Hello from a farm in Slovenia

It’s been a bit of an experience getting here but last night we stayed in a fantastic ‘tourist farm’, which is the same as a bed & breakfast back home. It’s a far cry from the communist era room where we stayed in Ljubljana two nights ago.

We spent Sunday in Prague wandering around, most with a walking tour group. There are quite a few tours available but I’ve always been a fan of the New Europe tours, which are ostensibly ‘free’ in that the guides work on tips so you pay what you feel the tour is worth. This one was led by a woman from the US who lives in Prague and she did a great job explaining the sites and the history behind many of the attractions in the city. I think this was my fourth tour with this company and they haven’t failed to provide me with a great tour.

We headed out of Prague Monday morning eastward to the town of Kutna Hora. This place is popular due to its famous bone church, the Sedlec Ossuary, which was the result of a woodcarver organizing the bones of 40,000 people into mounds, chandeliers, and other things. It’s a bit of a macabre place, needless to say.

From Kutna Hora, we made the long drive south to the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana. We tend to think of Europe of being small compared to Canada but it was a 6 hour drive, even on the high speed freeways through Czech, Austria, and Slovenia.

Along the way, we just randomly stopped at the town of Mikulov near the Austrian border for some lunch. Mostly because we could see some cool ruins and a very large fortress overlooking the town. After grabbing a bite to eat we drove around the town to get some good views to take pictures, which led me to taking a wrong turn and driving right into the middle of the town square! That made for some angry looks from some of the locals but since we have German plates on the car, hopefully they’ll forgive a confused tourist, haha.

Once you hit the Austrian border, you need to purchase a vignette to drive on the freeways in both Austria and Slovenia but fortunately, when we stopped for gas, we were able to buy passes. And you don’t want to not buy them as fines in Austria run from 550- 5000 Euros! That’s a big fine! We think our Slovenia pass is good for 7 days but we’re about to find out today.

Raegan took over the driving at this point and I just got to sit back and enjoy the view which was much nicer than Czech Republic. Driving there is like driving through the prairies so aside from the neat towns along the way, there isn’t much to see. Plus it was really hazy and smoggy throughout most of the Czech drive.

Our route at this point took us past Vienna and onward to the city of Graz where we crossed the border into Slovenia. It was a very nice drive as we weaved up and over mountain passes, through long narrow valleys, and some long tunnels. And the highways here are in great condition with almost no bumps so it makes for a very smooth ride. It makes one want a car that can easily cruise 200km/h or more to just rip through this area.

Arriving in Ljubljana got a bit stressful. We had enquired about a room via email but we found out that there was no room available at the hotel. So the next best plan was the tourist office as they are usually quite helpful with finding rooms. As the office closed at 9pm and we were arriving around 8pm, that didn’t seem like a problem. But, it wasn’t quite that easy. As we came into the city in the dark, it started to rain. And as we discovered, this city does not have a lot of street lights so it’s really quite dark and hard to see anything in the rain. It ended up with us driving up several tight, dark streets, sometimes the wrong way on a one way (doh!), and just driving in circles. Finally we just randomly made a turn and ended up in a large, modern parking garage. That was a huge relief!

So now it was 8.45 pm so we had to literally run to the tourist office but we made it with 5 minutes to spare. The girl at the desk said there wasn’t much available but she was able to get us a double room at a nearby hostel. And so the adventure began.

We retrieved our luggage from the car and walked to the hostel which proved to be very busy with loads of people just showing up. The receptionist had already given our ‘secured’ room away but did offer a private apartment nearby and all we had to do was wait for a driver to pick us up. So we waited for about 1/2 hour before that happened.

There’s nothing like getting into a vehicle in a foreign city and getting driven around with absolutely no idea where you are or where you are going. It really makes me love my GPS so that I always can find my way back. After about 1/2 hour in the van, we arrived at a seriously run down, communist era apartment building. One thing I have to say about Communists, they don’t put a lot into aesthetics when it comes to buildings. Bigger is better and that’s about it.

Our driver then led us up the 6th floor where we were introduced to our room, which cost 50 euro’s, cash. It wasn’t much of a room but it was probably the lap of luxury 30 years ago. It kind of reminded me of the communist era train we road to Bucharest two years ago. I was thinking it was a bit of a dodgy way to do business but at this point, I wasn’t inclined to continue searching for another place. We also found out that the lack of rooms in the city was due to thousands of people heading home after a large festival in Croatia over the previous weekend.

So we accepted the room and wandered down the street to get some dinner at a Chinese restaurant at 11pm. Which was quite a good meal, I might add.

After a sweltering sleep in which the room felt like it was 30 degrees all night, we skipped the morning shower and called for our driver. The bathroom and shower were a bit dubious and we just wanted out of there. Our driver arrived and took us back to the garage where the car was so we dropped off our luggage and wandered around the city center for a couple of hours and enjoyed the views from the castle on the hill before heading west towards Italy.

Using the Rick Steeves book as a reference, we headed for the Skocjan Caves about 70km away and we also decided to stay at a tourist farm he recommended along the way. We arrived at the farm without a reservation but they were able to secure a room for us so we went off to the caves for a few hours until the room was ready.

The caves are near the town of Divaca and are one of several in the area. Due to the geology of the area, it lends itself to many cave systems. We signed onto a 1.5 hour guided tour which is the only way in and descended hundreds of meters into the ground. This was a breathtaking tour and I have never seen anything like it. Massive caverns, huge stalactites and stalagmites and a river running hundreds of meter below in the deep underground canyon. At one point, you cross a bridge that is 147 meters above the bottom of the underground cavern. Breathtaking!

After the tour we headed back to the farm for a badly needed shower and some dinner. After our previous night in Ljubljana, this was an amazing place to be. Clean, modern, very nice people running it with a great dinner and free wifi! And we got a laugh when a young child served us alcohol with our dinner. Dinner was followed by a much better sleep than the last couple of nights we awoke refreshed and to an awesome breakfast of local eggs, homemade bread, and a bunch of spreads and cheeses.

It’s now morning and we’re getting ready to leave for Split in Croatia. The GPS figures about 5.5 hours drive, so we have a long day ahead. But our destination is a private villa for the next 5 days and we’ve both looking forward to that.