Sacred Water

After a walking tour of Ljubljana this morning, we headed into the Julian Alps to see Lake Bled. Its waters are a divine Carribbean/Amalfi coast blue.
A dip of my ailing left foot left a pain-free warm tingle the rest of the day. After all these days along the Dalmatian coast along the Adriatic, it was here in the north when I finally came upon my first Dalmatian swimming in Lake Bled with her owner.

Prior to Christianity’s intrusion, it was believed that the island in the middle of the lake was home to Živa, the ancient Slovenian goddess of life and love. In the 9th century, the church was built on the Pagan site and remarketed as the Church of the Virgin Mary. We asked if they had any Živa souvenir statues we could take home and of course the answer was no.

Inside the church we all took turns ringing the wishing bell. The story is that those who come to honor Mary are to make a wish and pull on the rope to make the church bell ring to get it granted. The drive back was unbearably long, with no insult intended to the vast beauty of Triglav National Park. We also had mere minutes to spend enjoying Lake Bohinj.
On our way out, the only thing that prevented revolt from being ripped away from Lake Bled was Martin’s relenting to our demands for cream cake (kremina rezina), a regional Slovenian specialty. Yes, looks innocent enough but every bite was worth every calorie.

Our morning tour of Ljubljana revealed a deeper and interesting controversy about the long-time dictator Marshall Tito, (first referenced in the Belgrade entry). Some say the real Tito died back in 1943. He lived in secret prior to that time and yet the resistance forces he mobilized were so unified that news of his death would have caused chaos. Many facts point to a different “Tito” having been secretly placed in power from the mid 40s to his death in 1980. Evidence that the famous Tito was in fact really a Russian nobleman exists:

* The real Tito was missing one finger and was trained as a locksmith (and yet he played piano to entertain the Queen of England)
* The Tito who in 1948 broke Yugoslavia’s relations with Russia’s Stalin would have been more likely if the 2nd Tito had in fact a Russian nobleman.
* Another discrepancy I was unable to get clear on languages Tito spoke Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian and Hungarian, or not.