Traveling with the Jones

    This morning our first priority was haircuts.  With suggestions from our tour guide on Monday, we located a hair salon in Ljubljana with an English-speaking stylist. 

With new, shorter dos, we set out to explore Slovenia’s most popular tourist location, Lake Bled.  The famous lake can be reached by Slovenia by bus in about 1.5 hours.  The roundtrip ticket is 12.35 euros per person and you purchase your ticket from the driver.  (There is a train, but it stops 6 kilometers from Bled, requiring a transfer to the same bus.)

Riding through the Slovenia countryside, you see small villages with perfectly kept houses and a church steeple on the highest point.  Rolling hills covered in green with mountains all around, kind of like the Sound of Music. 

Upon arriving in Bled, we walked a few blocks from the bus stop to the Lake.  Wow!  A peaceful lake (no motors allowed) with a castle overlooking high above and an island with a church in the center of the lake.  A well-maintain path circles the entire lake.   

There is a ski slope on one side of the lake, and in the summer, it is the Poletno Sankanje Funbob (a summer tobogganing run).  For 8 euros, you get chair lift tickets and 2 rides down the Funbob run. 

The ride up the chairlift provides a panoramic view of Lake Bled and the castle, as well as a close-up view of the narrow piece of metal twisting down the ski slope that we’ve just paid to ride.  No website, but there is a video of the ride on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_hPmwgwu8

You step into your plastic toboggan and the workers faster your seatbelt.  The instructions are brief.  “push the stick forward to go; pull it back to break.”  And with that, you are off, twisting and turning and flying along. 

Great fun after you get over the fear.

After more hiking along the lake, we had to try the famous cream cake.  Delicious!

This morning we departed the Norwegian Jewel in Barcelona. After 50 consecutive days at sea, we headed to the Hilton Diagonal Mar hotel to used some Hilton points. What a hotel! It is about 3 miles east of the Ramblas and port area, in a new section of Barcelona filled with high rise offices, hotels and a convention center.  Just across the street, is the Diagonal Mar, one of Barcelona’s largest shopping malls.

Since it is Sunday, all is fairly quite.  We check in and are given a room on the 21st floor with a view of the ocean.  The 15th floor lounge has views of downtown and the hills.  And, the reason Janis wanted this hotel, a beautiful swimming pool on the second floor with an outdoor restaurant and bar.

While Janis soaks up the sun, Jeff explores the neighborhood.  Later, we enjoy afternoon tea/happy hour in the lounge, and then go to the mall for dinner.  It’s Barcelona, so no one thinks about dinner before 9-9:30 pm.   At the mall, we enjoy one of the tapas restarants with outdoor seating.  

More and more kids are throwing fireworks and we can’t understand why.  Back at the hotel, we head to the lounge to view the city lights after dark.  There is a major fireworks display in the distance.  It turns out that today was a holiday in Barcelona, San Juan day, celebrating the beginning of summer.

Finally, we get to take advantage of the large bathtub, which after having only showers on the ships was a real treat.

Today was our 50^th consecutive day on a cruise ship and we enjoyed it to the fullest while at sea between Civitavecchia and Barcelona! 

Up early, Janis scored the perfect sunning spot by the adult pool, in a quiet corner near the waterfall.  The only issue is that even at 8:15 am, every lounger on the pool deck is reserved with a towel – mind you few chairs have bodies in them – but this is NCL so the chair hogs are in full force. 

Undaunted, Janis carries one down the stairs from the next deck up, and later scores a second deck chair for Jeff in the same manner. 

We meet a nice woman and her son from Cleveland.  The morning passes quickly – chatting, reading and the occasional pool immersion to cool off.  (Jeff doesn’t get in the pool, but he finds some shade.)

While the ship is sailing through the Strait of Bonifacio between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, Janis is having a burger from The Grill.  It would be interesting to hear port lecturer commentary about this Strait, but this is not a strength of Norwegian Cruise Line (not for this cruise anyway; more details on that in another post.)

For our last dinner aboard the Jewel, we head for a “happy hour” dinner at Cagney’s Steakhouse.  This is our favorite “extra charge” restaurant, and between 9 and 10 pm the cover charge is reduced to $20 for 2 people.  Our menu choices include shrimp cocktails, clam chowder, Caesar salad, filet mignon with port reduction sauce, au gratin potatoes, mushrooms and creamed spinach.  We enjoy an excellent Malbac wine from Argentina.

After dinner, surprisingly, there is an open machine in the free laundry (which is just across the hall from our cabin #5074) so Janis starts one last load.  She is not alone in the midnight laundry on the last night of the cruise. Luckily, this laundry room has an impressively solid door, and we don’t hear the people or the machines, as it is quite the popular place throughout the cruise.