We leave Kranjska Gora and take the Vrsic pass which is a winding road through the mountains connecting Kranjska Gora to Bovec, fifty kilometers away. There are fifty hairpin turns and it’s narrow enough for us all to feel the need to breath in when cars are coming towards us!! The pass is only open in the summer months so we’re excited to get the chance to see the beautiful scenery that we believe is in store. Jennifer is driving us up and Renee will take over on the other side so I’m feeling confident.
There are a couple of stops of note as we pass through these magnificent Julian alps. The first is the wooden “Russian church”. The road was built mostly by Russian prisoners of war and this church is a memorial to over 300 of them who were buried in an avalanche while working on the road.
Further along there’s a place to pull in to view the mountains. There’s a really cool hole in the mountain That I’m sure looks great when the sun shines throug
Further below you can see the face and body of a person with the change in the colour of the rocks … can you make it out?
Maria is loving it…
Around another hairpin turn we come upon a herd of sheep. They don’t seem to care how close we are and it takes a fair bit of time for them to get across the road and move into the hills.
Renee and I swap from front to back and Maria is all over the place..
A photo opportunity as we reach the top.
We continue the drive down to Bovec and beyond. We pass a lot of small bridges, waterfalls and viewing points. All are beautiful but we have to be choosey or we’ll never get to our destination. This bridge was particularly nice
And this river running into some caves.
Oh yeah Slovenia is also a country full of caves. They have approximately fifty touristic caves that you can visit… we have some on our list for tomorrow. But right now we’re thinking about lunch and Renee mentions that there’s a famous chef who runs a restaurant called Hisa Franco and it’s actually on our route to Piran. Although it’s a fine dining experience that apparently you need to book weeks in advance, we decide to chance our arm and stop by! The maitre di is really friendly and has one of the staff show us around (even the kitchen). She tells us there is a sister restaurant in the local village (called Kobarid) that takes walk ins.
We head there for lunch – it’s called Hisa Polonka and it is the best meal we’ve had so far on our trip.
Fed, watered and delighted with ourselves we continue on the road to Piran. Piran is known as the pearl of Slovenia and it could just as easily be Italy. In fact at one point we think our directions might be sending us via Italy to get there (passports please!!) but as we approach the motorway there’s a barrier block and a diversion for a road closure which we hadn’t really understand earlier on our route. We manage to follow the directions without hitting the Italian border and arrive to the little coastal town right at the tip of Slovenia on the Adriatic and within waving distance of our Italian friends.
The main square:
We are just spending one night here and it’s a “no car” town so we have a 15 minute window to find our accommodation, unpack our bags and get out of the centre to the car park where we can then take a free shuttle back or walk the 1.5kms. We are very organised and have packed an overnight bag each so we can leave the larger cases in the car however we’re not that organised to find the accommodation and when google maps won’t work on the tiny streets it’s a stressful situation in 33 degrees of heat.. Eventually we find it, drop the bags and get back to the driver (Renee, who appears to have managed an outfit change in our absence).
Our next fun adventure is to find the car park and more critically find a spot in the seven story underground car park that is jammed and chaotic with tourists. It appears that no one knows how the system works and cars are blocking the entrance and exit… arghhhh – Piran you headwrecker!!! We find a spot, it’s tight against a wall and we can only get out one side of the car but we take it and are happy to be done with the logistics. It is roasting hot so we walk toward the sea to dip our feet in and cool down. It’s a rocky beach and the stones are very slippy – we do well not to have any falls!
We spend a couple of hours by the water and check out the main square before heading back through the maze of tiny streets to our home for the night. After some much needed air conditioned downtime involving wine and a lot of laughing over the days debrief, we clean ourselves up as much as we can to go back into 30 degree heat at 8pm for dinner in the main square. They are big into their truffles in this neck of the woods so it’s either seafood or pasta with truffles – we all go for a variation of truffle pasta with shrimps or vegetables and a local white wine which is really good. We are entertained by some kids playing in the square (I hear you gasp as this isn’t usually something that I enjoy but this was quite hysterical). A little Italian boy about 6 stood himself up on the small wall around the water found and peed aiming as high as he possible could. No sign of a parent around and he was just delighted with himself. Then we watched as unsuspecting people got drinking water, washed their hands and went about their regular business at the fountain. The fountain in question had been photographed earlier in the day when Renee unwittingly got a photo of this scooter.
Then a little girl who couldn’t have been more than two and a half or three was practicing on her little bike and was flying down the downhill to the square so fast there was only one way this was going to end… her on the ground… she was super cute and dusted herself off with a little wash of her grazed knees … guess where – yep, in the water fountain .. π
After dinner we take a walk to the church at the edge of the old town and then call it a night. Piran has been an adventure but between the logistics and the heat we won’t be hanging around tomorrow. We have a similar rigmarole ahead of us in the morning and I’d like to leave under the cover of darkness but we negotiate a 7:30am departure before it gets busy and the heat really hits (although it never really subsided). At least we are sleeping in a cold air conditioned room which is delightful.
Next morning we are on the road to Ljubljana with a couple of significant stops on the way. We manage to get through the checkout process in one piece and are well on the road by 8:30am. Our first stop is at the Skocjan caves. They’re about an hours drive away and we’re happy to get out of Piran and the humidity.
Our guided tour begins with a significant walk from the Visitors Centre to the man-made passageway and entrance to the cliffs. There are two main parts to the caves, the first being the Silent Cave (Tiha jama), which is filled with numerous dripstone formations. Huge stalagmites and stalactites of various shapes and sizes, some with bright colors are all around us. The colours are due to different minerals being present in the rocks. The second cave is called the cathedral – it is a huge open space with giant formations that look like a huge piped organ.
