Dear Mother, Meg and Murph:
We are now in the republic of Slovenia in a fairytale town of Bled. We arrived yesterday and will remain here until August 9th when we will take the train to Munich. We will meet our friend there who has a car and we will be visiting the Black Forest (Schwartzwald). Then a boat trip up the Rhine and then after to Berlin then back to Frankfurt in early September for our trip back to New York.
Bled is like a town in a story all very alpine. There is also a castle and a beautiful lake with wonderful swimming. Marshall Tito spends part of his summers here. We are surrounded by the Julian Alps. Tonight we go to a park right on the lake for an opera. The last one was too much for Robert.
It is hard to believe our long trip of almost 4 months is coming to an end. And no blazing heat up in the North of Yugoslavia. We are but 8 hours by train to Munich. I do not wish to return to Yugoslavia as I am too used to comfort. There is a shortage of just about everything. The food is poor full of starch and a lack of vegetables unlike Greece with its varied and delicious food with fruits and vegetables in abundance.
We had a miserable trip here on my birthday. We started at 4:30 a.m. and arrived here at 3:30 p.m. We took a bus, then a ferry then three more bus trips. Oh boy. The seats on the bus were like a park bench with a leather headrest. I sure hope they are not like that on our train trip to Munich or they will need a stretcher to take me off. It is too damp here for my back. The dry heat in Greece was much better. I am looking forward to Germany where we will be sleeping in a house in the forest. Germany is having a heat wave now with Munich having had a temperature of 94 degrees. Although Slovenia is beautiful the people are cold and rude but then again I said that about Germany and look where we are going next.
I just went outside to collect our bathing suits that were drying outside and I noticed there is a pear tree full of pears. We have a cute room just below the sloping Alpine roof. It is much cooler here than in Croatia and Serbia with an average temperature of 75. It is strange to see they have comforters here on the beds which is quite a change from the islands. The food here is just about the same as the rest of Yugoslavia. Thank goodness for the markets where usually but not always you can buy fruit and now tomato is the king here.
In the last island we met a girl Sonya who is a nurse in an army hospital. She had a car. She was beautiful and charming and took us around. We visited a couple of her friends who had summer homes. Beautiful outside but very poor inside.
Love M
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