Week 50: Austria and Slovenia

We have had such a fun-filled week! 

After our Austrian adventures last week, we still had two more days to explore Salzburg. On the first day, we took a short bus ride out of the city center to Schloss Hellbrunn and the Trick Fountains. We hadn’t heard anything about Hellbrunn before arriving in Salzburg, but once we heard the words “trick fountains” we were set on getting ourselves there. During an hour-long tour, we came to learn that many fountains were strategically hidden throughout the expansive gardens of this palace. Apparently this was popular practise amongst the elite in the early 1700s, but all such features have since been removed from other palaces around the world. We were caught by surprise SO many times as we ventured through the gardens, with water springing up on the stairs, out of the walls, and even out of the deer heads mounted on the walls. Everything was powered by water, including a 200-piece moving parts theatre. It was all so impressive. 

The other highlight on this property was a stone theatre that was a bit of a walk away from the fountains. We weren’t sure what to expect when we headed over to it, but it sure wasn’t a multi-level stage inside of a cave! 

While we were at Hellbrunn, we also visited the folkmuseum and palace on the property, as well as the pavilion from Sound of Music that had been moved here from it’s original location. 

Back downtown, we walked through streets and squares, stopping at the Original Brezl shop for pretzels before heading back to Augustiner Braustubl for a second round of World Cup (Sweden vs. Switzerland), drinks and dinner. We chatted away with some really friendly locals while we watched the game. Afterwards, we headed down to the Dom Cathedral for a musical performance by a talented choir of about 100 musicians. This group of Austrian and American musicians was here for the World Choral Festival, and they put on a great show. The percussionist, who was running back and forth playing a gong, chimes, bell chimes, two drums and a xylophone especially impressed us. The conductor also had this incredible energy and passion, making him so much fun to watch. 

The next day, we walked around more of the downtown area, exploring all the tiny alleyways extending off of the walking streets. We enjoyed our lunch and a few hours of sunny reading and people watching in the gardens of Mirabellplatz. Later on in the day, we took some time to catch up with friends and family back home, and also did a bit of house hunting. I got myself caught up with the idea of trying to buy a house while we are still away, but quickly realized that all of the paperwork and logistics just don’t fit into our travel plans for the next few weeks. So, that’s been put on the back burner for now. However, we do feel incredibly lucky to have such a great network of friends keeping an eye out for places for us back home!

Here are “A Few of Our Favourite Things” about Austria: 

• Schaumrolle (tube of pastry filled with whipped cream)
• Pretzels
• Mozartkugel (small round confection made of pistachio marzipan and nougat covered in dark chocolate) 
• Bosna (sausage sandwich)
• Strudel 
• Weiner Schnitzel 
• Beer gardens (with Steigl beer)

Of course, food wasn’t ALL we loved about Austria. We also loved the gorgeous gardens, intricately carved wooden balconies, the opportunities to listen to live music, and the mountains… so many mountains!! 

On Thursday, we headed out on the train towards Slovenia. We travelled from Salzburg to Ljubljana, switching trains near the border. We loved the ride through the lush green mountains! Once we landed in Ljubljana, we headed straight for the car rental office, where we picked up our amazing little Skoda Citigo that would take us through the Julian alps of north-western Slovenia. We quickly learned just how small this country is, as we drove up from Ljubljana to Radovljica. After a walk around this small town, we drove down the hill and checked into a large old house that also serves as an art gallery. After a chat and coffee with our host, we had an enjoyable dinner and evening outside in the gazebo with another couple from Finland.

The next morning, we headed off for Lake Bled. We parked on the far side of the lake, and then walked along the lakeside trail towards the town. We saw many boat rental shops, and got our first view of the only island in all of Slovenia! 

It started to rain once we got to town, so we took this perfect opportunity to sit down at Park Café and try the infamous kremsnita, or Bled cream cake. We had a great view of the green-blue water and the castle from here. 

As we were ready to leave, the rain stopped and the skies cleared. We continued our walk around the lake, stopping again once we reached Straza hill. We had been curious about the grey line we saw winding across this mountain, and when we found out it was a “summer tobogganing” track, we were all in! We hiked up the hill and ate a picnic lunch near the top. They had closed the track because of the rain, but opened it again just as we arrived at the top- perfect timing! We were buckled into our little cars and down the hill we went. It felt just like a roller coaster and was SO much fun! We both got going pretty fast- Will had a recorded speed of 39.8km/hr! 

Once we were back on solid ground, we continued around the lake, stopping again to hike up the steep trail to Mala Osojnica. We enjoyed the view from here, and then continued climbing up to Velika Osojnica, where we had even better views. 

