Hiding in Plain Sight
May 20-27, 2017
Where do you take your parents when they come to visit you in Europe? It's a tough question with no easy answer. There are some amazing choices: Drink wine in the south of France? Hike in the Swiss Alps? Eat incredible food in Italy? AMATEUR HOUR. Clearly, you take your parents on a road trip through Slovenia.
Slovenia has all of those things at the same quality as the "big name" European countries, but with far fewer tourists, and at a lower price point (though literally anything is cheaper than going to Switzerland). The parents had never even considered it as a possible destination. Talking to friends about it, it seems many Americans don't have the slightest idea what Slovenia even looks like. All it took to sell the parents were some pictures of the places we planned on visiting and they were quickly on board.
After a long international flight and nearly a full day with no sleep, the parents arrived in Berlin and we took them to the park to start drinking beer. We chose to only stay in Berlin for a few days, as honestly, you easily show your parents what Berlin has to offer in that amount of time. It's not like you're going to take them to Berghain. We saw the Berlin wall, the Reichstag, ate delicious Turkish food, drank more beer. They fought jet lag and fell asleep on the couch. It was the first sunny and warm stretch of the spring, and everyone in Berlin was outside and smiling and drinking by the canal. The parents, who live on an island with 1000 people, were amazed at how many young people were out in full force on the streets.
The easiest and cheapest way to get to and from Slovenia was actually to fly in and out of Venice. From here, we could rent a car and make a weeklong road trip loop to all of the places we wanted to see. Venice was gray and drab the day we arrived. We dropped off our bags and kindly asked our Airbnb host to direct us to the nearest legitimate pasta establishment. Priorities, man.
The parents had been to Venice before, but this was our first time visiting, and we weren't entirely sure what to expect. There's a romanticized idea of Venice that everyone is familiar with, but reality usually doesn't match up with those sort of preconceptions. Sure, Venice is a unique and iconic city, with its canals and gondolas and the fact that it's going to be destroyed in our lifetimes by climate change. Because of, and in spite of these things, it is thoroughly overcrowded with mouthbreathers and not a particularly chill place to do anything.
This does not change the fact that there are an abundance of beautiful things to look at, if you can get past the crowds. Once the rain started to pour in sheets, we took it as a sign to make our way inside a museum, and the nearest option, the Doge's Palace, seemed like a perfectly good place to start. Filled with ornately carved ceilings, full-wall oil paintings, and an entire armory of classic weapons, the Doge's Palace is a classic example of historic income inequality. This building is where poor people came to be judged and then thrown into jail, which was downstairs, and not nearly as nice as the part upstairs. There weren't even any doges there.
It's only a few hours by car to get from Venice across the Slovenian border to our first destination: Hisa Franko. You may recognize the name from the episode of Chef's Table about the restaurant and its owner/chef, Ana Ros. It was this particular episode that opened our eyes to the idea of visiting Slovenia, as the magnificent countryside in which the restaurant resides seemed like something from a fairy tale. Located in the small town of Kobarid, Hisa Franko is a both a world-class restaurant and a hotel, though there's perhaps only room for a dozen guests at a time. Pastures and hilly mountainsides surround the grounds, with a stream running next to the building and a large garden out back where many of the ingredients for the restaurant are sourced. Our rooms had a shared patio, where we decompressed after our not-at-all-stressful drive with some drinks.
It was a beautiful, sunny day, so we asked for recommendations of a good hike. Mom found out there was a masseuse who could come in from the nearby town, so she decided to stay behind and get her rub on.
The water of the Soča river is a such a vibrant shade of teal that it steals your glance whenever it's in your field of view. Our hike took us along the river and through grassy fields until we met up with hillsides dotted with defunct WWI bunkers. The lushness of the countryside combined with the brilliant hue of the water had us in a perpetual state of awe. The trail led us through the woods to a riverbed, where wooden footbridges with wire rails guide you through the boulders to a hidden waterfall tucked away in a rocky cave. There are a wide variety of outcomes you can expect when someone advises you to go on a walk through the woods to a waterfall. We determined this excursion was pretty close to the best possible scenario.
We returned to Hisa Franko all jacked up on nature, and tried not to be too hyperbolic while explaining it to Mom, who was pleasantly blissed out on rubs. She was swooning over the fact that at one point near the end of her hour-long session a separate set of hands appeared unexpectedly and turned her massage into a full-body tag team. Many "Mom had a three-way" jokes were made. With some time to kill before dinner, we decided to check out the Charnel House, a WWI memorial built into a hill around an existing church from the late 1600s. The remains of more than 7000 known and unknown Italian soldiers who died in the war are buried on the site, with their names carved into the walls. From the top of the memorial there are beautiful views of the entire valley.
