Don't sleep on Slovenia!
Everyone is sleeping on Slovenia! It is one of the best places I've ever been. It's SO picturesque and doesn't feel touristy at all. The food is amazing, too!
Ljubljana
Cora and I departed from our friends in Croatia via Flixbus to Ljubljana, where we reunited with our HS friend Tiffany. The capital of Slovenia was super cute! We walked along the canals and and stumbled upon a chill food market with fun music and great vibes. We enjoyed paella and lightly battered Slovenian fried chicken. I was surprised to discover diverse international food all across Slovenia. There were even Thai massage places in Bled.
We also saw strange milk vending machines scattered around the city.
We trekked over to the Ljubljana castle at the top of a hill. There were nice red-roofed views and people dressed in traditional garb! Turns out this castle was once occupied by Nazis though. I also got some minimally sweentened lemonade since it was super hot outside. To shield ourselves from the sun, we stopped in a pharmacy for sunscreen. It was my first time seeing sunscreen locked up in glass display cases, which would later feel common to me upon moving to NYC.
After our quick jaunt around Ljubljana, we headed to the airport to pick up a trusty old Mazda 3 diesel car at the airport. We had to stop at Big Bang Kranja! (a Slovenian Best Buy-equivalent) to jerry-rig a phone navigation system for the car, and I also picked up some extra polaroid film. From there, we were off to Lake Bled!
Lake Bled
We arrived in the countryside around golden hour, and Lake Bled was sooo beautiful. It was very calming, peaceful, and romantic, while also lively at the same time. We enjoyed grilled meat and cevapi with views of the lake. On our walk back, a cat accompanied us! It really felt like the countryside with the pungent scent of manure, birds chirping during the day, and crickets chirping at night. The demographics were interesting to observe as well — many of the houses featured Jesus on the cross.
The next day, we checked out the Vintgar Gorge and Slap Sum (aka "Waterfall Sum"). We made plenty of slapping jokes in Slovenia. It was really pretty with green water, which likely reflected the green foliage surrounding us. We had a pleasant walk with shade, a nice breeze, and an easy wooden pathway (which was good, since most of the tourists around us were older). As we were leaving, some larger tour groups started to filter in. The gorge has a one-way path, so be warned that after visiting the gorge, you have to take a ~1-hour walk through the forest in the sun. We embraced the experience by calling it "forest bathing."
Next, we grabbed lunch at a lovely Slovenian restaurant nearby. I tried a tomato-y Slovenian barley stew with kielbasa sausage. It was soooo good. I still dream about this simple yet hearty meal.
From there, I tried stand-up paddle boarding for the first time on Lake Bohinj! I was delighted to discover that we could alternate between getting wet lying on the board and "TURBO MODE!!" (aka standing up). It's a much larger lake than Bled, leading to fun and relaxing water sports. It felt like we were chilling at a cottage in Muskoka or hanging out on Lake Louise in the summer (minus the gatorade-coloured water).
That evening, we tried Bled cream cake (a flaky, jiggly pastry with egg custard, that got the ultimate Asian woman praise: "Not too sweet") and some bad paninis. We ate them from the backyard of our Airbnb, which would've been very peaceful if the host's kids weren't screaming the whole time. Yikes.
The next day, we started off hiking up Mala Osjonica (aka, "Small shaft" — there was another viewpoint called "Large shaft") for a view of Lake Bled. Google Maps said it was 22 mins away, but after walking 22 minutes, we saw a sign saying there was another 20 minutes to go. It was all super uphill and steep! Surprisingly, the best viewpoint on the hike is around halfway, not at the very top (there’s a fence)! Also, definitely don’t attempt the hike if it’s raining (it will be muddy and dangerous).
The lake was super empty when we arrived around 9am, but was BUZZING by the time we arrived back an hour or two later. Perhaps that was because a dragon boat(?!)-style festival or race was going on. The bell at the Bled church rang incessantly that day, which made me second-guess my future retirement plan in the area.
