Day 4 as part of our Summer Roadtrip 2018 visiting the Italian Dolomites, Lake Bled and Istria. A travel diary, if you will…

Brixen And Lake Braies With A Bit Of Austria

I’m really going to miss this place; the smell of clean air, being fenced in by the most beautiful pieces of limestone, the urge to buy trousers that zip off at the knee, the light – oh the light. At 7am the sun hits that peak, at 10am another peak and at 4pm yet another – no matter where you are the sun is kissing some chosen segment somewhere in your vista – it’s so gorgeous! So, it’s with a heavy heart we checked out this morning : the 2 croissants, Italian torte, apricot cake and apfel strudel for breakfast only went a little way to soothing my soul.

Our end destination this evening was Lake Bled in Slovenia but we chose to spend the whole day getting here, bypassing a few bucket list sights.

Brixen

First off – Brixen. We’d read it was more Austrian than Italian but it was a case of seeing it to believe it. The architecture was definitely not very Italian and when we ordered a beer, a garden came with it. Very charming and quite a surprise, a highlight for me definitely was the cloisters and their beautiful frescoes. A highlight for Rich was the amount of signage with the word ‘fahrt’ in it. So immature.

Our 2nd bucket list item, and actually the one spot that sold this whole ‘Dolomites trip’ for me was Lago Di Braies. You should see the photos! I had all my poses ready and both camera lenses in my backpack. It was closed!!

It’s like going to see the Kremlin and it’s getting a paint job, like going to see Big Ben and it’s encased in scaffolding ?‍♀️, like going to see The David and he’s on his pee-break, like going to Greggs and they’re out of steak-bakes. My bottom lip was well and truly hanging.

But, all was not lost. After a beautiful drive through Austrian terrain and a quick stop in Aldi for £6.99 gin, we arrived at Lake Bled and Lago Di Braies was forgiven – nothing is as beautiful as here I’m telling you, not even Leeds, and I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and go exploring.

Lahkoh nôk (good night in Slovenian)