Honestly, if it wasn’t for Melania, I wouldn’t even have known that Slovenia was a country. My cluelessness is pretty inexcusable because the Slovenia we saw in our four day visit was awesome.
There are no trains from northern Croatia to Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, so for us it was a two and a half hour bus ride from Rovinj. Tip for travelers – don’t judge a town by what it looks like near the bus station. It’s usually pretty grim down there.
A very short taxi ride takes us to our Airbnb in Ljubljana’s extremely charming Old Town. Our rented apartment [http://triplex-apartment-the-princess-castle-ljubljana.booked.net] had a great location right on one of Old Town’s main walking streets, but is hard to recommend due to a poorly equipped kitchen, some cracked and broken furniture and an absolutely treacherous staircase going up to the third level bedroom – making it almost unusable. One other negative is that there is no elevator and it takes about 60 steps to get to the front door. On the positive side however, the place was pretty big, had great wi-fi and a terrific television!
Notwithstanding the shortcomings of our apartment – which we still had a ton of fun in – Ljubiana is a lovely place. The Old Town is very compact. Everything is close so you can have a great time just walking around taking in the impressive architecture, wonderful restaurants, shops and bars that surround the Ljubljanica River as it runs directly through the quaint city.
We had some great meals here, including one at a Julija [https://julijarestaurant.com], and one at the apartment with incredibly fresh vegetables purchased from the Old Town’s “green market” – which is a huge farmer’s market operating Monday to Saturday. There are also many talented musicians in the streets as well as cafe’s serving fantastic ice cream dessert. Sitting around eating dessert is a thing here. We think it should be a thing everywhere!
We wholeheartedly recommend a short visit to Ljubljana’s Old Town. At night it’s wonderfully lit up and looks like it was designed by Disney. Overall it provides a quaint Euro city experience that is hard to find in large more touristy cities.
After two nights in Ljubljana, we were on our way to Lake Bled – about 45 minutes by car. We decided, however, to take a detour – 60 minutes in the other direction – to tour the Postojna caves. There are a bunch of different caves in Slovenia. The Postojna caves are the most famous and most visited. They were discovered in the 17th century and are more than 20km long. It’s pretty touristy and you take a 3km ride into the caves in a train, but you then get to walk for about 1.5km. Notwithstanding the touristy feel, these caves are amazing. It’s very hard to capture the massive size and spectacular rock formations in pictures, but if you find yourself in Slovenia, this is something you’ll want to see.
After the caves, we drove through nasty traffic to our apartment on Lake Bled. Not knowing what to expect, this place massively exceeded our expectations. Our apartment, Vila Katja [https://www.bedandbreakfast.eu/bed-and-breakfast/bled/vila-katja/2542192/] was extremely clean and comfortable and within walking distance to the lake.
Lake Bled is an absolute gem. One of the top ten places that we’ve visited in Europe. On our only full day here (we should have stayed longer), we rented a row boat at the Grand Hotel Toplice [https://www.sava-hotels-resorts.com/en/sava-hoteli-bled/accommodations/grand-hotel-toplice], took a toboggan ride at Straza Bled [https://www.straza-bled.si/en/Summer]and then rented bikes for a ride around the lake.
The Grand Hotel Toplice is a Small Luxury Hotels listed property with stunning views – directly on the lake. The public areas are extremely elegant (we didn’t see a guest room) and they had a display case filled with photos of a distinguished group of past visitors.
We went for a two hour rowboat ride to a small island in the middle of the lake on a perfect day. The incredibly blue water, surrounding green trees and nearby mountains create an unforgettable scene.
After the rowing, we went for an adrenaline rush on a “summer toboggan”. Super fun and more amazing views of the lake. Click on the link for a view of Shawnee thundering down the run!
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Then we rented bikes for a totally peaceful ride around the placid lake. Great fun and all of this in one day.
We were sad to leave the next day, but can’t recommend this highly enough. I’m sure we’ll be back.