We got cute pictures from a real photographer at sea level.
Stranded in Slovenia?
And now, let me share one of our most memorable experiences in the Slovenian countryside. My former manager at Duolingo is Slovenian, and he suggested we check out Velika Planina. We got a bit lost off-roading on a windy path up the mountain on our way there though, so we arrived after closing time for the gondola. It seemed that others took up the challenge of these windy paths for fun, as we saw a lot of motorcyclists zipping around.
With our Velika Planina plans foiled, we decided to check out Dom v Kamniški Bistrici instead. Unfortunately, we got lost AGAIN in the forest on the way there. We eventually found the little blue lake with a tiny waterfall dam. The water was extremely cold due to glacial runoff. The glaciers made us realize that Slovenia has all the natural beauty one might expect in Banff or Colorado, but within a much more compact landmass.
Here's where things got interesting. It turned out that Slovenia was experiencing a diesel shortage during our visit. Thus, we ended up running around searching for gas for over an hour at 5+ gas stations with 20km of gas left in the tank. We started sweating. Our Airbnb was over 30km away. We ended up detouring to the airport rental company and begging for a non-diesel car. While the company didn't have any non-diesel cars left, the rental car attendant clearly took pity on the three of us girls and called around until he found a gas station with diesel for us. In dramatic fashion, he turned to us gravely and told us to "RUN!" Fortunately, we secured the gas.
We decided to get dinner in Kranj (halfway back to Bled), the random suburban town we found ourselves spending far too much time in. It really just wasn't our day — the first restaurant we tried was closed. Eventually, we found a dinner spot called Guesthouse Stari Mayr. The owner was super friendly, and Kranj ended up being super cute with kids riding bicycles and eating gelato without touching their handlebars (expert-level skills by my books). Without a man in our crew (vs Croatia), way more people struck up conversation with us. Finally, we drove back to Bled late at night. What a day.
Vrsic Pass
With gas in the tank, we hit the road for an earnest road-trip day (i.e., not an inadvertent one where we accidentally found ourselves driving through Kranj endlessly looking for gas)! We were driving the Vrsic Pass from Bled to Kobarid. Our first stop was Lake Jasna. I would definitely recommend stopping here! It was so picturesque and beautiful, yet very different from the other lakes we visited. Bled is most touristy with the picturesque church on the island; Bohinj is the biggest and murkiest (Lake Ontario vibes) but with the best activities; Kamniski Bistrici is very blue, small, and COLD; and Lake Jasna is family-friendly with shallow, clear water and chill boardwalks.
After Lake Jasna, our next stop was the Russian Chapel. We walked over and took a picture, but it really felt more like a stop to stretch our legs. The chapel is a memorial for Russian prisoners of war who died in an avalanche. Overall, this stop was skippable.
Our next stop was Postarski dom, where we also grabbed lunch! We squinted to find the "Pagan Girl" in the rockface and otherwise admired the view. The Julian alps are cool because they're almost at a 90º angle, unlike the (slightly) more gradual incline of other mountain ranges (like Banff). I enjoyed a "monocake" dessert, which was like a delicious raspberry panna cotta, replete with real raspberries! Lots of people bicycled around this area, and we were also swarmed by live animals.
The trees in Kobarid were decorated with these pink spheres, which felt straight out of a Dr. Seuss story.
And then we were on our way again. Tiffany was a rockstar for driving through 50 hairpin turns!! We were shook by the fact that people actually live somewhere like this, which even had super tight turns between buildings. We drove past the Soca River to Slap Virje (weirdly driving through a golf course to get there). While the waterfall was only five minutes from the parking lot, I still wouldn't recommend stopping for it (at least in the summer), since the waterfall was barely spitting any water.
