This was it.  After arriving in the Schengen travel zone on July 25th Candice and I were getting near to the end of our 3 month Visa free stay.  The rule is that you can only stay in the Euro travel zone for a maximum of 90 days in the past 180 days and you can exit and re-enter as often as you like.   We had used all but some 14 days after our stay in Budapest and we wanted to head into Slovenia for our last days.

We found there were plenty of buses from Budapest to the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana.  This can be a tricky name to pronounce but say the J like it’s a Y so Lee-Oo-Blee-Ana but I read that Slovenians tend to just omit the J sound and call it Lublana.  Both ways are perfectly fine to say it seems.

Our bus ride took almost 6 hours because buses are always slower then driving.

Slovenia is a tiny country of only 2 million people and Ljubljana, the biggest city, has less than 300,000 residents.  We had been travelling almost exclusively through cities and were tired of city touring so we decided some time in nature would be a great idea.

I assume you’ve heard of the Swiss Alps and the Austrian Alps well if you didn’t know the mountain range extends south almost to Greece and the part in Slovenia is called the Julian Alps (I’m guessing in Slovenia they are called the Yulian Alps).

Lake Bled is by far the most popular area in Slovenia and if you Google Slovenia and look at images pretty much every picture is Lake Bled.  We decided to not stay in Bled because it can be extremely touristy and so we opted to stay in one of the tiny villages nearby.  Oh I almost forgot, we did break down and rented a car for the week.  It wasn’t feasible to do any good hiking without having your own wheels to drive around.

October is just past the peak season so accommodations in the smaller towns were sparse.  Most guest houses and hostels only stay open for the summer hiking crowds and shut down in October for the winter but we found a small, 4 room hostel still open.  The price was a bit more than we wanted to pay but they provided a great breakfast every morning and we ended up being the only guests so huge bonus for us!  We balanced the higher hotel cost by not eating out all week and saving on food costs though.

On our first 2 days in Slovenia it was forecasting rain so we didn’t do a whole lot but Candice managed these 2 pictures from our hostel’s window.

On our 2nd day we took a drive down to Lake Bohinj to visit the information center to get information on nearby hikes.  The drive through the tiny villages was a new experience for me.  Many of the roads were barely wide enough for our compact car and every turn was a blind corner where you never knew if there would be a vehicle coming from the other direction.

The landscape was simply beautiful.

Lake Bohinj gave strong vibes of Lake Louise in Banff National Park just much smaller and less snowy.

Let The Hiking Begin

After 2 days of relaxing we had our hikes and day trips planned out.  Lucky for us the bad weather broke for a few days letting us get out into the mountains and actually do our hiking.  Our first one was an easy walk along a very deep gorge but it was a nice stroll and didn’t offer anything too technical which gave Candice a lot of chances to try getting pictures with the “flowy” water effect.

She also had me pose for a few photos along the river side and this one turned out pretty good.

Further up past the gorge our end goal for the hike to make it to Mostnica Falls.

We found some cows on this hike

This was our end goal.  I think the waterfall looked much more impressive in person than this picture shows as it was difficult to get a good picture from the view point.

With an easy hike under our belts we were ready for something more challenging.  We chose a medium difficulty hike but it would take 5-6 hours to complete.  Unfortunately we left later then we meant too and when we got to the trail head the parking was packed full.  It took us close to 30 minutes to get ourselves parked somewhere on the side of the road and then, of course, we missed the trail head and walked in the wrong direction for at least 15 minutes.

The wrong start did offer a very cool morning photo I suppose.

The hike wasn’t overly difficult, it had some decent incline to it, but it was very rocky and neither of us really enjoyed walking the trail.  In Canada we’re used to more small pebbles and tree growth and not so much giant rocky boulders that we found here.

The first site is this lower lake.  It was about an hour into the hike (after all our problems) so we stopped for a snack break.

The National Park we were in, called Triglav National Park, has many hiking trails and these huts like the ones below are all through out the park and can be used for overnight stays on multi day treks.

Past the half way mark we hit a ridge line with some awesome views.

At this point the trail was a bit nicer to walk on

And finally we made it to our ending point at the upper lakes.

Of course the trail continued on, joining the multitude of other trails, but we were only doing a day trip so a quick stop for lunch around 2 pm and we were headed back down.

Now as many of you know I am a VERY generous person and this day I was feeling OVERLY generous.  I knew that the mountain would be very cold at night so I gracelessly decided to leave my 80€ ($120 CAD) sweater that I bought in Vienna just 9 days earlier on the mountain.  I didn’t realize until we were almost all the way down so after a bad morning I wasn’t about to let the day end any better!

As a last hike for the week we undertook our most challenging one.  This time though the trail head was much closer to our AirBnB, we left on time, and there was plenty of parking so today was looking to be much better then the day before.  It was a foggy morning when we started off the hike so I got a couple interesting photos.

This trail was a loop and the person at the information center recommended we go one specific way for safety reasons.  Turns out the one way (the way we started) was intense switch backs with a lot of quick elevation gain.  Many parts had handrails bolted into the rock face and there were even some parts where we walked on bolts stuck into the rock.  A few people passed us going the other direction and I couldn’t imagine descending this way.

