I just finished 5 nights in Slovenia, which was nestled midway between several weeks in Croatia (still 11 nights in Croatia left). I admit I basically only added Slovenia because my friend asked for it and we had a car, which made it easy. But I was in love the moment I made it through the (looong) border crossing. Covid info separately below.
My friend really wanted to go to Lake Bled, so that’s where I started planning. The Slovenia portion of our trip ended up being 1 night in Sezana, 3 nights in Bled, and 1 night in Ljubljana before heading toward Plitvice.
Coming from Rovinj, we went a bit out of our way to avoid crossing through Italy. I had mapped the closest gas station to the border, which was a mile or so off the highway, so that we could get our Slovenian vignette. Then it was back to the highway to sit in the almost 2 hour line to cross into Slovenia. As we all waited, people were getting out of their cars, walking their kids, changing drivers, holding babies, having conversations - a 2 lane party of patience. Ha!
From the Jelšane crossing, we went directly to the Lipica Stud Farm - this was for me. We made it just in time for the 3:00 show, followed by a 4:00 English tour where we were able to get up close and personal with some of the breeding stallions (but none of the performance horses, of course). The show was basically the same as the one I had seem in Jerez, but I just enjoy horses.
From there it was about 10 minutes to a small apartment in Sezana. For this trip I booked everything on booking.com for the easy cancellations, if needed. However late afternoon before leaving Rovinj, I got a cancellation notice from the apartment I had booked for our first night. They said they had an error in their system and had double booked the apartment. I admit it’s possible, but I had already had at least 2 emails a couple of hours earlier asking for my arrival time and then giving me contact info for the person meeting me. My unproved suspicion is that it had more to do with new Slovenian restrictions that took effect the day before our arrival. However, I quickly found a cute replacement (Studio Doroteja) and it worked really well. It was in the middle of a family enclave: three generations, runaway dog, and curious cat. It was obviously decorated by an artist, with free and easy parking. :) Dinner was Slovenian pizza around the corner and breakfast was a croissant and coffee across the street.
The following morning we headed for Bled. I found a really cute 2 bedroom apartment (Victoria Apartments) for a very reasonable price. Victoria herself was wonderful. Her info says “laundry for an additional cost” but when my friend asked to have a load washed, Victoria just ran the washer and wouldn’t take any extra money. It was about a 5 minute walk from Lake Bled (uphill on the way back), with free easy parking (sense a theme here?), lots of space, and our door faced the large, green garden/yard.
This was a pretty relaxed part of our trip. In addition, it was also a week of rain and a drop in temps to mid 50°s. So we did less than we might have otherwise, but fall had arrived and everywhere I turned, it was gorgeous. You just can’t complain about water, mountains, and turning leaves when you are from west Texas - actually you can’t even complain about gentle rain!
Our first full day, we drove up to Lake Bohinj and wandered, beginning at the furtherest end of the lake. We just stopped along the road wherever possible. We even drove up the mountain about 3/4 of the way toward Savica Waterfall before I turned around. I knew we weren’t ready to hike the rest of the way to see the waterfall, so there wasn’t really a reason to go all the way up (on a narrow steep road). The town of Bohinj was cute to wander for a couple of hours.