London Parks

According to Wikipedia The Greater London Urban Area is the second largest in the EU with a population of over 8 million, while London's metropolitan area is the largest in the EU with an estimated total population of between 12 and 14 million.
For a city of this size, London has a surprisingly large amount of green areas. Most of them belong to many parks.


The largest group of London parks is The Royal Parks, this year celebrating 160 years of existence.
There are 8 parks included in this largest group, together covering almost 2,000 hectares of ground. The Royal Parks of London are lands originally owned by the UK monarchy. They used them for recreation (mostly hunting) of the royal family. There are public rights of way across the land but public access still depends on the grace and favour of the Crown. A typical British concept, if you ask me.

Royal Parks of London include the following 8 parks:

• Bushy Park,


• Green Park,


• Greenwich Park,


• Hyde Park,


• Kensington Gardens,


• Regent's Park,


• Richmond Park,


• St. James's Park.

Each one of the listed parks has something special to offer. Let me mention just a few highlights:

• Hyde Park seems to be the most popular due to its location and many events taking place there,


• Green Park can also get pretty crowded due to the vicinity of Buckingham Palace,


• the north side of Regent's Park is where the London Zoo is located,


• Richmond Park is so huge there are deer roaming around free.

Apart from those mentioned above there are also many other parks and green spaces located in the London area. Many are well worth visiting, so I suggest you do your research while planning your trip to London.

During a recent visit to London I had time to visit a few of the mentioned parks. Additional information regarding the most prominent and famous of London parks - London Hyde Park and its surroundings will be introduced in one of my upcoming posts.

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Wordless Wednesday: Canoeing at Lake Bled

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Another successful running event held in Bled

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts I also visited this year's Night's 10 running event in Bled, Slovenia. This year participation was limited to 2011 runners.
More info is available directly on the Night's 10 official website which unfortunately is only partially translated into English.


We had a great time and since I didn't take part in the event, I had time to shoot some photos. Some runners took the run dead seriously and tried to break the record. Others just focused on having a great time.

Every contestant received a headlamp and it resulted in a moving light-show around the lake.


For the above photo I used a delayed flash effect. That is why that headlamp left such an interesting trace and also some of the runners look a bit like ghosts.

This year many runners came from abroad. I also spotted quite a large group of Brits posing for a group photo at the start line. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves.


Organization was excellent once again. This is thanks to Knights of Good Running (this is a translation from Slovenian language - "Vitezi Dobrega Teka", which also means "Knights of Good Appetite").
They are a great group, which everyone can join. Check out their website. Unfortunately it is only in Slovene, but Google Translate can help you out for sure.

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Night's 10 in Bled

Bled is a charming small town at the edge of Lake Bled in the northern part of Slovenia. Bled is usually referred to as the number one tourist attraction of this European country. It is a place where President Tito had his summer residence back in the days of Yugoslavia.


Even nowadays visitors are fascinated by the beauty of the whole area. There is a picturesque island in the middle of the lake with a church on it. An old castle overlooking the lake from a steep cliff directly above the lake and Alps in the background also add to the special atmosphere.

Every year on a Saturday around the 10th of July there is an interesting event held at the Lake Bled. It is called the Night's 10 (or Nočna 10ka in Slovene). It is a 10 kilometer night run around the lake. This year it is taking place on Saturday the 9th of July, at 10 PM.


Unfortunately for you, it is already too late for applying. Applications have been closed a while ago. However that is no reason not to participate. You visit the event to cheer for runners and to enjoy the atmosphere - there will definitely be live music and partying long into the night.

I will also be there - this year just as a part of a support team. If anyone plans to be there... well, let me know and we might get a chance to enjoy a beer and a local delicacy - Bled cream cake, together.

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Wordless Wednesday: Freeride Skiing over Cortina

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Football and Web Traffic go together well

As I predicted in my previous post the last football match Slovenia played in South Africa had a similar effect on web traffic as the previous two. Almost every web page and blog publishing Slovenia related content experienced a substantial increase of traffic in recent days.


On the graph screenshot from Google Trends you can see three peaks representing number of Google searches people did last month.
The first peak is on the day of the match between Slovenia and Algeria, the second Slovenia vs. USA and the third Slovenia vs. England.

Unfortunately Slovenian national team didn't make it to the next round and this meant the end of increased web exposure for Slovenia. I am pretty sure the upcoming 2010 FIBA Basketball World Championship in Turkey will hardly have a similar effect.

A couple of days ago the World Cup came to an end and it is a vuvuzela free time again. Congratulations Spain!

