Slovenia: A Hidden Gem

A few weeks ago, Kyle and I took a great little road trip to Slovenia.  It's a country that's a bit off the radar for most Americans, but we had heard wonderful things about it and decided to spend some time there.  It was about a six hour drive to get to where we were staying on Lake Bled, and it was worth every minute of the drive.  Slovenia is definitely a small treasure of a country!  The people were warm and friendly, it was clean, the roads were great and of course the scenery was amazing!

The good thing about visiting a small country like Slovenia is that you can easily visit most everything within a short one to two hour drive.  We made Lake Bled our home base, and did a couple of day trips from there.  We stayed at a neat historic villa that was just a short walk away from the lake.  We arrived in the afternoon, dropped off our stuff and headed straight to the lake.  

There is an easy four mile walk around the lake that's paved most of the way.  Around every curve is a new gorgeous view, especially of the castle or Bled Island, which has a quaint, little pilgrimage church on it.  (The legend of the island is really interesting.  Check it out here.)  It was really hard to choose pictures since the whole lake is so photogenic!  Kyle got tons of great shots!

These traditional little boats take you out to Bled Island to see the church

What a brave dog we have!

Later that evening we drove up to see the castle.  The price was a bit steep for what you actually got to see of the castle, but we did have some amazing views during the sunset!

The next morning we headed out to see Slovenia's short 43 kilometer (27 mile) long coastline on the Adriatic Sea.  Slovenia's little coast is right between Italy and Croatia, and the Italian (specifically Venetian) influence can definitely be seen in the small coastal towns.  (Further north where we were staying, there was a more Austrian feel, reflecting the influence of Slovenia's neighbor to the north.)  Our first stop of the day was Piran.  It is such a gorgeous little town with a great, relaxed atmosphere.  We took our time, enjoying the beautiful colors of the sea and the small, narrow streets of the old town.  I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't in Italy, but it sure felt like it!

Crystal clear waters!

The perfect spot for dining al fresco!

Our next stop was to see the small port town of Koper.  There actually is a modern, industrial port in Koper, but you would never guess it while wondering around the quiet, old streets!  We had some coffee and gelato while checking out the town.

Last stop of the day was Italia!  (Come on, we couldn't be that close to Italy without dropping by!)  I had heard good things about the city of Trieste right on the coast, so we decided to check it out.  It was a much larger city than I was expecting!  We didn't have an itinerary of things to see, so we just went whichever way looked interesting.  We came across some pretty awesome stuff, including Roman ruins, an expansive piazza, a cathedral dating back to the 6th century and the 15th century Castle San Giusto.  Trieste also has a very interesting World War history.  What incredible layers of the past!

Roman ruins of an amphitheater built by Trajan ~100AD

Castello San Giusto

Busy sketching.  Age doesn't stop her!

I spy a cat!

On our way back to Bled, we stopped to see Predjama Castle, built into a cliff!  It was too late to go inside, but it was pretty awesome.  It's not everyday you get to see a cliff castle!

We didn't get as lucky with the sun on our third day, but luckily the rain held off for us!  We went to see Škofja Loka, Slovenia's best preserved medieval town. It was so beautiful and peaceful. It is off the beaten path, so it wasn't too crowded with tourists. It was a great find!

These walkways to the shops during construction would never happen in America!

From there, we headed to see Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana.  It was pretty chilly, and we were tired of walking so we didn't do the town justice.  It is a beautiful place that deserved more time than we gave it, but sometimes you just have to know when to give in!

The famous Triple bridge, connecting the old and new towns.

Gnocchi for Kyle...some Italian influence.  I had sausage with mustard and polenta...some German/Austrian and Italian influence.

We decided that we couldn't visit Lake Bled without going to see Bled Island, so that's what we did when we got back.  The sun decided to come out a little bit, making the paddle boat ride very enjoyable.  (Especially since we didn't have to do any of the paddling!)

A wedding on the island, how pretty!

Slovenia was formerly part of Yugoslavia.  Josip Broz Tito was President/dictator of Yugoslavia between 1953 and 1980.  He built his vacation home on Lake Bled, where he brought all of the important people that came to visit.  You can see his villa in the picture below.  It's now a hotel.  We went inside to take a look.

Tito's desk

Amazingly delicious Bled creme cake, created for Tito by two of his chefs.

Tito knew how to choose a place with a view!