We returned to the lake trail and then took a beach break with some ice cream. Later on, we finished off the lake trail and drove back to Radovljica to try a couple local dishes- struklji (pastry stuffed with cottage cheese) and buckwheat dumplings. In the evening, we set off on a trail along the Sava River, which took us through a field and then a forest. We crossed the river and returned along another trail just as it was getting quite dark. 

Saturday was a big driving day! We spent nearly the entire day in Triglav National Park, which is a beautiful park with endless possibilities for exploration! We first stopped at Vintgar Gorge, where we hiked on wooden boardwalks that took us through the gorge. We watched as the blue-green water rushed through the gorge, creating small waterfalls along the way. At the end of the designated trail, we added an extra loop trail that got us away from the crowds of people and allowed us to get a great view of the largest waterfall in the gorge. Walking back to our car was a bit challenging because there were so many people walking the opposite direction on the narrow boardwalk. 

Once we were back to our car, we drove through some construction that really slowed traffic on the road. We stopped at Jasna Lake for a scenic picnic lunch and a little walk before heading up to Vrsic pass. 

We climbed up towards the pass, zigzagging along on a paved road with cobblestone corners. We stopped to check out the small Russian Chapel on the side of the road and to enjoy the panoramic view at a few different places. We were just in a bowl of mountaintops! 

After 25 switchbacks, we reached the summit and got out again to enjoy the pass. 

We then drove down 25 more switchbacks on the other side, and straight on to Bovec. When we got there, we found out we had arrived on Bovec Day, and enjoyed a collection of street vendors and local food carts. Bovec is famous for their sheep cheese, which was quite tasty. After spending some time in town, we drove on to the tiny village of Ciginj, where we would be staying for two nights. We made a little dinner, and then set off in search of a bar playing the Croatia game. We never ended up watching the game though! Instead, we walked by a garage filled with people laughing and talking, and were invited to join them. We spent the next few hours hanging out with this great group of locals! 

We had an early morning the next day as we set off to hike the Soca Trail. We drove back to Bovec and then took a bus up to the start of our hike. We shared the bus with a group of scouts, who were really fun to talk to. Once we got off the bus, we hiked a couple km’s up to the source of the river. Will braved the rocky terrain down to the cave, where he got a great view of the clear blue water. 

We then headed down the trail, following the markers that took us along 27.7km of forested trail next to the river. The entire day was made up of small, hilly climbs and drops that followed the Soca River. We stopped to eat lunch at a beautiful viewpoint, then again at a gorge for a snack, and stopped a little later on to cool our feet in the very cold water. 

We had two incredible gorge views along this trail, and were mesmerized watching the water cut through this canyon. We crossed over the river many times on wooden bridges. 

We were both pretty tired when we realized we still had 10km to go, but we pushed on. It was sunny and warm most of the day. And then around 5pm, when we were just 6km from Bovec, the skies opened up and we experienced thunder, lightning, and a fair bit of rain. We took cover for about 10 minutes, and then the skies started to clear again. When we got to Bovec, we enjoyed burgers at Felix’s before heading back to our place.

On Monday morning, we drove out to Lake Bohinj. The combination of narrow mountain roads and construction with detours made our drive quite a bit longer than expected, but it certainly was a beautiful drive. Once we arrived at the lake, we walked along part of the lake trail and found a beach spot to enjoy some lunch. 

We watched paragliders coming in for a landing as we walked further along on the lake trail. There were threatening clouds in the sky, but we decided to take our chances and rented a canoe. We enjoyed paddling around on this quiet lake, and were thankful the sky stayed clear! 

Once we were off the lake, we drove up towards Savica waterfall, where we hiked along a short 20-minute trail to reach this thundering falls. 

We then made our way back down the road and drove out to the place we were staying for the night. After navigating our way through the extremely narrow and steep roads in this town, we enjoyed some time outside with an incredible mountain view.

In the morning, we took our time to savour the last moments in the Triglav region. When we finally were ready to leave, we drove out to Skofja Loka, which is the most well preserved medieval town in Slovenia. It was quite a hot day, so we took our time walking by the historical buildings and through the town square. We stopped off at Café Homan for a little treat before walking up to the castle for a great view of the town and the mountains. 

After a little picnic here, we headed down to the river and crossed over the Devil’s Bridge. 

We took some time to soak up the mountains, the wildflowers, and the water before we had to leave. From here, we drove back to Ljubljana to return the car. We are SO glad that we rented this little car to take us through the mountains and explore this part of the country! 

Act of kindness: A big thanks goes out to Nate for inviting us to hang out with him and his friends in Ciginj. We felt so welcomed, and had such a fun night!