Slovenia: Europe's Best-Kept Travel Secret

At this point, it seems to be somewhat of a tradition to find ourselves nestled in the heart of the Alps during the scorching summer months. I think this is because airline travel in Europe is generally bananas over the summer, so we opt to road-trip with the dogs and reconnect with nature. Ah, the magic of the mountains!

Last summer, we hiked around the Interlaken area of Switzerland, so this year we decided to head east to Bled, Slovenia for the Juneteenth holiday weekend. Now, let me let you in on a little secret: Slovenia may be the most underrated country in Europe. Imagine a tranquil turquoise lake surrounded by lush forests. And did I mention everything from lodging to food is half the price of traveling to Switzerland?

To break up the drive a little bit and because Mark’s office decided to upgrade the weekend to a four-day, we started our adventure in Bad Gastein, Austria, a spa and ski town to the south of Salzburg—it’s essentially where they filmed The Sound of Music.

I’m so excited to share what to do, eat and make the most out of this awesome country in a short amount of time.

Stats

location
Bad Gastein, Austria // Bled, Slovenia

where we stayed
the cōmodo // Villa Alpina

when & how many days
Three nights in June

What to do

bad gastein

Finding Bad Gastein was a little bit of a happy accident. I had booked our Slovenia hotel months before Mark’s office decided to turn a three-day weekend into a four-day. Instead of messing with our reservation, Mark suggested that we look for a halfway point between Stuttgart and Lake Bled and stay the extra night there. I suggested Salzburg since it’s been on my list for a while and we still haven’t made it there yet.

When we started shopping around for dog-friendly hotels, we were hit with a bit of sticker shock. Since we travel so frequently, I try to keep our hotel budget as low as possible. Typically, I try to keep our room rate around 100€‎ per night, so that with dog fees and parking it’s under or around 150€‎. Basically I’m looking for no frills: no breakfast included in the room rate, anything with a private bath, and something that won’t likely give us bed bugs. We’re also Marriott Bonvoy members, so we try to stay at a Marriott property if the rate is reasonable.

In the Salzburg area, there were a few Marriott properties, and the cheapest out of the three was the cōmodo in Bad Gastein. The area looked cool on Google Maps so we booked it for a night.

Bad Gastein ended up being a fantastic little nature retreat. Just behind our hotel was a trail leading up to the Kaiser Willhelm Promenade. It was an easy walking path with sweeping views of the village, and we even spotted some squirrels (I love the red European squirrels) and an Eichelhäher, a Eurasian jay.

While we were walking the weather started to turn, so we hiked back (as quickly as Miss Lucy would allow) to the hotel. After the storms seemed to have passed, Mark and I headed out again sans dogs with our cameras. The rain started picking up again, so we hightailed it to Restaurant-Cafe Himmelwandhütte to wait out the weather some more with a little cake.

The whole time we were hiking around the meadows, I wished that we had more time in Bad Gastein to do a proper hike. I also told Mark that we would probably be seeing views like this again in a few short weeks when we embarked on our Dolomites road-trip. We ended the night with an easy dinner at our hotel.

Before hitting the road for Slovenia the following morning, we took the dogs the opposite direction on the Kaiser Willhelm Promenade into the village city center to see the big waterfall. The town felt like walking the streets of Breckenridge, if only Breckenridge had been built and designed by Wes Anderson. Refreshed and revived by our day in the forest, we packed up and hit the road for Lake Bled.

Lake Bled

Lake Bled is famous for its turquoise waters. Our villa was only a 5 minute walk away from the lake, so we spent most of our weekend walking and running the three mile loop around the lake. Since it was mid-June, the water was still pretty chilly, so we didn’t do any swimming, but the puppies did! We checked with our villa before letting them in the water, and they confirmed that it was okay as long as it wasn’t near the spot designated for humans to swim. If we wouldn’t have had the dogs with us, we probably would have rented a row boat, but unfortunately our villa wasn’t too keen on us having the dogs unattended in the room, which was a first in all of our travels and why I wouldn’t really rate the stay as entirely pet-friendly.

Two of the prominent sites at Lake Bled are the Assumption of Mary Church and the castle. The church is located on a tiny island in the middle of the lake and the only way to reach it is by boat or kayak. We didn’t go into either the church or castle, because honestly at this point, most of the castles and churches look the same, and are usually more interesting to view from the outside. We did enjoy watching a crew of teenagers swim from the island to the main shore since they clearly missed the last boat shuttle of the day.

Slap Peričnik

After a a run around Lake Bled and a hearty breakfast thanks to our Bled Breakfast Basket, we hopped in the car and drove about 45 minutes to Slap Peričnik. This waterfall is one of the highest in Slovenia at 170 feet. Having already seen a pretty decent waterfall on this trip in Bad Gastein, the main reason I wanted to check out Slap Peričnik was because you can hike behind the waterfall! I like the pictures we got because you can see just how big the waterfall is if you look for Mark and the dogs in the middle picture.

The best part about the hike (particularly for our elderly and heat-adverse dogs) was that it was fairly short. After the little hike, we let the dogs cool off in the stream that was next to the parking lot. With a lot of daylight left to burn, we decided it would be a good day to head up to Ljubljana.

Ljubljana

You only need to know one thing about Ljubljana. Not that it’s the capital of Slovenia. Not that it’s the largest city in the country. No, all you need to know about Ljubljana is tacos. I’m sorry, did you say tacos?

