#3 FROM SEA TO SUMMIT

Day 3. 

Woke up with no such horrible need to pee. 

Had a slow breakfast by the lake and then we decided to rent a kayak and paddle board for couple of hours. Packed a snack, phones, gopro and headed out. It was fun. Lots of sun and lots of pictures. Some people have fear of heights, I have a fear of depths.

 Embracing the fear and paddling straight into the middle of a lake. When we returned the fun stuff, we didn't have enough of cash (or maybe I didn't, having cash in my pockets ain't my strong side).

So there was only one option, run to the nearest cash machine. And the nearest one was on the other end of the lake 4,4 km far away. I laced my running shoes, Anežka took her Toms on and we both headed out. It wasn't a bad run after all. My legs are very sore from yesterday, but I had to get it done. 

After all the mandatory stuff like paying our bill for kayak and paddle, I jumped into the lake, made friends with a beautiful doooog and waited for Anežka to come back from her walk to the ATM. Mandatory pasta and headed out for (as usual) evening Laško beer. Managed to write 4 postcards and I'm pretty happy with what I wrote. 

Anežka keeps telling me not to eat after I brush my teeth, but I'm like “whatever I've got cravings and I'm on holiday” so not a problem for me. I'll read a bit now and then say good night. 

#1 FROM SEA TO SUMMIT

Day 1

Leaving Czech Republic with a heavy rain upon us and dobrodošli to Slovenia in the same conditions. We knew that the first day will be rainy and moody. Getting to the camp turned out to be very easy, just one bus and 4,10€ later, we found ourselves walking along the Bohinj lake. It was a shock at first. The camp is overcrowded, but we found a good dry spot for our tent. List of priorities right after we put the tent up was to jump in the lake. Just a fews step between our textile house and the lake, so I think it will be a every day thing. Breakfast at 11am followed by a nap. Now I'm about to read that book I brought all the way from Prague. 

Anezka woke up from her nap and we packed snacks to backpacks and headed out to walk around the lake cca 13-14k. Seems like this place is favourite spot not only for European tourists, but locals too. It's very heave on people, which I'm not the biggest fan of.

As we walked, we stopped at pretty bench with lake view  to eat bread and cheese. It has gotten so hot, that I decided to jump in the lake only in a bra and running short. 10 mins later it started raining a bit. And 45 mins later a huge rain has started and it still lasts till now (7pm), when I'm writing this. We're hiding in a tent hoping for a dry window to make portion of pesto pasta (which I've been looking for the whole week). 

So after a good 3 and something hours of signing in a tent (sorry not sorry everyone in surrounding tents), we embraced getting out in the rain (I needed to pee lol). We took our stove, very instant mug soups and now we're sitting next to a lot of germans, who play cards. I want this night to be over already. This rain suuuucks! 

As we were falling asleep the rain stopped. Finally.

Btw, now looking back at it, the karaoke in our tent as it was crazy raining outside is one of the best memories I'll probably have. 

Ísafjörður

This Icelandic town with 2 600 inhabitants is a prototype of a fishing town. Ísafjörður is a town pretty much isolated from the rest of the Iceland as it lies at the top of West fjords, which makes it really hard to reach. You can either drive along 7 fjords, which is absolutely spectacular. Or you can fly with one of those tiny airplanes from Reykjavík, but because the town is right next to the ocean it happens quite a lot that the wind is so strong that the airplane cannot land.

Icelanders say that it takes 5-6 hours to get here from Reykjavík, but I honestly don’t know how crazy they drive to be so fast. It took us so much longer. We might have been enjoying the unusual views, but still driving through 7 fjords is driving through 7 fjords.

When we walked around the town, I was constantly taking pictures, so I’ve decided to dedicate one blogpost only to Ísafjörður’s buildings. Here ya go! Would you live in one of these?

ICELAND AGAIN

Land of nothing and everything. It is exceptional how they could turn this “nothing” into everything. Ever since than the Icelanders live from tourism. Any time of the year is special in Iceland. Iceland totally took my breath away last summer (that much that I wrote only one blogpost about it, hah), so when my mom came with the idea to go again I was ALL IN! 

This time we were headed to the West fjords. And let me tell you what a remote place it is. When driving there, you get to see only few more other cars and few fishing towns. I felt lonely. Even I did. I cannot imagine how living there 24/7/365 days of the year can be like. Only Icelanders can survive. 

It is still not so discovered part of Iceland by tourists, because of the uneasy availability. And yet locals are proud that the nature of this corner of Iceland is so remote and untouched by humans. I can absolutely understand that. We humans are destroying the nature without even realising it. That’s what I like about Iceland, they try to preserve the nature as much as they can. Not too many roads. Not too many touristic centres. Using mainly renewable energy. Being in general very chilled and not stressing about things. Oh and spending a lot of time in natural hot tubs! 

The reason why we visited the West fjords was for this 68 years old long distance cross country ski race called Fossavatnsgangan (omg the description still not getting any shorter). We skied in this beautiful area right above the fjord on a huge snow field between mountains. Let me tell you that that was something totally different than anything I have ever experienced in a continental Europe. We were so lucky to have beautiful weather for the main race, so we got to enjoy the race even more. At one point I almost started to cry by how beautiful the race was. I am not kidding. I almost started crying in the middle of the race. WHAT?! Anyway, great time in Iceland we had. 

Oh and have I told you we got a free car upgrade when the guy at the counter saw that we have skis with us? Good times. And the sun didn’t go down until 9:30pm and that was only end of April. 

Thank you Iceland for being so Icelandic.

In advance I am sorry about the amount of pictures. I can not post just 5 pictures when it comes to such a different country like Iceland.  And one more thing, a lot of the pictures were taken as we drove to our destination (about 8h drive), so that is why it is such a big part of this Iceland gallery. Driving around Iceland is a great way to see more of the scenery. No regrets!