our speedo-wearing friend had the car fixed and we

were back on our way. All in all it was kinda a blessing in disguise that we sent that pin through the gearbox housing and lost the gearbox in Bled. Okay, maybe not, but it did make us slow down and take in our gorgeous surroundings. Croatia, here we come!