Once we arrived in Kobarid, we went for dinner at a fish restaurant called Kotlar! At the recommendation of our Airbnb host, we tried the marble trout, which is indigenous to the region. A mere month later, I'd receive a diagnosis from an allergist for an anaphylactic reaction to trout........ maybe the indigenous Slovenian kind is different? Who knows, but it tasted like any other white fish.
Kobarid adventures
The next day, we went to an open air museum dedicated to World War I. It was a bit disconcerting to walk through the trenches, knowing young soldiers once trod on the same paths (and probably got trench foot). The bugs REALLY got us freaked out though. We also bumped into many biker groups all around here. The views were gorgeous, so I don't blame them!
Beautiful views and Tiff taking pics for biker crews.
After that, we drove through Italy (lol, EU life) to visit the Tolmin Gorge. Since this little section of Italy is inaccessible from the rest of the country (but not owned by Slovenia, and therefore not maintained), we found ourselves crawling at 3-6km/h due to tiny unpaved roads with tree branches on both sides. Tolmin Gorge had a nice marked path with attractions. The best highlights were point two (with sunlight streaming over crystal blue water) and point 7 (with the bear's head). I was surprised that both Tolmin and Vintgar Gorge had nice, wooden paths... but were one-way only in direction. In this case, getting back to the entrance and parking lot involved walking over a hot asphalt highway (like, "Oh, you walked through our lovely paved gorge path? Great, now go figure things out on your own!"). If you only have time for one gorge though, I would recommend Vintgar near Bled over Tolmin. In fact, if you're short on time, you can probably skip Kobard altogether.
For lunch, I tried a "ljubljanski" (turkey cordon bleu) and Kobarid dumpling dessert (some kind of rice and brown sugar filling). None of the desserts in Slovenia were too sweet — right up my alley.
In the afternoon, we checked out Most Na Soci, which disappointingly has a MANMADE lake! How deceptive — unlike the Soce river, it’s bright blue because of a power plant. We stumbled around town and accidentally walked into a school. Some concerned parents/teachers redirected us to a viewpoint (initiate lockdown procedure??)! If you get to a cemetery, don't be alarmed: it means you’re on the right track, and the view is worth the 1-minute walk from this point!
Finally, we ended off the day by eating milk- and cantaloupe-flavoured ice cream. We made it back to the Airbnb before it started raining. Overall, we'd been quite lucky with the weather on our trip. :) We spent a chill evening chatting about unexpected mutual friends (from elementary school and university), "women who invest," and money. As we grabbed pizza near the Airbnb, our waiter gave us a new moniker that we'd embrace from that point forward: "Asian barbies." We were true trendsetters; the Barbie movie wouldn't even be released until a year later.
For our last day in Slovenia, we leisurely checked out the Napoleon Bridge and Slap Kozjak. We didn't bother paying 5 euros to see the waterfall though (tbh, nothing was Niagara Falls-level... or even Plitvice-level). We capped off our time in Slovenia with a much-anticipated lunch at Hisa Franko, a 2-star Michelin restaurant featured on Chef's Table and the world's top 50 restaurant list. I was so excited!! And uh... it was weird. I would not recommend. The whole experience felt very experimental, with generally sour and confusingly Indian-inspired flavours. The all-male servers were very attentive at first, which also made us feel like we were being examined under a microscope. This disconcerting feeling tamped down a bit as other guests filtered in. Some of the courses were... interesting. We constantly felt like we had to ask whether we were supposed to eat leaves, salt-encrusted potatoes, and cabbage water. I didn't really understand why we were given ice to wash our hands before using cutlery. Generally, we looked like fish out of water, and I think the servers were laughing alongside us (WITH us, not at us! I swear!!).
At any rate, Hisa Franko was a disappointment. I would not recommend it, and it certainly was not representative of our fantastic time in Slovenia. The country is beautiful, and I loved the food, nature, and activities. If you don't have time to visit the whole country, I'd definitely prioritize Ljubljana and Bled. Up next: the Italian dolomites!!