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Bled, 21-28 June 2003 (part I)

Peter Cameron
2006-03-12 12:11:12

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21/06/2003

It's years since I kept a travel diary. Why am I starting now? Maybe the email from Nikhil and Nidhi Singhi mentioning that they had read some of my diaries.

Up at 5:30, out of the house with only a banana and a glass of milk for breakfast. To the tube station in time to see a train pulling out, then a 15 minute wait for the next. I'm not in a hurry, unlike four American girls whose plane is an hour earlier than mine; they were getting quite nervous.

The first check-in desks I came to were Austrian Airlines, and the queues not too long, so I was able to take myself to Wetherspoons for a more substantial breakfast before going to the gate. The bookshops had huge piles of the new Harry Potter book, and didn't seem to be shifting many. I did buy myself three books for a fiver each: I will have a long wait at Vienna airport on the way home.

The plane left on time, taking off to the east and flying over Richmond and Wimbledon, then past central London with fine views, and down the Thames estuary: I could see many places I've walked, including the horrible Mucking Marshes, and Canvey Island. After that, there were just enough clouds that visibility wasn't good for a while, so I did most of the Times crossword. Over Austria, large fields divided into multicoloured strips, and the lake and marshes south of the airport.

Through another security check in Vienna airport, then to a pair of gates downstairs from which you go by bus to the plane. A big crowd of people going through gate 18 to Prague, but only a handful of us for Ljubljana.

The check-in girl in London had thought that 12D was an aisle seat, but on the small Adria (Slovene airlines) plane, it was actually the window seat in the last row. Too cloudy for much of even what view wasn't blocked by the wing until approaching Ljubljana, in a valley that seemed too narrow and steep-sided for an airport, with ...