From the Alps to the Adriatic - and a Balkan Detour
A walk around Lake Bled was mandatory: rowing to the island, tasting the famous Kremsnita cream cake, and climbing up to Bled Castle for postcard views.
Next stop: the vast Postojna Cave - the largest cave system in Europe open to tourists, complete with surreal stalactite formations and its strangest resident, the pale cave olm. Nearby, we visited Predjama Castle, dramatically built into a cliff - the world’s biggest cave castle.
We continued to the coast, reaching the charming town of Piran on the Adriatic. With Italy visible across the sea, we took a quick dip before heading inland again.
After 475 km through the north and west, we finally reached Ljubljana, a capital that feels more like a friendly university town: 300,000 people, 60,000 students, and Europe’s largest car-free city centre. Cobblestones, Art Deco façades, riverside cafés, and a castle overlooking it all. On quiet Sunday streets we missed the market and local orange wine, but made up for it with hipster coffee and hearty Slovenian food - mushroom soup served in bread for Diana, sausage with cabbage and mashed potatoes for me. Almost like home. 😂
Hvala, Slovenia - you’ve been so good to us. Beautiful, clean, structured, with 70% forest cover (and 850 bears!), endless caves, the most churches per capita in the world, dragons everywhere, and locals fluent in English. A small country, but with so much character.
Off to Belgrade: The Serbian capital felt like a different world - two million people, grand Orthodox churches, wide avenues, and brutalist relics of another era. We started with the massive St. Sava Cathedral and its gleaming mosaics, then geeked out at the Nikola Tesla Museum with live electric discharge experiments. We explored fortresses, Orthodox churches, and Soviet-style buildings, with views over the Danube and Sava rivers from Kalemegdan Fortress. A sweet mishap at Hotel Moskva (ordering ice cream via Cyrillic 🤷🏼♂️) added some comedy. The day ended with local food, rakija, and new friends.
The next morning, we drove south along the Drina River, Bosnia visible on the opposite bank. Roads quickly turned rough - 50–60 km/h on average - but the views made up for it. A photo stop at the famous Drina River House, a quick palačinke, and we were deep into Tara National Park. An afternoon hike to Banjska Stena lookout - through what’s considered bear territory - ended with us nearly losing the trail in dusk’s fading light. 😌
The next days mixed history and scenery: a ride on the old Šargan Eight train, a visit to Drvengrad (a wooden village built by filmmaker Emir Kusturica), and a loop around Zaovine Lake. Evenings meant campfires, local beer, and random encounters - including one self-proclaimed “Serbian wild tiger.”
Driving west again offered stunning contrasts: mosques on the Bosnian side, monasteries on the Serbian, and endless autumn forests in between. After hours of rural roads, we reached Novi Sad - Serbia’s second-largest city and far more modern and hipster than Belgrade. A visit to the Đurđić winery introduced us to Bermet, a sweet, spiced wine unique to Serbia and guarded like a family secret. We ended the day in the baroque gem of Sremski Karlovci before returning the car in Belgrade and enjoying one last dinner by the Danube.
After 660 km through Serbia, what stays with us: people smoking everywhere, glorious fall colours in Tara, massive Soviet-style buildings, ancient monasteries, and hearty, meat-heavy cuisine balanced by generous doses of rakija.
Our next and final stop was Venice! Travel day chaos: up at 4:30 a.m. for a 7:00 flight, only to find the airport heaving. A tiny propeller plane took us toward Venice, but bird activity closed the runway - so we circled for 90 minutes before diverting to Trieste. No replacement bus in sight, so we trained it to Venice instead, arriving five hours late. Still, a canal-side dinner and a free walking tour with our guide Francesco („Backstreet Boy“ vibes included) salvaged the day.
Venice was an open-air museum - 118 islands, 400+ bridges, and 137 churches. We rode a gondola, visited the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Picasso! Kandinsky!), and were blown away by the golden mosaics of St. Mark’s Basilica and the opulent Doge’s Palace.
A half-day trip took us to Murano for glassblowing and Burano for its rainbow houses and lace. Touristy? Absolutely. But essential to the full Venetian experience.
On our final day, reality crept in: €9.50 for a water taxi, €6.50 for a double espresso, and extra fees for almost every room in the basilica or palace. With 30 million annual tourists - and plenty still “catching up” post-COVID - Venice is magical, but not cheap.
Still, what a finale. From alpine waterfalls and bear forests to Balkan trains, spiced wines, and golden mosaics - this trip had it all. Mille grazie, Venezia, and hvala again, Slove
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