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The influence of Soccer WC 2010 on Slovenia

If a relatively young country has an ambition of becoming a popular tourist destination, it usually has to work hard to achieve such a goal. It is important to try to promote the country through as many different channels as possible.

Slovenia definitely falls into that category (Slovenia has been an independent country since its separation from Yugoslavia in 1991). Slovenian Tourist Board is trying hard to raise the level of worldwide awareness but that is not enough.
In my opinion, sports can also help at least a little bit. In some cases much more then just a little bit.
Recent qualification of Slovenian national soccer team for the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa is an excellent example of just that. Many people started wondering where this soccer team, competing with English and US teams is coming from. Slovenia? Where the heck is Slovenia?
You might think I am exaggerating. How can a couple of soccer matches be compared to years of work of a bunch of politicians, diplomats and tourist promoters?

Well it actually can be... and I've got proof of that. It is called Google trends.

For those of you who haven't heard of this before, "with Google Trends you can compare the world’s interest in your favourite topics", as Google puts it. In other words, with this tool you can compare what people were searching for through Google.
For instance if you enter "where is slovenia, slovenia map" you get the below graph.


You can notice a strange change of pattern at the far right-hand side of the graph. If you take a closer look at that period of time - for instance the last month of data, you can see something similar to the screen-shot bellow.


I guess some of you already know where this is heading... Those two peaks in the graph mean that on the 13th and 18th of June 2010 there were an unusually high number of people entering those two queries into Google search engine.
If you take a look at the last screenshot you can see the final hint. It says: "Slovenia, US draw 2-2". In this case I have added "slovenia" to previous two search strings and got an even more explicit result.


Yes, it was football (or soccer as Americans tend to call it). Slovenia was playing with Algeria on 13th of June and USA on 18th of June. Interesting isn't it?

Let me end this with a prediction. Since today (23th of June) the Slovenian national team is playing with the English, I expect a similar rise to be seen on the graph. I don't dare to even speculate what would happen if we make it to the Round of 16 or even to the Quarter-finals. Let us just wait and see.

GO SLOVENIA!!!

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Cross-country skiing center Vojsko

Cross-country skiing is gaining popularity again in Slovenia. It was already quite popular over a decade ago, but then lost many supporters due to a rise of alpine skiing. In my opinion it happened because of better and better equipped ski slopes. Modern and fast ski-lifts were being installed on almost every ski slope.
Besides all that, Slovenian professional skiers are some of the most popular public figures in the country. They have been continuously achieving good results in the World Cup series for many decades.

Nowadays both sports are very popular again. Cross-country skiing is gaining supporters by the day.
Excellent results of Tina Maze (Slovenian alpine skier) and Petra Majdič (Slovenian cross-country skier) have a great deal to do with that. They were both also among this year's Vancouver Olympic medal winners.
Petra was also awarded the Terry Fox foundation award for incredible courage and determination after breaking several ribs and puncturing her lungs and still finishing third.


All that made us think and after a couple of years long break, M. and I finally decided to go cross-country skiing again. We are both beginners in this sport. Three years ago we attended a beginner level training and have not been practicing very often since then.

That is a pity, because there is an excellent cross-country skiing facility nearby. It is called Cross-country skiing center Vojsko.
I have to say I like this sport - it is really cheap. Once you get your hands on some equipment you can do it literary for free. The equipment itself is also relatively cheap.


Besides the financial side, getting in touch with nature is not to be ignored as well. It is also not very time consuming - I can feel every muscle of my body (usually on the next day I tend to find even a few new ones I didn't know I had) after an hour of exercise and if I may add... I think I am not in such a bad shape at all.
We chose a really beautiful day for doing this. It was sunny and quite warm.


As we had expected, after 8 kilometers we were pretty exhausted. We saw a few people on the track but mostly there was just nature and the two of us.

I stopped from time to time to take a photo or two. It was just the right day for a photo session but this time it was only on the second place. A good quality exercise came first this time.


In the end I found time for both and we were pleased with the results. We were both glad we finally did it. We really got to enjoy a great Saturday morning!

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Wordless Wednesday: I say Jump!

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Local Ski-jumping Event

Many people travel to Slovenia to witness the annual ski flying event which this year will take place form 18th to 21st of March in Planica.
Ski jumping is a relatively popular sport in Slovenia. I guess that is due to the world famous Planica K-185, where a first ever jump over 200 meters was made in 1994. The current world record stands at 239 meters (that's 784 feet!).

