11th Ljubljana Marathon

The winner, near finish
Originally uploaded by Crt Ahlin

Since we have no photos from the 12th marathon on account of rain, I thought I'd post one from the previous one. This is the last year's winner, not far from the final straight. It was fun this this year, too - despite being a bit cold for some of the top athletes to run their best (or so I heard).

12th Ljubljana marathon

This Sunday a traditional 12th Internatinal Ljubljana marathon was held in the centre of Ljubljana. Despite bad weather conditions more than 8000 runners applied for marathon, halfmarathon and recreational run.

It was a great event and hopefuly someday I too will join the runners.

Blejski vintgar

Vintgar
Originally uploaded by Crt Ahlin

Blejski vintgar (gorge) is one of the top three most visited tourist locations in Slovenia. It is located near Bled lake, perhaps 15 minutes drive away at most. There is a wooden pathway along most of its lenght of some good three kilometres. The gorge is quite narrow (that's why it's a gorge) and so is the pathway. You have to watch not to bang your head at the rock face in some places. Plus be sure to wear warm clothes, as it gets quite cold if you linger. It ends with a waterfall. (Or starts, if you start your journey at the downstream entrance.) There is an entrance fee, used for maintaining the pathway and cleaning the gorge daily.

Highest Firefox visit share in Europe

We are establishing a new column on our blog called the Top 5. We will be publishing different rankings of countries where Slovenia will make it to the Top 5 list.

The first Top 5 came as a surprise to me when the XiTi published the results of a Firefox usage survey. Mozzila Firefox is the second most popular web browser in the world followed by Microsoft Internet Explorer. It is developed by the Mozzila corporation and a community of external contributors. Among all continents Oceania and Europe have the largest Firefox users base, both approaching 30% visit share.
And now our Top 5 ...
In the XiTi survey Slovenia was ranked the first among the 32 European countries included in the survey with 47,9% visit share, followed by Finland with 45,4%.
We wondered why our Firefox usage share is so high compared to the other countries but we could not make a reasonable conclusion. Could you?

A great day in Ljubljana

We are spending much of our free/holiday time in Ljubljana this year. Usually we spend it abroad (Western Europe or Croatian coast) but this year writing our dissertation thesis kept us in Ljubljana for the summer. Earlier this week we decided to relax a bit so we went to Water park Atlantis, situated in the Ljubljana shopping area (BTC City). We took the ticket for Thermal Temple, but soon figured out that besided more peace and quiet it doesn't offer much more than a baseline ticket for Adventure world. We really had fun though, enjoying the bubbles (massage pools), the adventure pool and steam sauna. Afterwards we headed for the city centre to get some more sea holidays flavour. We went to a fish reastaurant Operna klet near Ljubljana Opera house, Parliament and National Gallery right in the city centre. Day ended with the free outdoor Yoga, which is held in the Tivoli park during this summer, following the example of bigger European and American cities. I have never before attended any Yoga classes but I found it really nice and relaxing and a perfect way to end a great day in Ljubljana.

Free Yoga in the Tivoli park

A sculpture in the Tivoli park

A series of large-format photographs of lake Cerknica on Jakopič promenade in the Tivoli park

Photographs taken by: Crt

Cerkniško jezero - Lake Cerknica

Around Cerkniško jezero
Originally uploaded by Crt Ahlin

This photo is from a trip to Cerkniško jezero (Lake Cerknica) this summer. The funny thing about the lake is, it a "periodic" or "intermittent" lake (the term my dictionary offers). What does that mean? Well, the lake has periods of high and periods of low water. That is, it dries up (not completely) when there is no rain and fills up to the point of flooding some nearby villages in heavy rains.
How can that be? The lake resides on a limestone basis, which easily absorbs water through, among other things, sinkholes - like the one on the photograph. They sure look surreal to me ...

Ljubljana in august

Lots is happening in Ljubljana these days. There is the Trnfest festival in Trnovo part Ljubljana with a bunch of daily evening events (ending on the 1st of September). We went there for a stand-up comedy evening, but there were too many people there and we couldn't hear the comedians, so we quickly went on.
Then there is the sixth annual festival Sanje in the center of Ljubljana, dedicated to poetry and music with events at the Zvezda park, Pločnik coffee shop and other places in Ljubljana and around (ending on 31st of August). The picture is from Festival sanje, the concert of the group Ankaran. They were playing old songs of Frane Milčinski - Ježek and it was nice and relaxing to listen to them for a while.


And there is the "Dipping of the cheating bread baker" every (?) Saturday at 10:30 on Šuštarski bridge, where they symbolically reproduce the event, that was considered punishment for bakers whose loafs where lighter than claimed. Didn't see that one yet, but I will keep it in mind and hopefully do that sometime.

Anti-smoking law

The novel of the Anti-smoking law declares that from this day forward (Avgust 5, 2007) smoking in Slovenia is banned in all public and working places. Special smoking rooms can be installed in hotels, restaurants and bars if the owner/tenant decides to set it up, where smoking will be allowed. Though there will be no eating and drinking allowed.
Among other novelites are also:
- selling/buying of tobacco products to adolescents under 18 is banned;
- phone number for help with curing smoking addictions have to be placed on the tobacco product packages.

Bohinj 2007 and the beautiful Gorenjska region

This was our second trip this year to Bohinj. Bohinj is one of the main Slovenian (natural) attractions. The beautiful lake, high mountains and green forests are really a sight and a perfect place to rest. Due to high temperatures in the cities and on the seaside more and more people are spending their summer vacations in this cool place.

We were spending our nights in Hostel Pod Voglom in the Rodica Dependency and our days around the lake. It is written on their web page: "Hostel pod Voglom lies on one of the most beautiful locations, on the south side of the lake Bohinj. With its strategic position by the Bohinj lake, it offers an ideal accommodation for all the guests, who are coming to Bohinj for an active rest. This two star hotel is ideal for those, who like relaxed atmosphere, sport activities, natural beauties and peace."
Although we actually did spent a good time there and they do offer a wide range of activities the Hostel is really old and in need of repair. Though it is cheap and really on a beautiful location. We didn't unfortunately take advantage of the many sport activities on offer since it was a type "lay on the beach all day" vacation, but the next time we will surely go at least paddling on the lake.

You can read more about Bohinj on: http://www.bohinj.si
Below are some pictures of our trip/sights (I am very proud of my first web made slideshow). Some extra pics are added from our previous trip. In accordance to the post title there are some images of Bohinj, Bled, Korita Mostnice and Vintgar Bled.