Best known of course for Lake Bled, Slovenia had been on our radar for a while. Finally we decided to go there for my 50th birthday.
Flights were out of Gatwick (no Scottish flights at all) so we tagged on a trip to Brighton (another blog, for another time…)
It was all easy to organise and cheap. The flights to Gatwick then on to Ljubljana cost under £130 for the 2 of us! Car hire was under £120 and that was including the option we took to take it with a full tank of fuel and return it empty. We used Easy Jet for the flights and Sixt for the car hire. Most of the accommodation we chose was towards the higher end, averaging just over £100 per night, and was great value for money (especially the free upgrade to the Prestige suite that we got in Lake Bled at Vila Istra!)
Eating out, with the places we chose, ranged from 25 to 90 Euros for the 2 of us with wine & beer. The quality at most restaurants far exceeded what you would get for the same price in the UK and the food was always beautifully presented. Drinks were inexpensive.
Itinerary
We only had 6 nights in Slovenia, and we chose to spend the first 3 (which incorporated my birthday) in Lake Bled at the beautiful Vila Istra (note – it is now under new management and called Adora Luxury Hotel and prices seem to have risen a bit).
Lake Bled area has fab restaurants, great hiking (even just around the lake, and up to the high view point), and wonderful scenic drives (we did ones that incorporated Lake Bohinji, Jasna Lake, Triglav National Park & the Vrsic Pass). The various lakes are truly beautiful!
It is worth going up to the castle for the views if nothing else. Whilst there we also splashed out on a meal in their restaurant, which has stunning views over the lake from their floor to ceiling windows (this was our most expensive meal out, but still only came in around 90 Euros with drinks for both of us).
Our next stop for 1 night was Postojna (for visiting the Skojan caves and Predjama Castle). We stayed in Smrekarjeva Domačija for the night, which was nice and very reasonably priced. I don’t have any decent photos of the caves as we were not allowed any flash photography.
Travelling on from Postojna, we stopped for one night in the capital Ljubljana. I have not yet been to Amsterdam, but I imagine Ljubljana is similar but probably smaller and nicer. It has a castle, and a river runs through the city, lined with outdoor cafes and bars. The atmosphere is very laid back and the city is easy to walk around.
As we had the rental car we chose to stay in a hotel a few miles outside of the city. It had parking, nice rooms & friendly staff. We would definitely recommend it. They were near the bus route, or you could use their bikes for free to cycle in. We took the bus.
Banovci in the wine region was our next and final overnight destination. We stayed at the Sun House Boutique Hotel, which was very nice and also had a small spa with hot tub, which was a nice bonus!
We did some wine tasting at Mrof, which was around 20 miles away – very nice wines!
En route between Ljubljana and Banovci, we stopped off at some beautiful places such as the Jamnik Church near Kropa (stunning mountain backdrop) and Vipava (stroll around this small pretty town, hike to the castle ruins, and be sure to go to the tourist office which houses the Vinoteca wine museum which is a community project that offers tastings of wines from all the villages on the Vipava wine route).
Luckily our flight home was quite late in the evening, so we had a full last day. We drove to the Kamnik Alps with the intention of doing a hike, but as snow covered the road higher up, we had to abandon that idea. We did however get some nice views, and the town of Kamnik and its surrounds was beautiful.
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