That is by far the largest ski jumping facility in Slovenia, but there are also many smaller ones. Recently a group of local enthusiasts in a village nearby where I live, decided to build their own ski jump. They went for a smaller one (K-30), but it came out quite impressive nonetheless.

As I learned there is quite regularly an amateur ski jumping contest held on various locations around Slovenia -  simmilar to this one in Pancala near Idrijske Krnice. Contestants usually don't use ski-jumping gear. They mostly do it with ski-boots and old skis originally meant for alpine skiing.

I am quite good at alpine skiing but still I am not sure if I would find enough courage to participate in such an event. Well, never say never...

This time I attended just as a spectator but it was still fun to watch what can be done in a relatively short period of time. As far as I know it was all done with voluntary work local enthusiasts were willing to put into this project. I think something like that can hardly be found anywhere these days.
The event was definitely a success. Quite a crowd of spectators came to see what was going on. The participants were young and old. I even captured one of the local jumpers in a video - you can check it out here.

Even an official mascot was there to entertain the crowd. He was equiped with some really old wooden skis and even attempted a couple of jumps. He had skis attached to his shoes with simple leather straps.
As he said dogs also developed a strange attraction to his skis. He suspected his home made ski wax had something to do with it. As people did in the old times he also used some genuine, home made lard. It looked like the old recipe still works.

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From Marmolada to La Villa and back

On one of the seven days in Dolomiti when weather forecast looked the most promising, we decided to do a skiing tour from Marmolada to La Villa and back.

Such a trip takes a whole day and we would be most unfortunate to get stuck in the wrong valley, away from our car, when all the ski lifts stop operating. No such thing happened and we had a really nice trip full of spectacular vistas. Sunny weather also helped us to enjoy the day even more.


We started in Malga Ciapela where we took a cableway to the top of Marmolada. It is also known as The Queen of the Dolomites. With 3.342 meters it is the highest mountain in the Dolomites. Just the cableway ride itself is a breathtaking experience but when you get to the top it seems like someone has put all of the surrounding mountains on a tray before you. That view really is stunning!


From there we went over hills through Arabba to La Villa and back via Corvara and again Arabba to Malga Ciapela.
When we got to La Villa we just had to try the Gran Risa slope where one of the Giant slalom World cup races are held every year. I must say it is quite steep and very long.


When we returned back to our starting point there was just enough time to take another ride with the cableway to the top of Marmolada. This time we skied all of the 12 kilometers down in one piece. My thighs were really pleased when we reached the end of the last slope.
I must say it was quite a ride!

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Made it back from the Dolomites

We went skiing to Civetta again. I guess it is becoming sort of a tradition, since we have been there for the sixth winter in a row.

We just never seem to get tired of going there. The vistas of the Italian Dolomites are simply stunning.


Apart from lots of skiing, eating and drinking, nothing special happened there. Well on another thought - it would really be a shock if we would not have done all of those things.

When I packed my bags I used this check list I prepared some time ago. It is still quite handy.

For the last couple of years I have been posting a summary of my skiing report from the official Dolomiti Superski web page at the end of each year's trip. Unfortunately this year it is unavailable due to some issues regarding disclosure of personal information. They are supposedly getting some 40 complaints over email every day but it does not really seem to help all that much.
This is a classical example of a bad outcome when some people are too concerned about personal data. On the other hand we are monitored by I don't know how many surveillance cameras every day and tracking our mobile phones is also not too hard to imagine. Well, sadly that is supposed to be OK I guess...


If I had to guess I would say we made at least as many kilometers on skis as the last year. If you are curious how my last year's skiing summary looks like, you can check it out on this link.

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Hiking in Slovenian hills

Hiking is a very popular activity in Slovenia. Since mountains and also hills of all kinds can be found in every corner of the country, that is not very odd at all.
If you like hiking, you just must visit Slovenia. It simply offers countless hiking opportunities for all kinds of hikers.
There is even a Slovenian hiking web page, with hiking tips and reports from many trips around Slovenia.

As a Slovenian, I also do it once in a while. I really don't have to go far to get in touch with nature.
That's one of good things about Slovenia - where ever you are, nature is never far away. Even when standing in the center of Slovenia's capital (Ljubljana), one doesn't need to go far to get in touch with nature. With a bit of luck, after a fifteen minute drive one could find himself next to a herd of cattle.


Since I live 60 kilometers west from the capital and a forest literally starts where our backyard ends, I am used to being close to nature.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to go hiking with a few friends. Nothing special, just a morning hike up a nearby hill (next to the small village of Ledine). We had a great time nevertheless.
The whole time we were accompanied by a young beagle dog. A very curious and full of energy representative of the breed.

