Slovenia

14 Days with Peggy and Wayne in 14 Pictures: Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia Herzegovina

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We wanted to share the best of our trip with Peggy and Wayne with you all. Here are 14 pictures from 14 days exploring Slovenia, Croatian, and Bosnia Herzegovina.

We met up with Peggy and Wayne in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. They took a long distance train from Vienna, we took one from Eger, Hungary. We met up easily and then spent a rainy day in Zagreb together. Here is our very first attempt at a family jelfie. Not bad for the first try!

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After one day and two nights in Zagreb, we headed into Slovenia. We knew we wanted to see the beautiful Lake Bled, so we wasted no time in getting there. What an amazing place! We enjoyed beautiful weather as we visited this lovely mountain lake. It is distinctive because it has an island in the middle with a church and a castle perched on a high cliff overlooking the region. We only wish we had remembered our swimming suits!

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After visiting Lake Bled, we headed back to Ljubljana. We had heard that this capital city of Slovenia was lovely. Not much to do per se, but perfect to enjoy the “Café Culture.” We did enjoy our day here!

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After one quick day in Ljubljana, we headed off to Skocjan Caves. This UNESCO Heritage site was a large cave in two parts. The first part was not super impressive if you’ve seen the likes of Carlsbad Caverns, but lovely all the same. The second part was magnificent. You are perched over a 47 meter drop to the rushing river below. You aren’t allowed to take pictures until you exit. Blargh.

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After the morning at the caves, we rushed back into Croatia. We stopped briefly at a small town called Opitija in the Istria region. We didn’t stay long, but we did stay long enough to enjoy our first views of the Adriatic and to allow our inner school children to emerge!

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After our brief stop on the coast, we went directly to the Plitvice Lakes region. Here we had the best dinner of the entire trip!

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After a bit of a rocky start, rainy and mist and clouds, we finally got a bit of sun and saw the beautiful lakes.

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After our day at Plitvice, we raced on to the lovely city of Zadar, Croatia. We’ve read blog posts that rank this city as having the best sunsets in the world. It definitely did not disappoint- though we have to say, it would be very hard to rank our top sunsets!

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After our evening in Zadar, we headed to our next destination: Split, Croatia. This amazing city is built inside the ruins of Diocletian’s Palace. It is hard to beat wandering around ancient Roman ruins.

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After enjoying a short trip in Split, we continued on down the Dalmatian Coast to the big event: Dubrovnik. We enjoyed the beautiful city but could have done without the high prices and huge cruise ship crowds. One of our favorite events was walking the walls of the city.

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One of Eric’s favorite things about having Peggy and Wayne along was that they brought along a Rick Steves guidebook. Eric’s new best friend and travel guru!

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After spending a day in Dubrovnik, we picked up rental car number 2. Everyone who knows Della should be exceedingly proud. She drove this one the entire time.. all by herself! After this trip, no one can hate on her driving stamina ever again!

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We arrived in the amazing, interesting city of Sarajevo. It was hard to explain our feelings about being here. We were relived to be away from the crazy tourist crowds, excited to see something completely different from what we had seen before, but in pain when viewing and hearing about the all too recent wars.

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Finally, we arrived in Mostar. A lovely city with a lovely bridge. It was fitting for our last evening together to dine here with an incredibly atmospheric (as Rick Steves would say) view.

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We are so fortunate to have both Peggy and Wayne, and earlier Donna and Steve, join us on our travels. We could hardly ask for anything better. Thank you parents!

 

Slovenia (in a rush)

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This is a guest post by Peggy, Della’s mom, who joined us, along with Wayne, for 14 days in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia Herzegovina.

After picking up our rental car, we were off on our rather short drive to Slovenia. It was an easy border crossing, but you do have to stop to buy a sticker that allows you to drive on the Slovenian toll roads – good for a week.

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Entering Slovenia from Croatia. You stop right through the booths on the right and buy your sticker from a little van.

It took 1.5 hours to Ljubljana. After a quick stop at our AirBnB apartment, we quickly drove on to Lake Bled, another 45 minutes. This is Slovenia’s premier resort area. It reminded us a lot of Lake Tahoe. What distinguishes it is a small island near one end with a pretty church and a huge castle on top of a cliff at the other end. We walked fully around the lake (it isn’t as big as Tahoe) and climbed to the castle for grand views. We also stopped for a great cream cake pastry, a specialty of the area. We were grateful that morning rain gave way to partial sun in the afternoon and mad that we left our bathing suits with our luggage in Ljubljana.

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SO FRUSTRATED that one of the only pictures of all four of us was accidently taken with fish eye effect…. fail!!

We had an apartment with a big kitchen so we opted to cook our own meals both nights. We were happy to find a vinotoc, a place where you go to fill your own bottles from the wine barrel.

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Day 2 was spent in Ljubljana. We did a “free” walking tour. About 50 people showed up at Preseren square and they split us into 2 groups. Our guide Neja was quite good. The old town spans the river and there are multiple bridges each with its own character, the triple bridge, the dragon bridge, the cobblers bridge, and the new butchers bridge with cool glass walkways. One highlight was the new bronze door on the cathedral, commemorating a visit by Pope John Paul. Its depiction of Slovene history was interesting, as were the explanations of recent Yugoslav history provided by the guide. After the walking tour we went on our own to a different part of old town to see the Serbian orthodox church, passing the US embassy in a neat old building en route. Ljubljana is a pretty city, greatly influenced by an architect named Plecnik. We had really hoped to see his house/museum but this time our guidebook was unfortunately correct when it noted it was closed for renovation.

On day 3 we drove about 1.5 hours to the karst region to visit UNESCO world heritage site Skocjan caves. The area is mostly limestone which is soft and porous. There are two parts to the cave, a silent dry part with really large caverns. There are some interesting rock formations but nothing as interesting as say Carlsbad Caverns. The second part is an active cave with a huge river running through immense caverns. Definitely class 6 rapids. This part was interesting and pretty unique as you cross over the rushing river on a high bridge which affords stunning views of the cavern. When you exit the cave, you walk perhaps another mile through an area which used to be cave but where the Limestone roof grew thin and collapsed. So its now kind of like a lushly vegetated caldera with a river canyon.

After leaving Skocjan, we headed back to Croatia.