It was still raining the day I arrived in Ribno, the little town outside Bled where I stayed. Arriving from Ljubljana, I was taken aback to realize that the Pension Kreck driver who picked me up at the bus station was leaving Bled for the hinterlands. Indeed, we ended up in a tiny townlet of 500 two kilometers outside Bled. Bled is a main tourist center because of its lake, reputed to have at one time rivaled St. Moritz as a chic watering hole. Chalk up one for serendipity. The small town was better than being in busy Bled, although other people coming to the pension had cars. In Ribno I could hear distant roosters crowing, neighborhood laughter and church bells—which enhanced the majestic quiet that the surrounding mountains furnish. At either of the two restaurants in town, evenings were spent watching the peaked panorama turn from green to blue to charcoal as the sun set. My room had a private bath and terrace where I could listen to the birds and watch clouds float by, or was it fog those rainy days?