Don’t worry too much as it wasn’t very dangerous but you would want to be in decent physical shape.  I’m fairly certain we were the slowest people this day and were passed by quite a few groups.

Our views in the morning were of a fog filled valley so not much to see

Near the halfway point was a huge lake which was perfect for a lunch break and photos.

When we finally were done with the majority of the elevation gain, around 1 pm, the fog had burned off revealing the stunning views below.  And I kid you not that we did some crazy elevation gain.  The last 30 minutes was both of us cursing every time the trail turned and it kept going up, up, up.

Candice had set us a goal of reaching a restaurant near the highest point – yes we had a bit more higher to go.  They served a full menu of food and plenty of drinks including beer but we were still stuffed from our packed lunch and only purchased a couple of waters and enjoyed the sights.

As it was 3 pm when we left the restaurant we were worried about not getting back to the car before sunset so we hussled our way down.  Turns out the back end of the loop was way easier then going up so we got back to the car with plenty of time to spare and we worried for nothing.

A Gorge, A Lake, and Some Cake

With one more day left in Bled we finally headed over to popular tourist stop of Lake Bled.  Just outside the town of Bled is a super popular (and super touristy) gorge with a boardwalk no wider enough than for 2 people that winds along the water.  Thankfully in mid-October the tourists weren’t too bad but it still felt too crowded and I couldn’t fathom going here in the summer.

Candice has been learning new photo techniques and one she was very interested in is getting this flowy effect on moving water that I mentioned earlier.  Below is a really good example of it; the first picture is normal and the 2nd is with a delayed shutter to get the effect.

There were a few professional looking photographers here as well.  This part of the river appeared to be the spot for the best photos.

At the end of the gorge was a really cool stone bridge spanning the gorge.  Understandably this was another popular photograph spot.

The gorge took about 2 hours to walk so we then headed into town itself.  Bled is a pretty small town so there wasn’t much that interested us except for walking the lake.

Sitting on an island in the center of the lake is one of the most beautiful churches I’ve seen.  The Church of the Assumption of Mary built in the 1600s is by far the biggest tourist item in all of Slovenia and it was easy to see why.

Part way around the lake a dock with some boats made for a great photo opportunity.

Half way around you get your best views of the church.  The still water made for a cool reflection.

After the walk Bled had one more thing to see (or eat in this case).  Bled Cake, invented at this specific restaurant, looked far too yummy to not try.  At 4€ a piece it wasn’t a cheap desert but we decided we could splurge this time and yes Candice wasn’t sharing with me so we each got our own.

Let’s Go See The Mediterranean

Our first week in Slovenia was over but we still had a few more days left in the country.  Since our rental car wasn’t due back in Ljubljana until 5 pm we made the most of our time.  Slovenia has a tiny piece of seafront property on the Mediterranean sandwiched between Italy and Croatia.  Our good friend Bob recommended we visit Piran and it was a great recommendation.

Although the total driving was 5 hours and we only got 2 hours to spend in Piran (basically lunch and a quick walk) it was totally worth the drive.  This Mediterranean town was so different from Ljubljana and Bled and it was so nice to walk along the sea and take in the atmosphere.

The colours on the buildings were really cool too.

The only tip I could offer that we didn’t do was to plan at least a week in this area and make sure you can take your rental into Italy and Croatia.  The wider area is known as Istria and comprises Trieste in Italy, this area of Slovenia, and a large area of Western Croatia.  We spent more time in the Croatian side of Istria later in our travels and it was one of my favourite places so far.

Seeing The Big City

Although Ljubljana has less than 300,000 residents it’s by far the largest city in Slovenia and so we spent our last 2 days in the “Big City”.  Ljubljana’s old town is very charming and straddles a small channel.

There are plenty of outdoor restaurants and cafes along the water.

And some very cool architecture to admire.

The best part to see, though, is the art district.   Not a far walk from the city center is an old Austro-Hungarian army barracks.  It was abandoned and left to ruin during the Yugoslavian era but when Slovenia gained independence in 1991 things changed.  The local artists in the area petitioned the government to use the barracks “creatively” but after 2 years nothing had happened so the artists illegally moved in and now you have this unique district.

Even today, 26 years later, the buildings are still being occupied illegally but there isn’t much the city can do at the moment.  The internet will quickly tell you this area is no Utopia though and recently biker gangs and people doing illegal activities have taken advantage of the limited police presence in the area.  Millions of tourists come to visit the art displays every year and as far as I know there’s hardly ever any trouble so don’t be scared off visiting here.

My last photo I have to leave you with is of Superman.  We seriously ran into this statue on a random street outside a park and it was just so bizarre.  Did this guy ask for the statue to be done like this or does he have fanboys idealizing him?  Also if you know who this guy is please leave a comment!

Slovenia is sometimes an overlooked country especially since it’s so close to big tourist places like Croatia, Italy, and Austria but we loved it.  The mountains were amazing and the crowds so few in comparison.   The little towns around Lake Bled were very unique and -Spoiler Alert! – we were headed to Croatia next- Piran in Slovenia had this chill Mediterranean feel that I don’t think I felt anywhere in Croatia.  If you’re a nature and mountain hiker enthusiast you have to put Slovenia on your bucket list.