Collaboration by:  Elizabeth & Michael

Well the pictures don’t lie— Slovenia is beautiful. We drove from Italy to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and did a foodie walking tour with history and highlights. Somehow I booked us a room at a more hostel-like accommodation— we knew right away something was up when we were clearly the oldest people in the lobby and there seemed to be a cool-edgy-grunge-like vibe going on. Plus, we weren’t carrying backpacks that towered a foot over our heads and hopefully we didn’t smell like we just finished hiking the John Muir trail. Oh well, it was for one night and we just mixed in with the grunge crowd and chalked it up to experience.

It’s a bit of an adjustment to arrive in Slovenia and be eating all of our meals out after all that delicious food in Italy. We were spoiled. But Slovenia is trying hard to win some of the tourist dollars that mostly go to the neighboring countries of Croatia and Italy. They are hard selling their wines, which are pretty darn good, their pumpkin seed oil, and their dairy products. But what they really have to offer are their people (who make a huge effort to speak good English and make you feel welcome) and the incredibly beautiful scenery of their country.

After a day in Ljubljana we drove to Bled (pronounced Blade). (Check out the beautiful like with an island church in the middle in the photos.) You can swim, SUP, row or take a boat to the island and visit the beautifully maintained Baroque church with functioning clock tower. We met up with two dear friends from Laguna Beach and shared the experience of taking a boat to the island, hiking to the Slap Savica waterfall and through the Vintgar Gorge.

Early this morning we said goodbye to our friends and continued our journey in Slovenia by driving through the Julian Alps. We stopped at the tourist information office in Kranjska Gora where we found an extraordinarily helpful woman who guided us to two delightful little lakes, Lago di Fusine, where we enjoyed a hike around both. As stated earlier, Slovenia is a spectacularly beautiful country, and we are having a wonderful time exploring the country by car and by foot. After a hearty lunch in Bovec we drove to our destination for the next two nights, a modern apartment in Kobarid. Tomorrow we plan a long hike through the Soca Valley exploring many historical sites from World War I and one of Slovenia’s most picturesque waterfalls, the Veliki Kozjak.

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