In April/May 2022 I made a tour of the Balkans. The tour was organized by Zagreb Tours. It was originally planned for April 2020 but had to be postponed. They conducted the tour without extra cost in 2022. The organization was outstanding. I had two guides, each driving me for about half of the tour. Everything worked like clockwork. During the tour I wanted to put more emphasis on bird watching than originally planned. Both guides went out of their way to research bird watching sites during the tour and added visits to many bird watching sites.

Itinerary

We drove from Zagreb to Slovenia. The border crossing took sometime, they checked all documents in detail.

From the border we drove north to Lake Ptuj for some bird watching. From Lake Ptuj we drove to Celje. We visited Celje Castle, a nice castle from the 14th century.

From Celje we drove to Ljubljana, where we stayed for two nights. After arriving in Ljubljana I went on a guided tour of Ljubljana with a local guide.

The next morning we drove to Postojna Cave. It is a very impressive cave, well worth a visit. The Cave Castle is impressive as well.

The next day we drove to Lake Bled. From Lake Bled we drove up to Lake Bohinj and the Savica Pass. Back down to Lake Bleb we continued into the mountains over a mountain pass to Bovec, where we stayed for one night. The pass road to Bovec over the pass has 50 switchback curves. It was an interesting drive.

The next day we continued south through Kobarid to the Idrija Mercury Mine. I went on an interesting excursion through the mine.

From Idrija we continued south to Cerknica Lake and then to the border with Croatia. Exit formalities were easy.

Observations

Slovenia is the Balkan country which is the closest to Western European development. There is no obvious difference to other Western European countries. Consequently, prices are like anywhere in Western Europe. Food and drink were good.

The country is amazingly clean, you don't see litter anywhere.

On the road you see a lot of German cars, in particular a lot of BMW, Mercedes, and Audi, but also VW and Opel. Driving was very disciplined, not the chaotic driving that you see further south.

Overall I had a very positive impression of Slovenia.

Following are links to various pages with pictures:

All pictures are © Dr. Günther Eichhorn, unless otherwise noted.

People in Slovenia
People in Slovenia
Nature in Slovenia
Nature in Slovenia
Birds in Slovenia
Birds in Slovenia

The total number of pictures online on my website from Slovenia is 136


Page last updated on Fri Dec 2 01:44:53 2022 (Mountain Standard Time)

Slovenija (Slovenia) - Lots of History on guenther-eichhorn.com


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