Blogs from Upper Carniola, Slovenia, Europe

Almost the last of Ljubljana. Very casual day as tomorrow we need to be up at silly o’clock in order to catch a flight to Belgrade. Not only is the flight at silly o’clock, we are taking the circuitous route! Apparently there are only 2 flights a week directly to Athens, so we fly significantly further but we fly on a date that suits us. Our hotel said the the airport here only has 10 or so flights per day so we are not expecting a JFK or Heathrow. But we will be on our way to Athens. Had a little walk, hard to believe but true. Julie found this app that details all the drinking fountains in Ljubljana (Bluey was right when he said there’s an app for almost everything) and we tracked down one ... read more

May have to revise my Slovenian breakfast award. Forgot to take any pictures but this breakfast spread has a lot going for it. I’ll try and capture some of the spectrum of dishes tomorrow. But it’s tourist day. We booked and caught the bus from the train station just before 9 o’clock which is not stupid o’clock but it means we keep moving. From the bus stop it seemed like a short 1.7 km walk to the caves at Postajna. This complex is the largest cave system in Europe and is indeed very impressive. Not colourful but impressive in its scale. There’s more than 20 km of cave tunnels, 39 million people have visited the caves (most of them today I think!) and it takes between 100 and 400 years to produce a cm of growth ... read more

We are back in Bled, having walked the Juliana Trail. The total ascent is equivalent to more than climbing Mt Everest. And as we are back where we commenced the descent is the same. There’s much debate about which is more difficult but rest assured there are difficult uphill sections and difficult downhill sections on this trail but they are rewarded with spectacular views and with scenic vistas which have been quite breathtaking. The figures and statistics are intriguing. We regularly walk more than 40000 steps which on the flat would translate to about 30 km but on no day did we walk nearly that far. The weather was too hot today as the temperature rose above 30 degrees and the heat radiating from the roads made it uncomfortable. Anyway it’s now ancient history and we ... read more

Easy like Sunday morning, because it is Sunday morning. Well really it was and we spent it walking. Easy walk and short in order to give Julie’s foot as much rest as possible. She has it iced and up at the moment and it hasn’t been too bad but we do not want it to get any worse because we have a couple of walks to do in Greece pretty soon. Ahh!! The paragraphs have gone crazy again and I don’t know how to change them. Obviously the font went all ‘nice’ too. Breakfast at the ‘Veranda’ was very good. Really good fruit salad, plenty of good coffee and juice and some fresh baked croissants (but not super flakey, half flakey and half sort of puff). The track was easy to walk and often shared ... read more

My Slovenian cultural attaché has informed me that it’s not ‘Kransky Gora’ but ’Kranjska Gora’ despite the fact we have ‘kransky’ sausage and not ‘kranjska’ sausage! So if you are corresponding with Julie use the ‘Kranjska’, anyone else ‘Kransky’ seems fine. We walked back into Slovenia today after being driven back towards Tarvisio. Did not drive the entire way as it would have meant walking through the streets of a fairly large town. So along quite a gentle track used by heaps of cyclists and described as several paths (Juliana, Alpina…) Some variations but always scenic and green. The National Park and the giant slalom were features but the looming and omnipresent mountains still manage to steal the show. We also cut the distance because we could and because Julie’s foot isn’t terrific. Some stages are ... read more