Kyle and I were so impressed with Slovenia!  It is a hidden gem that is definitely worth travelling to.  (We didn't even get to hike the Julian Alps!  Next time!)  I guess if too many people found out about how nice it is, it might become swarming with tourists...maybe I should just keep this all to myself... :-)

The Epic Swiss Alps

 About a month and a half ago Kyle and I took our last "winter" trip of the year.  Europe had a sad amount of snow this year (pretty much none at all in Stuttgart), so we had to go into the Alps to find it.  We headed to the Jungfrau region of Switzerland, and we were blown away with beauty!

Beautiful views on our drive

It was a pretty easy drive, about three and a half hours to our first stop, Lauterbrunnen.  It's a small little resort town in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, surrounded by peaks and cliffs.  In the summer, the valley has 72 waterfalls from the melting snow.  It had been pretty warm, so we got to see a couple of small waterfalls, one of them being right on the edge of town.  We enjoyed a nice walk through the valley before having lunch at a little cafe.  It's a gorgeous place, and we're both anxious to see all of the waterfalls in the summer!

Beautiful day for a walk through the valley

After spending the afternoon in Lauterbrunnen, we drove twenty minutes to the larger resort town of Grindelwald where we would be staying for two nights.  We spent the evening checking out the town and figuring out how we should spend the next day.

Beautiful lighting that evening in Grindelwald

We decided that we could not visit Grindelwald in the winter without doing the world's longest toboggan run, so that's exactly what we did!  We started off in the morning taking the Firstbahn cable car up three stops to the highest stop called First.  From there you could take many different skilifts if you were skiing for the day.  We rented our toboggans from the rental shop and then took off on a two and a half hour hike to the peak of Faulhorn, where the world's longest toboggan run begins.

Heading up the mountain

Ready for the long hike ahead!

This hike was the most strenuous hike that we've ever taken, but it was the most rewarding and definitely the most epic!  The hike was very steep in many areas, and the air was a bit thinner on top of an Alp.  We took our time, enjoying the incredible views, eating some snacks and soaking in the sun.  We were so lucky to have an incredible sunny day.  We actually both got pretty hot on the hike and didn't wear our coats most of the time.  We also both got a sunburn on our faces!  (Lesson learned!  But actually my lips are a very pretty berry shade when they're burnt; I need a gloss in that color!)  The path was well marked and was packed down, so at least we weren't treading through knee deep snow.  (When my cousin Erin and her fiance John were there, they couldn't do most of this hike because of low visibility and avalanche conditions!)

See those little dots?  Those are people on the path where we came from!

And that's where we're heading!

Soaking it in!

When we reached the top of the hike, we could head down on our toboggan or hike another 20 minutes to the actual peak of Faulhorn.  We decided to go for it since we had already come that far.  We were rewarded with amazing views at the top.  (Not that we didn't have amazing views the whole time!)  We started the 15 kilometer long (over 9 miles) run down the mountain.  On the very first run on our toboggans I hit a "pothole" and wiped out, rolling a good way down from the peak as Kyle stood there and laughed.  I got a lot better after that!  This run is not for the faint of heart!  It was pretty wild at times, and there were definitely places where you were going so fast that you had no control!  We got pretty close to going off the side of the mountain a couple of times, but it was so much fun!  It's amazing how long it took us to hike up, and how quickly we made it down!

Final stretch to the peak 

Looking back down towards the toboggan path

That's where we're heading...

Views from the top

My first wipeout, on our first run.

Heading down to Grindelwald in the valley below

We stopped at a restaurant at Bussalp a bit more than halfway down.  We sat out in the sun on the terrace overlooking the Alps and Grindelwald in the valley below.  It was pretty perfect!  From there, the rest of the way down got a lot more bumpy and kind of slushy!  The sun was melting the snow, and I don't know if you would've been able to toboggan down the lower parts for much longer before the snow was gone!  We made it to the bottom of the run with bruises on the backs of our knees, but it was worth every moment of pain!

Lunch break!

Hey ladies, there's room for two...

Avalanche!

As the evening wore on it got harder to move every hour.  (Hey, it's not every day you climb to the top of an Alp!)  We just took it easy that evening and had a good dinner at our hotel.

The next day we headed west towards the town of La Chaux- de- Fonds on the French-Swiss border.  We were meeting up with my "Uncle" Rick that I haven't seen in about eight years!  It was a very pretty drive that starts in the Alps and gradually changes to green rolling hills.  We passed by some areas that look like places we should head back to see sometime!  We met up with Rick and had a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant. It was great catching up with him, and hopefully it won't be another 8 years again!

It was a scenic drive home back to Stuttgart, where we still had some recovering to do from our epic hike and toboggan run.  It was another wonderful trip, and as usual, I can't wait to go back!