I’m sure this is puzzling for those readers living in the states with unadulterated access to tacos of all kinds. Were these special tacos or something? No, gentle reader, they weren’t, and that’s precisely the point. Ask any expat living in Europe for an extended period of time what they miss the most about the states and it’s always Mexican food and Target, not specifically in that order. After getting burned by a few subpar Mexican places in other countries, I had all but given up hope in finding legit Mexican food in Europe and was prepared to just make it at home for the foreseeable future, until one of Mark’s coworkers recommended this taco shop in Ljubljana.

Knowing how much I’ve been missing my fix, Mark and I drove up to Ljubljana with the sole intent of getting tacos, and friends, they were worth it. We also ended up finding a decent chimney cone ice cream shop after dinner, so for this reason, I say Ljubljana is absolutely worth a quick visit if you’re in Slovenia.

Lake Bohinj

In Slovenia, Lake Bled gets all the love, and it’s easy to see why once you see the picturesque aquamarine water. But just a short 30 minute drive to the southwest is the less popular Lake Bohinj.

Out of the two lake, Lake Bohinj is a little bit bigger with a 6 mile walking trail around the lake. Unlike its popular cousin, the Lake Bohinj water is crystal clear but doesn’t have the distinct otherworldly turquoise color. Lake Bohinj also feels a little bit more secluded since there are far less restaurants and hotels dotting the lake’s shore.

We hit up Lake Bohinj on our drive back to Stuttgart (even though it was totally not on the way back at all). Our initial plan was to hike to the Vogar Viewpoint and look down on the lake, but this dream was quickly dashed once the trail was fenced off through the pasture and our elderly dogs seemed less than willing to deal with the 1800 foot elevation gain.

Side note: One of the continuing spats we have in our family is what an appropriate amount of elevation gain is for a nonchalant hike. Mark doesn’t want to take the dogs on anything over 300 meters of gain (just under 1,000 feet) and I continue to read meters as feet, refusing to look at the satellite terrain view for hikes. To further complicate matters, I plan everything and Mark asks little to no questions about what the plan is for the day. As you can see, this never leads to any issues… ever.

At first, I was pretty bummed (read: pouty) about not getting to do the hike, but skipping the hike allowed me to keep true to a promise I made for the weekend: the puppies finally got to swim! Our dogs love being in the water, but unfortunately we haven’t lived somewhere where they had regular access in several years.

Unlike Lake Bled, there was only one designated human swimming area, so it was pretty easy for us to find a zero entry point away from the handful of swimmers. The dogs had a blast and I got some of the best pictures I have ever taken of them (which was also another low-key goal of mine for the weekend).

With two exhausted dogs, we packed everything up in the car and headed back to Germany after a relaxing weekend in nature.

What to eat

Unlike most of our travels, we didn’t do too well in Slovenia in sampling the local eats. Since our villa was adamant about not leaving the dogs unattended in the room, we were at the mercy of restaurants that allowed dogs, so we ended up eating at a Thai place. It was delightful, but I would have loved to try a more traditional eatery in Bled (of which there are many). That said, we did have some good eats that you should definitely fit into your itinerary:

• Patrón: Tacos & Bar: As I mentioned above, we made a special trip to Ljubljana specifically for these tacos and they did not disappoint. We went wild here and ended up getting the nachos and tacos and Mark even partook in a Michelada.

• Sisters kurtoš: Despite a full belly from all those tacos, we made room for a chimney cone, which were also amazing. If you’re in Ljubljana you definitely need to hit up these two spots, no exceptions.

• Lake Bled breakfast basket: One of Mark’s coworkers gave us a heads up on the breakfast basket and told us that if our hotel offered it to make sure we reserved one. Typically Mark and I don’t do breakfast on vacation (or in general really), but we weren’t about to miss out. When we got back to the villa after a 10K run around the lake, it was waiting outside our door and the feast could begin. This was a lot of food for two people and would definitely have been better suited for a family of four or more. What I liked the most about the basket was that it was filled with items from local farms, so not only was it incredibly fresh and delicious, it helps support the local community. As a carboholic, the gigantic loaf of bread was my favorite part.

• Bled cream cake: Much like how Boston has the cream pie, Lake Bled has the cream cake. The recipe was perfected in 1953 at the Park Hotel, and has been a staple on the lake ever since. Fluffy and creamy, it’s the perfect dessert for sitting outside and people-watching. While it’s unclear if we had the original, the Thai place we stopped at for dinner was connected to the Park Hotel, so I think odds are high that we were served the original. Either way, it was delicious.

Travel tips

• Explore the area a little bit
  While Lake Bled is stunning, there are so many beautiful spots that are nearby (and are often way less crowded). Make sure to explore the lesser known gems as well, like Lake Bohinj and the many waterfalls in the area.

• Bring your hiking shoes
  We didn’t have much time for hiking on this trip since we were only here for a long weekend, but I would have loved to hit many of the hiking trails nearby. This area is absolutely gorgeous and I wouldn’t mind if we somehow made a trip back in a different season.

• Get the Lake Bled Breakfast Basket
  If your hotel or Airbnb offers a bread basket, jump on it! Not only is it enough food to feed a small army, it supports the local farms and is incredibly tasty.

• Only swim in designated areas
  This should be a no brainer, but there are absolutely designated swim areas at both lakes. Please keep to them to help preserve the shoreline.

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