Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Just as promised, Vlado came and picked us up and off we went in his CRV to do a short tour of the western and northern parts of Slovenia. When we were first talking about Slovenia with Neli and Vlado, Neli had told us it was the most beautiful country in the world. Slight exaggeration, but is a small and beautiful country. About the size of New Jersey, it is bordered by Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia as well as the Adriatic Sea.
Vlado gave us a book on Slovenia which described it as a new country with an ancient history. Slovenia won its independence in 1992 and is much like a miniature Switzerland with a population of a little over 2 million. According to the book on Slovenia, one of the specialties found there is their honey and in our first few days of travel we did see lots of “traveling bee hives” riding on old flat bed trucks. The bee hives were colorfully painted in a variety of colors and many have other drawings on them as well.
Did not take us long to travel from Venice into Slovenia. No stopping at the border because it is part of the EU. Drove through the outskirts of Trieste, Italy and then into Slovenia. This part of Slovenia has many nice waterfalls, and is mountainous with deep valleys stretching off into the distance. Stopped at the waterfall Podselo and the dam below. From there we traveled to the village of Most Na Soci where we would be staying at the end of our trip. Found the place we were staying and turns out to be attached to one of the bars in town.
Owner invites us in and feeds us homemade salami and cheese along with beers for the guys and wine for me. This is another characteristic of many Slovenes, they are very friendly and love to share their country’s food and drink. Got to see the beautiful waters of the Soci river and are looking forward to coming back and doing some kayaking on the river.
From there up into another set of mountains and stop at the waterfall Boka and you begin to get the idea there are lots of places to hike and bike in Slovenia and everywhere you went, there were people out hiking and biking. From there we climbed to the fortress Kluze where we toured the fortress and you got a feeling of what a stronghold it was and how it would be difficult to take. Was part of the Austria-Hungarian empire during World War I and afterwards part of Yugoslavia and then Slovenia. You get a feeling they are proud of their history through the various empires they have been part of.
From there to the Triglav National Park are where we stopped and did a tour of the museum which did a excellent job of giving you a taste of the various stages of Slovenia history.
There was also a exhibit of some of the intricate paintings on the bee hives we saw all around the countryside. From the museum we climbed to one of the tallest points in the Park climbing a road that had 25 hairpin curves up and 25 down! When we got to the top, saw lots of people that were hiking across the tops of the mountains from one direction to the other. Enjoyed to view as we had a another beer/wine and tasted one of their regional dishes, a goulash and some sausage. Down the curves down, where Vlado pointed out that much of the downhill road were built Russian POW’s.
The last stop on our tour was the Planica Valley Ski jump. Evidently this is a very big deal and even though there is no snow, the surface is covered with something that allows a skier to sail down the jump and practice their technique. Was pretty amazing to watch as the skiers would careen down and then back up they would go.
From there to Vlado and Neli’s home which is in a suburb of Ljubljana where we settled in and had a home cooked meal along with fresh salad from their garden and caught up on our comings and going’s since we had last seen each other.
2025-05-22