It took us almost 2 hours to get to the top, where we were rewarded with great views of the Idrijca river valley.
We took a different - a bit shorter path back down.

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Ski performance - Civetta 2008

Every time I went skiing to Dolomites I have posted my ski performance stats from the official Dolomiti Superski site.

I can't see why should it be any different this time.


However there is one inaccuracy in that summary. Something is missing in the "Present season until yesterday" item. It's the 145 kilometers of slopes we did in December in Trevalli that's missing. You can check out that report here.

On the list of slopes we did this year there is also Gran Risa. This is the place of Alta Badia FIS Alpine Ski World Cup giant slalom race.


5+1 ski ticket allows you to go anywhere you want inside the wast Dolomiti Superski area for a day. This year we visited La Villa for the first time.

I must say Gran Risa slope is really something. It is quite steep but you can find many steeper slopes in the neighborhood. The combination of the steepness and length of this slope is what's really impressive. It just goes on and on...
If you do it in one piece and relatively fast I am sure you too will feel the pressure in your eardrums building up and your thighs should be burning quite nicely when you reach the end (that's if you're not the Terminator). Apart from that a sweaty drop or two should also come dripping from under your helmet.

It is something you should definitely try. Only then you can start to understand what those World Cup participants are doing on daily basis.

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Elan S10

For as long as I can remember I have been using Elan skis. I guess it's because Elan is a Slovenian trademark and they are also making really good skis.
They are working on innovations all the time for others to copy afterwards. They say Elan was the first company to introduce carve approach. Now everybody is doing it.


Skis of my choice for the last couple of seasons have been Elan S10 Fusion.
Even though it wasn't cheap I am very satisfied with the purchase. With them I can easily enjoy throughout a whole day of skiing without getting my legs too tired.

Despite of that I think next time I'll choose just a bit stiffer model. Stiffer skis make you work harder but at the same time offer better grip on hard and icy surfaces.

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Dolomites still looking good

We are back from skiing in Civetta and as expected we had a great time. There is a lot of snow in Italian Dolomites at this moment and the weather was simply gorgeous. Throughout the last week we hardly saw any clouds and even those few didn't come rolling across the sky until the time we were leaving.

I even came across a discussion the other day where people were talking about the best week for skiing in Dolomites area this season. Mostly they agreed last week was the best so far. I really couldn't argue that. Lucky me, I guess.


It was blue sky and sunshine all over and I have the tan to prove it! Mornings were a bit cold - especially on high altitudes, but through the day it got quite warm. We saw people sunbathing next to almost every mountain cottage.

We of course didn't use much of our time for that. Mostly our first priority was skiing but nevertheless we could not entirely ignore a wide selection of home-made products offered by local innkeepers. We especially liked a wide selection of homemade spirits (or grappa as Italians call them). It was almost impossible to find a kind of herb or fruit, that wasn't dipped into a strong local schnapps and offered to customers.

Those with a local sort of apples were my favorite. The little apples were barely cherry size, yet very delicious. If you take into consideration where those apples grow, I guess you shouldn't be at all surprised with their size. After all we are talking about altitudes between 1.000 and 2.000 meters above sea level.

Before I could afford to fully experience those tasty liquors I had a choice to make. I was on an antibiotic prescription at the time and as you should know - alcohol and antibiotics don't mix well. It was already my fifth week on those drugs and I had another week ahead of me.
I did a little research and decided that five weeks and a few days will just have to do.


You can see my unfortunate dilemma on the last photo above.

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Skiing in Civetta

It's time to go skiing again. For the last couple of years we have been going to Dolomites this time of year. Civetta is the destination of our choice. We obviously like it a lot (otherwise we wouldn't be going there year after year) and we can hardly wait to hit the road tommorrow after lunch.

I hope we'll have nice weather and as many nice photo opportunities as possible.

If you want, you can check some photos from last year. You can find them on these links: link1, link2 and link3.


I also published a skiing checklist last year and used it earlier today. I have to say it still works fine.

Enjoy next week as much as possible. I know I will.

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Trevalli Ski-opening official stats

For a couple of years now the official Dolomiti Superski homepage is offering some statistics for you to check out after you get back home.

I always try to remember and check them out. This year they upgraded the statistics with a graphical representation.



