“All roads do not lead to Rome.”
Since neither of us had been to Slovenia, we were excited to explore this place. Our first destination was Bled; however, instead of taking the faster route on the Slovenian highway, we chose the Austrian road towards Villach, since driving over 100km/hour in a Defender is not very comfortable, and crossed the border just before Bled. The weather was better, still cold but at least it stopped raining. For our sleeping spot, we chose Sava Camping Bled, an excellent camping site at the lake opposite Bled. They also offered small huts, and we debated getting one instead of sleeping in the Defender; since the weather forecast didn’t show any rain, we settled for a camping spot. However, we treated ourselves to the premium spot, including a private hot tub. It was already quite late in the afternoon after we set up our camp; there was just enough time to walk around lake bled and go up to Bled castle, from where we had a fantastic view over lake Bled with the tiny island with the church. When we returned, we prepared a delicious dinner, pasta-gratin in our oven (yes, we have an oven!), and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine. The next day, we got some fresh bread from the bakery on the campsite, and after breakfast, we started a hike to the Vintgar, a 1.6km long gorge. The scenery on the way there reminded us a lot of home; if we hadn’t known better, we would have thought we were back in Switzerland. Everything looked a lot like home in the houses, villages, meadows, and cows and sheep. The gorge itself was beautiful with the different colors of the water, trees and bushes, and rocks. We treated ourselves to a Bled Cream Cake and tasted the first Slovenian beer - Laško. We returned to the campsite where the hot tub was ready for us; we jumped right into the warm water. After another homecooked dinner, we went to bed super tired.
The next day we left Bled in the morning and headed to another camping site named domacija-vrhovc that looked very promising from the pictures, and it was indeed! Unfortunately, the weather changed, and it started raining just when we arrived. It’s a private camping site in the mountains south of Triglavski Narodni park. The owner came outside to talk to us; there were no other campers. He invited us inside the house for some coffee and schnaps, but we decided to move on before we started drinking and driving to Ljubljana since it was freezing up there. On the way to the capital, we stopped at Franja Partisan Hospital, a hospital built during World War II in a hidden gorge. It was very impressive to see how and where they built this hospital and to read about different stories of doctors and nurses who worked there and wounded soldiers from many nations who could be saved.
We arrived in Ljubljana just before dinner time. We parked the car and went to our Airbnb place, which was directly on the river and close to many bars and restaurants. We strolled around the small city, and our first choice for a restaurant was fully booked, so we made a reservation for the next day and went to a pub for some burgers, fries, and beers - it was delicious! The next day we got up and joined a free walking tour. These tours are offered in every bigger city around the world. Liv has already joined many of them, and they were always outstanding. We weren’t disappointed either in Ljubljana. Our tour guide Marjana was hilarious and told us a lot about the city's history and culutre of the city and Slovenia and the best places to try local food. After the tour, we had just enough time to eat a gulaš, a local dish, before getting the Defender and driving to Peter, the mechanic.
No, luckily, we haven’t crashed the car already, however, we broke the bed… It must have been all the food we ate! The aluminum frame started bendin on one side. The other side was still fine, because there is a reinforcement. It is an airline that is attached to the frame to give it more stability. We therefore figured, we would attach an airline on the other side. Airlines are used a lot on Defenders, that’s why we were looking for a Defender mechanic - and we found one, just 10 minutes outside of Ljubljana. We were so lucky!! Peter had time for us, even though we only called him two days before we arrived in Ljubljana. He organised the airline and he was super helpful, friendly and good at his job. In less than 2 hours, he fixed the bed. We returned to Ljubljana and had enough time to walk up to Ljubljana castle, where we enjoyed the view over the city and a beautiful sunset. We were a bit hungry and therefore decided to go for a glass of wine and an “Apéro” and we found the perfect place: Ala Pršuterija. They claim to have the best prosciutto of Ljubljana and we would definitely agree. We had a delicious apéro plate and amaizing local wine suggested to us by the funny waitress, who also tried to teach us how to order a beer in Slovenian but we desparately failed. She served us nevertheless. At 8pm we had our reservation at the restaurant Julija, which serves local cuisine. We tried the famous Štrukli, which were delicious. On the way back home, we found a hot mulled wine, again something we know from back home.
Liv’s new favorite Guggelhopf cakes
We got up the next day and packed our things. Before we headed back to the Defender, we got a coffee and we wanted to try the Poticas - a local dessert like a ring cake (Guggelhopf). Marjana told us to go get them at the Butik le Potica where they sell mini versions of it, so you get to try many different tastes. We went for chocolate, hazelnut, poppy seeds and tarragon - and they were DELICIOUS!!! Ljubljana defintiely was another highlight, not just for the food. We both fell in love with this place and we’ll sure come back. However, since the weather forecast for Slovenia didn’t get any warmer, we decided to head down south. Before we left Slovenia, we stopped at the Postojna Caves. Slovenia has many caves where you can see various formations of stalagmites and stalactites that are formed by water dripping trhough the ground. At Postojna, a train takes you 2.5 kilometers inside the cave, there you get off the train and you can walk anther kilometer into the cave, it’s quite stunning to see this magic underground world.
secret camping spot with private beach…
Spending time in cities and going to see many touristic attractions is a lot of fun but goes hand in hand with spending money. We therefore decided to save on the camping sites and camp wild for a few nights. After we crossed the border to Croatia, we found our first sleeping spot above a village called Selce. the spot offered a great view over the sea. We cooked dinner and went to bed early, since the next day, we wanted to get up early to go to the Plitvice Lakes National park. The Plitvice lakes are various lakes cascading into another, a beautiful scenery where they also filmed the Winnetou movie. The park offers various routes for the tourists, some of them include boat or bus rides. We chose the one where you walk around the lakes by foot only - the advantage of this route was, that there were almost no tourists. In the information booklet it said that this tour would take 6 - 8 hours, we were finished after 4.5 hours including a coffee break :D Learning from our mistakes, we checked the weather for the night before, since the National Park is also a bit further up in the mountains, and we were right, it got quite cold again at night, that’s why we decided to drive back to the coast to spend the night. We found a breathtaking spot directly on a little beach close to the small town Zadar, which we wanted to visit the next day. It was definitely an advantage to have a 4wheel drive to get down to the sleeping spot and it was amazing. After taking some drone shots, we prepared dinner and went to bed.
The next morning we got some coffee and pastries for breakfast in Zadar and sat down at the Sea Organ, an architectural sound object by the sea. Whenever the waves hit the organ, it generates different sounds - it was a special but funny concert to listen to. From Zadar we drove directly to Split, from where we went on the ferry to Korcula. Korcula is an island in Croatia and there we were meeting Ladina and Yves, two friends from Switzerland who were on vaccation with their van. The ferry trip was quite expensive (750kn = CHF 100 = USD 110) but when we arrived on Korcula it was definitely worth it. We agreed to meet directly on Kamp Oskorusica, a camping site we found. When we called them to ask whether they have space for two cars/busses, they told us that they were actually already closed, but since the toilets and showers were still working, they offered us to stay anyways - and we did, for 3 nights straight, since it was very beautiful and the owners were super nice.