Slovenia

After hearing about how green and beautiful you are, we had might high hopes for you Slovenia. And golly, you did not disappoint! We drove in from Croatia and made our base in the capital city of Ljubljana. From there, everywhere that we planned to visit was an hour or less away by car. Green, beautiful and convenient!

Paul’s Velika Planina video
Paul’s Lake Bled video
Paul’s Ljubljana and Postjana video

The first place we visited was the traditional shepherd’s village in the high alpine meadow of Velika Planina. To get there we took a very steep cable car and then climbed another several hundred metres. It was tough going in parts but so worth it to see the quaint wooden huts in the middle of the greenest meadow with wildflowers just starting to flower and snowy mountain tops in every direction.

On the way back to Ljubljana, we made a quick stop for ice cream in the super cute village of Kamnik at the base mountains where I decided I’m going to move to.

The next day we headed to the very photogenic Lake Bled where we rode bikes around the lake, tasted the famous cream cake, and had a lovely picnic in the sun on the beach. After lunch, we rode a chair lift up and then sped back down the hill on alpine sleds. The boys were more adventurous and rode tubes off a ski jump and into a crash pad, and Elliot even did a five metre free fall jump. We ended the day with a hike up Vintgar Gorge before heading back to our lovely little apartment in Ljubljana.

The following day we decided to stay in town and do some exploring. On our way to the funicular to take us up to Ljubljana’s castle, we crossed the landmark Dragon Bridge and happened upon the annual baked goods festival in the market. We sampled all sorts of cakes and breads and seeds and dips until Ollie and I couldn’t stand the crowds any longer.

 At Ljubljana Castle we took a guided tour complete with dramatic performances from notable figures from Ljubljana’s history like Saint George who allegedly slayed the dragon where the castle now stands. The weather turned very grim and bucketed down all afternoon which ruined our plans to visit Tivoli Park. The boys and I visited a puppet museum and chilled out in the apartment instead, and Paul partook in a couple of beers at the Union Brewery Tour. This will be the beer that Paul will be drinking when we move to Kamnik. He’s a fan.

Our last full day in Slovenia, we headed to the largest tourist cave in Europe. I won’t lie; it’s a total tourist trap, but if you can overlook this, there are some pretty neat things about it, like the fact that we took a train over two kilometres into the cave and then walked a further 1.5 kms through some of the most gigantic and gorgeous caverns that I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a fair share of caves). The cave is also home to the olm, an albino-looking salamander with no eyes which we got to learn all about along with all sorts of other cave creatures in the Vivarium.

Not ten kilometres from the cave is another cave famous for the impenetrable castle (biggest Cave castle in the world) that was built into it and where Slovenia’s Robin Hood his out for over a year before finally being killed by authorities while he was using the toilet.

After such great times in Slovenia, we hated to say goodbye, but Paris was calling.

Rastoke and Plitvice Lakes

Before I get started, here’s the link for Paul’s video for Split, Zadar, Rastoke, and Plitvice Lakes. 

After Zadar, we headed inland to visit the world-famous Plitvice waterfalls on our way to Slovenia. Before visiting the waterfalls, we made like cowboys and mounted some lazy steeds for a horseback adventure. We also visited the awesome village of Rastoke which wowed us with its own remarkable waterfalls and a certifiably mad slacklining fellow showing off his tricks fifty or so meters above a wild river.

The next morning we were at Plitvice Lakes as soon as it opened in an effort to avoid the many tour buses that visit each day. It was just awesome. We walked around the wooden walkways which because of all the recent rain have only just opened up and in some spots still had water rushing over them. And we marveled at the amazing waterfalls spraying us from above, or at other times dropping literally beneath our feet. It was just epic.