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Published: February 25th 2007
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Before booking our trip to Slovenia, we didn’t actually know too much about it. As it turned out, it was one of our favorite trips. The people were super-friendly and everyone we spoke to was fluent in English (many Slovenes spoke German and Italian as well.) We rented a car, which we did not originally plan to do, but it turned out to be a good decision because the roads were great and we were able to do day trips into Austria and Croatia, and to drive by a few extra castles and other sights along the way.
The capital, Ljubljana (loo-blee-on-a), had a great downtown historic area, interesting architecture, and fun cafes and restaurants. The town is set up with kind of a medieval layout with a castle overlooking the city, a river flowing through the center of town, a market area, and a central square which most of the city seemed to pass through each day.
After enjoying the atmosphere in Ljubljana for a few days, we picked up our rental car and drove to one of the most popular tourist towns in Slovenia, Bled. On our way there, we crossed the border into Austria and had
lunch in Klagenfurt. There was a big festival the day we were there and it would have been fun to stay if we hadn't had other things to do. Bled was one of the most picture-perfect places Lindsay and I have ever been to. The lake is surrounded by mountains, including the Julian Alps on the west side, and there is a castle on a cliff over the lake and a beautiful church on an island in the center of the lake.
On our first day there, we took a 2 hour walk around the lake and stopped off to rent a rowboat to see the church on the island. Our rowboat had a swan shape which got a few laughs out of folks in less romantically adorned boats, but we think they were just jealous. We had perfect timing because when we got to the island a wedding was just starting and we got to see the groom carry his wife-to-be all the way up the 100 or so steps to the church as the guests cheered behind him. After seeing the church and hanging out on the island for awhile, we returned our swan, walked the rest
of the way around the lake and hiked 10 min. straight up the cliff to the castle. There wasn’t much to do in the castle, but we did get to bottle our own wine with a helpful and friendly castle monk wine guy, and the view from the castle terrace was nice. Before leaving Bled, we took a day trip to nearby Lake Bohinj, which was similar but more outdoorsy-hikey and less romanticy-touristy.
From Bled, we took a scenic road through the Julian Alps and Triglav National Park, over the Vršič (ver-shich) Pass. This name was very convenient for yelling out as we careened around each of the 50 switchbacks it took to make it over the pass. After getting over the mountain, the road followed along the blue-green Soča River into the Brda Valley which we followed to get to Piran.
Piran is located on Slovenia’s short (46 km!) coastline between Italy and Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It’s a beautiful little town, but there’s not a whole lot to do there except walk around town, go for a swim on the “beach”, which is really more like concrete on the side of a pool, and eat
in the restaurants along the water. The view from the old city wall on the top of the hill overlooking town was probably our favorite thing.
From Piran, we took a day trip to Pula, Croatia, which had a cool Roman Theater and a few other ruins, but it was pretty hot and crowded and all we could find to eat for lunch were "burgers" that may or may not have been meat, so we didn’t stay too long as we felt a little nauseous. We stopped on the way back in a pretty little town called Umag near the border. It was interesting to see the contrast from wealthier Slovenia to relatively less well off Croatia considering they were both part of Yugoslavia until the early 90s.
On the way back to Ljubljana, we stopped off at another of our favorite sites, Predjama Castle. It’s located on the side of a cliff and the back of the castle is part cliff and part secret-exit cave. They did a good job of decorating and furnishing the castle to make it look like it did in it’s heyday in the 16th century.
So overall, Slovenia was a great
place to visit. It was beautiful, really easy to get around, and even though it was August, there weren't too many tourists. It was also fun to dip into Austria, and we're definitely planning to head back there once we're done with classes next summer.
- Jason
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