Hisa Franko was awarded the 69th best restaurant in the world in 2017, an amazing accomplishment for a chef who is essentially self-taught. We chose the 15-dish expanded menu with the full wine pairing, and though Mom was hesitant at first to agree to so much alcohol due to dietary restrictions, it didn't take long before she said, "Screw it," and got in on the fun. Slovenia is a burgeoning force in the worldwide wine scene, and every wine served at Hisa Franko comes from Slovenian wineries.
As with many of the finest restaurants, it's hard to know exactly what you're getting based solely off the menu. "Wild hops and bone marrow ravioli with prosciutto broth, yeast oil, and hazelnuts" paints a picture, but can't exactly convey the complex layering of flavors you experience when you actually taste the dish. This was true for virtually every course: we would see the words on the page, but the finished product was something more intricate and incredible that we could have imagined. As the meal progressed and the superb wine continued to flow, we were enjoying ourselves thoroughly, to the point where the waiter came by and shushed us because we were being loud enough to bother the other diners. We looked around the tiny dining room with scowls to see who we possibly could have been bothering by laughing boisterously. The culprits were clearly the table of Germans who weren't even talking to each other, and seemed to be treating this world-class meal as an obligation instead of a pleasure.
After several bottles of amazing Slovenian wine, morning came harsher than it needed to. Luckily, there was a full breakfast spread waiting for us, with freshly baked breads, homemade jams, cheeses, salamis, pastries, and life-giving coffee. After thanking the staff for a truly wonderful experience, we packed up the car and hit the road towards Triglav National Park.
We had stopped by an information center to ask about must-see sights in the Julian Aps, and they helpfully circled several options on our route into the mountain range. The scenery outside the car window was unrelentingly stunning, causing us to pull over often to take it in.
We took a gravel road several miles off the main track to find our first hike, an hour-long loop that would take us through the lush forest to a couple of picturesque waterfalls. This family-friendly, non-strenuous trek was a perfect way to stretch our legs and breathe in the fresh mountain air, helping to eliminate what lingered of our wine hangovers.
Soon the road took us into the mountain range, where we climbed elevation to the charming hamlet of Trenta. Surrounded by mountains on all sides, we stopped for lunch to get pizzas with a view. From here we pulled the car off the road repeatedly for tiny side trips that led on hikes to gorges or for views of the valley below. At the top of the pass we were treated to a 360-degree panorama, with the mountain views getting more and more stunning as we descended down the other side. Leaving the Julian Alps in the rearview, we made our way out of the park and continued to our next destination, Bled.
Weary from a long day of hiking and driving through winding mountain roads, we looked for some hearty local fare. Not knowing entirely what we were ordering from the menu, we got wild mushroom soup, grilled sausages with potatoes, and mushroom raviolis with a round of dark beers.
Vintgar Gorge has been described as, "A poor man's Plitvice Lakes," which might seem like an insult if you've never been to Plitvice Lakes. Being mentioned in the same breath as that place means you are in for a treat. We woke early to try to beat as much of the crowds as possible, arriving at the gorge before the sun was even illuminating the river. Vintgar offers a 1.6 km wooden walkway that takes you through the rocky gorge, giving you exceptional views of the river's rapids, pools, and waterfalls. Every turn marks another stunning sight, and Mom seemed like she was about to explode from happiness. We spent hours hiking through the gorge, checking out interconnected trails and trying to find the best vantage points to see the waterfalls. As the day progressed the gorge began to light up with sunlight, and more and more people began to clog the narrow wooden walkways. We were glad we got there early enough to soak it all in as we did.
With a full day still ahead of us, we made our way into the city to check out Lake Bled. We started by going to the castle that sits above the town to have lunch. Though it tried and succeeded several times to rain on us, eventually the clouds cleared and gave us some amazing views as we drank white wine and ate traditional Slovenian Bled cream cake.
Next, it was time to get on a boat, because, I don't know if you knew this, but Mazz loves boats. Lake Bled is home to special boats that can only be found in this region called Pletna boats, which are sort of like gondolas but bigger and less pretentious. For a modest fee you can take a trip on a Pletna boat to the monastery that sits on the tiny island in the middle of Lake Bled, where you can get off, eat some ice cream, look a thing or two, and then get back on the boat and it will row you back into town. This was a fun excursion, though in hindsight we wish we would have just rented our own boat, rowed ourselves, and been able to move at our own pace.