There are no photos allowed inside of the caves for two very important reasons. Firstly the light from the flash affects the natural environment and can cause the formations to stop growing and secondly our ninety minute tour would likely take an extra hour as there are so many cool formations that no doubt the entire tour group (which was a large number) would want to photograph.
The caves are huge… by far the biggest I’ve ever seen, we walk two kilometers through the two caves and there are a further three not open to the public.
Exiting the Cave, we see the underground canyon of the Reka River that we cross on the Cerkvenik Bridge, suspended nearly fifty meters above the riverbed. In 1965 there was a flood on this very day that we’re visiting (September 2nd) where the river was higher than where we were walking on that very bridge…. When we hit the exit we can take some photos..
Next on our list is Predjama castle which is a castle built into a cave. We start with lunch at a restaurant overlooking this very impressive site – isn’t that gorgeous.
For the first time on the trip I see cevapcici on the menu (this was my favourite from the Balkan trip) so I have that along with a one euro glass of wine.. sure you’d have to!!
The castle tour is self guided with an audio guide which is both entertaining and thankfully brief. You get to see all four floors of the castle which was first built in 1202 but most of what’s currently here is 16th century.
Not only is it an impressive location, it also has an interesting story. A man called Erazem Lueger, who was considered Slovenia’s Robin Hood, hid from his captors in the castle and taunted them by throwing cherries at them from the “murder holes” around the castle walls. Unfortunately he was killed by a canon ball that hit him when he was in the least safe place in the castle…. sitting on the loo!!
We arrive in Ljubljana to thunder and lightening and a massive down pour of rain. Our next Airbnb is on a pedestrianized street so we have to get our bags out and get rid of the car. We manage it between us and before long we’re drinking our last bottle of Gruner Veltliner that we bought on our very first night of the trip in the Wachau valley.
The street we are staying on is dead centre in the middle of all the downtown action. It’s a large two bedroom apartment on top of a bar looking out onto outdoor seating and the river. We are right beside the dragon bridge.
In fact Ljubljana is known for its bridges as it has many of them including one called the triple bridge as it has three crossings. It’s hard to capture in a photo.
We’ve read about how “green” Slovenia is and it’s visible from the recycling bins that are dotted around the streets. It’s very impressive:
They even have milk vending machines where you bring your reusable bottle (or a large jug I suppose) and purchase the specific amount of milk you want. You can buy a reusable plastic (I assume recyclable) bottle for 30 cent and a litre of fresh milk is β¬1. You can buy in increments of 10 cents.
We’re all feeling a little tired this evening so have an easy night finishing our wine (you never doubted we’d get through it all, right?), only venturing to the bar below for food. In fact I may have had my dinner brought upstairs to me!!
Next day is our last full day of the holiday and we decide to go for breakfast before exploring the town. We have a few things on our list to see but mostly we plan to ramble through the streets, checking out the local shops and eating some local delicacies. We get off to a good start with breakfast at Slovenska Hisa. We sit by the river which is beautiful but the birds want food and they are not shy about sitting right on top of us.
Around the corner from the restaurant is a street full of little shops known for their local handicrafts. We happen upon a really cute shop where everything is made by children with hearing impairments and we pick up some souvenirs. There’s lots of other interesting shops to browse through but I’m limiting myself to only edible or usable items for this trip. I was tempted by a lot of things including bear salami (with 70% bear meat), chocolates in the shape of dragons and truffle salt (I did actually buy a tiny jar of salt). There was even a doggy bakery!
Next we visit Preseren square which sits at the triple bridge. It’s the centre of the city and was the busiest spot we encountered but construction work limited its appeal. The “pink church” aka Franciscan Church of the Annunciation was worth a short visit if only to see the remains of an ancient saint Deodatus. And there was also a black Madonna statue.
We check out the national library which is a very impressive building and known for its architectureοΏΌ
By now it’s time for lunch and we are determined to have the famous sausage called the Carniolian sausage. This small take out shop is extremely popular.
They cut up the sausage and serve it with horseradish and mustard and a bread roll. It was really good:
Next we take the funicular to the castle. We don’t bother with a tour of the castle we are really just here to check out the view… which is decent but a little underwhelming. I think this city is best experienced on the flat around the river. It’s all happening there.
The cathedral is closed so we only get to see this interesting door!
Down an alleyway there’s a row of skulls lining the pathway…
It’s time for a bit more sustenance – this time we try the popular struklji. This can be sweet or savoury and is kind of a layered dumpling cake. We had one chocolate and one mango, both served warm. Oh my these were good… layers of delicious cakey dough!
Another ramble, this time to an area called Metelkova which is covered in interesting graffiti. Not exactly somewhere I’d want to spend a lot of time but it was interesting to walk through and see.
It’s time to pack and get somewhat organised before our final dinner. The great thing about staying in Airbnbs is they usually have washing machines. As I’m travelling a further four weeks I wash everything worn to date and I’m set with a freshly packed bag for the next country.
It’s pizza for dinner again tonight and this time we try the local Rofask red wine. It’s really dry and a bit rough the first few sips but we manage to get through it!! Cheers Ljubljana! The light in the evening is beautiful as we pass our breakfast restaurant with the castle perched above.
Next morning the girls leave for an early train to Croatia so I sneak in a quick 4km run along the river. Well I say quick but I really mean short!!
And that’s a rap for the 2019 Texas Girls Tour…. what a fun week+ it’s been. Until next time goodbye my lovely ladies and goodbye Slovenia – it’s been thoroughly delightful.
odohertyelaine 