This is how a summary of my four days of skiing in Trevalli looks like. I noticed the numbers are a bit lower than usually. The reason for that is quite obvious from my previous two posts.
I posted a similar summary after my last year's skiing adventure in Civetta. You can check it out here.

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The hard part of skiing

Since in Trevalli there are no night skiing opportunities, we had to find something else to do during late hours.

It is quite usual for our group to cause some mild disturbance in an otherwise peaceful family vacation environment. This time however it was not the case.
There was this group of 18 men (aged 40 to 50) stationed in the same building with us and they were true party animals. We were no match for them. They said they do a thing like this twice a year. That's the only two times in a year their wives let them off the chain (so they put it). They seemed to try real hard to make the most of it.



They brought over 150 liters of alcohol with them. Mostly it was beer and wine, but there was also some home made schnapps, herb brandy, tangerine liqueur, walnut liqueur, blueberry brandy and I'm pretty sure that was not all. Personally I only managed to try those. I must say they were all homemade drinks and without an exception tasted pretty good.



They also had a pile of sausages, various dry salami and a whole leg of prosciutto with them. It all added up to a selection of meat products that I'm sure even a medium-size butchery would be proud of.

When they started to party you could barely hear yourself thinking. An accordion and a guitar encouraged them to sing louder and louder as the hours went by.
Fortunately they weren't in their best shape (or so they said), so they managed an all night party only every other night.

Surprisingly we saw them also on the slopes during the day. It was quite hard work for us too. Partying late and skiing all day long from 10 AM to 4 PM every day was quite a challenge.

They made me laugh every time I saw them. You could just never tell what they were up to. Of course they had their equipment with them on the slopes too (accordion included).

I am not sure how much skiing they actually did, because I saw them mostly around those neat mountain huts by the slopes.
Usually there are tables set in front of these huts. It feels really great to just sit there for a while and soak the sun. The only thing that spoils the idyllic atmosphere are the prices of food and drinks they offer. You could bring your own sandwiches and hot tea, but there are signs everywhere saying: "No picnic!" or "No packed lunch!".

If you try to ignore them, there is usually a waiter around to nag about it.



Well these neighbors of ours didn't seem to bother. They simply put their leg of prosciutto in a stand on one of the tables, just next to the 10 liter wine container they brought with them. They sang a song or two and slowly carved into the prosciutto with a 30 cm carving knife.

The waiter just pretended they weren't there and kept avoiding them. It was a laugh!
Oh yeah and the prosciutto was excellent!

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Ski season opening in Trevalli

I finally (with some substantial delay, but hey in the end I did it and that's what counts) decided to share some info on how my first skiing trip of this season went.

We had a great time and will definitely try to do it again. The only problem with this kind of ski-opening trips can be snow, or better put - the lack of it. It is always a bit of a gamble since you have to book the accommodation at least two months in advance. At that time you don't have a clue what the weather and snow conditions are gonna be.
Fortunately this time all went well.

It happened in the middle of December and included four days of skiing, relaxing and partying. The car trip took us just over four hours one way (Ljubljana to Falcade and back). It went by without any problems.

We went as a group of 13. In case if you are wondering - no, there was no lack of luck (I guess this time 13 wasn't an unlucky number at all).
Mostly we knew each other, there was only one couple that was new to me. We got along great.

We were divided into four apartments and instantly turned into four perfect little families. When it was time to party we (as usually when we go somewhere as such a group) occupied one of the apartments and tried to destroy as much of our common enemy as possible. As you might have guessed, this enemy of ours is also called alcohol.
Because of the long hours of skiing that were always in front of us on the next morning, we didn't take it too far. Most of us really love skiing, so it was our first priority.



A smaller part of our group (a female colleague) wasn't expecting that and consequentially while others were skiing, she tried to pass the time tasting various local drinks (most of which were alcoholic).
Those cute little huts (I like to call them skier traps) placed just next to ski slopes offer a variety of spirits, beers and similar stuff. Everybody tasted at least some of those. For an instance Bombardino was the first choice of many.


The skiing was great. Most of the snow was artificial, but it was enough of it and most of the slopes were opened.
That meant around 90 km of slopes were available. Trevalli ski resort is just big enough not to get bored in four days.
The name of this part of Dolomiti Superski area - Trevalli translates to Three Valleys and that's just what it is - three valleys full of ski-lifts and slopes. Two of those valleys are connected and the third is just a short ride away.


From Col Margherita, at a height of 2.650 m one can also see ski slopes in Civetta ski area and Mt. Pelmo rising above them. It was a nice view especially because we are going there again in February.

More about the other side of skiing in my next post.

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