Ljubljana is the capitol city of Slovenia, and the only real "city" city we planned to spend any time in on our road trip. Aside from wanting to see what the Slovenian capital was like, it also turned out to be a great excuse to see an old family friend named Hildegard who was an au pair for Kirb when he was a tiny baby, staying with the family for several months in the early '80s. Hilde now lives in Austria only an hour and a half from Ljubljana, and was happy to drive in to meet us for the afternoon. After a nice lunch catching up (there was quite a bit to catch up on), we explored the old town and Hilde knitted a humungous shawl before saying goodbye and driving back to Austria.
After leisurely strolling by canals and doing some shopping, we made our way up to Ljubljana Castle for some incredible views of the city. We learned that burgers were very trendy in town, so we found a hip burger shop with a wide variety of local beers to end our day.
On our way out of town the next morning, during a lengthy failed attempt to get Kirb some more of the jeans he likes (Google is wrong; there is no Marks & Spencer in Slovenia), we found another burger shop called Hot Horse, but none of us were quite in the mood for horse burgers. The next stop was the Postojna Caves, a 24,340 m long cave system in the southwestern part of the country. Here you are driven several kilometers into the caves on a little train, where you are then guided through massive caverns, tunnels, and passages full of geologic wonders.
Not far from the caves is Predjama Castle, a renaissance-era fortress built into the side of a mountain that is connected with a cave system that goes into the hillside. The castle is beautifully preserved, giving visitors a look at the living quarters, defense areas, and sheltered caves that made the castle virtually impenetrable. We must say virtually, because as we learned on the tour, the guy who was best known for resisting a siege was eventually killed when his attackers blew him up as he was taking a dump on a vulnerable side of the castle.
Our final stop in Slovenia was the coastal town of Piran, which belonged to Italy until after the Second World War, when it was annexed to the former Yugoslavia because Italy had been a bunch of a-holes. Situated directly on the water with picturesque harbors, Piran is small enough that tourists aren't allowed to bring their cars into city, and must park them in a garage on the edge of town. We were lucky enough to score a room directly on the water with a magnificent view.
When you're staying on the coast, law dictates that you need to go eat local seafood. We asked the kind gentleman who booked us into our room where he goes for such things, and he directed us to a seafood joint virtually next door to our place. We gorged on a variety of fish, shellfish, shrimp, and squid ink risotto as the sun began to set over the water in front of us. We finished off the evening drinking white wine on the boardwalk as the pink sky went dark.
None of us really had any desire to go back to Venice for a final day after spending such an excellent week in Slovenia. Luckily, the rental car didn't need to be returned until the evening, so there was plenty of time to spend the day checking out Slovenian wineries on the way back to Italy. We tried to find our way to the wineries of some of our favorite wines from Hisa Franko, but none of them appeared to be open for tastings. We were advised to go to the Brda region and check in with the tourist information area to see which wineries were open that day. They directed us to the Ferdinand winery, tucked away in the small town of Kojsko.
The winery was supposed to be open for a tasting that day, but when we arrived we were the only people there, and the "winery" was a family's private home. A man driving a tractor in from the fields met us at the door, and when we told him we were looking to drink wine he invited us inside to a tasting room downstairs. After he cleaned up a little, the man introduced himself as the head wine maker, Matjaž Četrtič. He looked a lot like Jamie Lannister. He began to uncork bottles for us, explaining the process his family has used to make wine here for several generations.
We sampled maybe six or seven wines, and were especially impressed with the two varieties of pinot grigio they offered. There were more wines to try, but we were all on empty stomachs and not looking to get uncomfortably day drunk. We bought two bottles, and then were blindsided by a €60 charge for the tasting (€15 per person), with no discount for having bought €30 worth of wine.
With the car successfully dropped off at the airport, we decided to take the pricier water taxi into Venice instead of the bus. What we didn't know is that even though it travels a relatively short distance, the boat is exceedingly slow, taking over an hour and a half to reach the dock we needed. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, as, I don't know if you knew this, but Mazz loves boats. This boat, however, had a screaming two year old that was bawling uncontrollably for the entire trip, dampening the pleasure a bit.
Begrudgingly back in Venice, we did the one thing we knew: go eat pasta and drink wine. But, because it was Venice, the restaurant we chose was overcrowded, overpriced, and nowhere near the quality you could expect from virtually any other city in Italy. Still, there is an unmistakable sense of magic as you walk along the canals at sunset, after the crowds have dissipated, with the timeless buildings bathed in soft light. Even Mazz, who hated Venice more than any other city she's visited in Europe, felt the tinge. That feeling, however nice, was fleeting.
After a week of all the best things across Slovenia, it made Venice seem like even more of a hellish tourist trap than it already is. We loved Slovenia, and bring it up at the top of the list of favorite places we've visited in Europe. Great food and wine, kind people, beautiful nature, and a relative lack of other tourists are a perfect recipe for our ideal vacation.