Venice & Slovenia: Traveling On a Shoestring.

The last stage in our Tour d’Italia was the unmissable crowd-pleaser, Venice. We stayed in an awesome camping-hostel which even had a pool! This, combined with the absinthe-wielding Dutchmen we met on the first night made it a little difficult to leave the hostel in the mornings, especially with the temperature staying around 35 degrees from 8am to 11pm. However when we did get into Venice, we started to see what all the fuss was about. There’s no denying that Venice is beautiful and unique – the narrow winding little back canals and alleyways are super cute, and it’s easy to duck into a side street and get lost from all the tourists. As with all touristey cities though, it is expensive, and it has kick-started our new regime of money-saving initiatives...

Let us introduce you to our latest money saving initiative, salad-in-a-sack. How to prepare: Buy a lettuce, some mozzarella, tomatoes and olives. Strain the mozzarella and olive liquid into the train toilet. Mix all the ingredients in the sack in which you purchased the lettuce. Eat the salad out of the sack. Healthy, and delicious...

The life-saving pool. Undoubtedly we would have died of sweat without it.

Money saving initiative #2: Watching people riding in a gondola is just as good as riding in a gondola yourself, but cheaper and safer.

Gelato for breakfast, lunch and tea, ge-la-to is for me-ee-ee! Our Achilles Heel when it comes to money-saving.

Masks are a big deal in Venice. In this awesome mask shop the mask maker creates everything from the original clay mold to the decorative paint work. That's him in the mirror there, such a boss.

From Venice we cut a path north-east into Slovenia, a tiny country hidden away between the big boys of Europe. We spent 3 nights in Slovenia, 1 in the capital Ljubljana and 2 in the lovely lakeside town of Bled. We still have no idea how to say hello in Slovenian, let alone “I’m about to miss my train because you are taking too long to scan my groceries, please hurry up lady!” (we ended up missing the train). For a country we had hardly even heard of, we were surprised at how much Slovenia reminded us of home. It was so green with more than 50 percent of the country covered in forest, the lakes and rivers were beautifully clean and clear and the people were incredibly helpful and friendly (with the exception of that supermarket cashier).

Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. We only spent one night here, but got a fairly good feel for the place. It was thriving with Slovenians (mainly students) drinking and getting merry in the streets to celebrate the end of their exams and the arrival of summer. Like a much classier version of Dunedin!

Caution: Small Slovenian children may run out onto the road and explode at any moment.

KITTY! Felix begged me not to put this one in.

Ahhh, Lake Bled. The loveliest place you ever did see. The perfect place to rest and recover from the exhaustion of travelling for a few days!

Money saving initiative #3: Instead of hiring a boat to row to Bled island for 10euro per hour, swim there yourself. The water's warm and the carp don't bite!

Everyone in Bled loses the plot when they talk about the local speciality - Kremna Rezina. There was one restaurant in Bled where they make all of them fresh each morning and distribute them out to every cafe in the region. Not bad at all, yet we're not sure it beats the good old kiwi custard square!

The Vintgar gorge, near Lake Bled. Clean, green, Slovenian natural beauty at its finest. The water was deceptively cold - compared to Lake Bled which was near swimming pool temperature, this glacier-fed stream was bone-achingly chilly.

You can't spell Slovenia without love ;)

Next time: Getting ruckus with Molly, Ally and Rammstein.