Travel diary: Slovenia

This summer the boyf and I had some trouble finding the perfect holiday destination this year. We were quite late to travel by plane because the prices were a tad too high by the time we started looking into that. It wasn’t our first choice, but in the end the choice for a road trip to Slovenia was a great idea!

Last year we made this big trip to Japan (find out here what we did while in Japan), but this year we made quite a few tiny trips before summer, for example to Lapland. We knew at the beginning of the year that this year we wouldn’t make a such a big trip like last year, but because of these tiny trips we postponed thinking about our summer holidays quite long. I’m super glad we chose a road trip in the end, because it took us to beautiful Slovenia.

Lake Bled

Day 1
We left on Thursday, staying in Germany on the way to Slovenia, so it was around 2 o’clock that we arrived in our camping. We put up the tent and went off to visit Lake Bled. In short: tourists, mountain bikes and a verrrry steep climb for an amazing view. I loved Lake Bled; and every time we would pass it I would be amazed with the view of the island. But it was soooo touristy! We had only planned an afternoon there, and it was more than enough for us. 🙂

Traveldiary: Slovenia - Lion King in outdoor cinema

One big perk of such a tourist place: they organise fun things there. We were so lucky to see the new Lion King movie in an open air cinema over there. We only knew about it because the friendly lady at the bike rental place next to the tourist information centre told us about it. We weren’t 100% sure it would be the new one because it had only been out for 2 weeks, but it was, and it was a-ma-zing (both the movie as the setting)!

Mostnica Gorge & Voje Valley

Day 2
We really love hiking in nature during our holidays, but last year in Japan there was waaay too little of that. That’s why we looked for cool hikes while in Slovenia. Mostnica Gorge was really what we were looking for. After the many tourists in Lake Bled, this rather calm trail was perfect.

Mostnica Gorge is a circular trail you can do in 1.5 to 2 hours. However, we somehow got the timings all wrong and decided to do the full 4 hour long trail. Worst decision of our holiday. The weather was super hot, the views were not what we expected and the waterfall in the end was totally not worth it. But since we ended back where we started, we could end with the other side of the circular trail at the beginning and it was the best. 🙂

Kayaking on Lake Bohinj

Kayaking on Lake Bohinj was the perfect relaxation after all the hiking. To be honest we barely kayaked: we would peddle for 2 minutes and then let the current take us wherever it would us. We could pay per hour, so we didn’t have to stress to be back by a certain hour. The best accessible beaches at Lake Bohinj were crowded, but you would not notice this at all on the water.

Vintgar Gorge

Day 3
Our third day in Slovenia promised to be a very busy one, so we left really early (at least for us). I’ve never been happier we got up early during a holiday! The Vintgar Gorge was misty, and we noticed SUCH a difference between the number of visitors going to the waterfall compared to going back.
I’m pretty sure we’ve found out where King Kong lives, by the way.

Soča River

Next up was driving all the way to the Soča river. We had figured this out all wrong, and because we knew we had internet during the trip we didn’t properly prepare this upfront. It was fun, but totally not worth the ride. If you’re visiting Soča river from Lake Bled, do take the train or go via Italy. Besides that, the water is icy cold so you won’t be swimming that much, and the trails aren’t that well marked. It was pretty, but not worth that much time in the car.

Traveldiary: Slovenia - Soca River small trail

Ljubljana

Day 4

– Ljubljana castle Somehow the weather seems extreme whenever we travel. Or it is too hot (the heat wave in Japan last year) or it rains every day (Lisbon a few years ago). The weather while in Slovenia was really hot, especially in the beginning. Ljubljana was really pretty, but we fled to the castle because there was airco inside, and besides that it was so tiresome to walk around in the city because of the heat. But we had suuuuper good pasta there! 🙂

Underground kayaking

Day 5
One of the coolest things I’ve done in a while: we went kayaking in a flooded mine shaft. It really was as cool as it sounds! We had to go to the mine shaft in an old miners’ train (without any windows, so you were completely in the dark) and descending the authentic mine stairs. After putting on a mining helmet with flashlight, life jacket and neoprene boots we were ready to go kayaking.

We could explore on our own because the level we were on was a small labyrinth with several dead ends. The boyf and I put out our flashlight and went quiet a few times and it’s creepy but amazing how it’s dark and you only hear the water sloshing. The water was so clear we could actually drink from it.

Skocjan caves

Day 6

On our last full day in Slovenia we first visited the Skocjan caves. They are a World heritage site since 1986 and we could definitely see why. I have seen my fair share of caves, but these were next level. So huge, so delicate, so much visible history, and then the water that comes in with so much force. A-ma-zing.
We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but just look at the exit of the caves and you can start imagining how big it all was.

Vipava

After the visit to the caves we wanted to discover the wine region Vipava. We arrived around 11 and apparently the city only wakes up in the afternoon. There didn’t seem to be anything going on in the city, so we immediately visited one of the wine makers instead. We had expected more of it, to be honest.

Koper

We finished the day at Koper, a harbour town. It was such a fun little town to walk around it. There are some markets around (where they sell biodegradable bags in vending machines), super good ice cream stalls (which we knew via our superb appartment owner) and I had an amaaazing sea fruit dish.

The only downside was that we had wanted to spend some time at the beach the next day, but there was barely any beach to be found there. We were planning on going to Italy anyway, so while driving to Padova we stopped somewhere for some beach time.

I was so pleasantly surprised by Slovenia! Ever since we had decided to go to Slovenia I started noticing how many people actually go there lately. We’re not used to hearing that much Dutch when we travel around (last year in Japan we chased down a Belgian family for 2mins because we heard Dutch (‘: ), but this trip it was insane! Luckily we traveled off the unbeaten paths a bit and could enjoy some calmth during the busy summer holidays.