From Slovenia to Austria

Our last day in Slovenia saw us heading through the Soca (So-cha) River Valley and over Vrsic (Vur-sheech) Pass. We got out of Bohinj via a car train which was really cool though a little freaky! You basically just drive your car onto the train open-air platform and sit in it while you are hurtled through the mountains in a tunnel, then down the valley. Quite a novel experience for sure!

Waiting for the train to leave the platform - not a big barrier between you and off the train!

Heading north through the Soca Valley we first stopped at the little town of Kobarid - front line during World War I - and visited Slap (waterfall) Kozjak, a neat waterfall amongst highly bedded limestone. The Soca Valley overall was a really lovely drive, with great views over the Vrsic Pass looking back into Triglav National Park and Triglav itself.

Slap Kozjak.

The Soca River Valley.

 Dave and Kate near Vrsic Pass.

The end of the day saw us arrive in Lienz, Austria, capitol of the East Tirol Region, where we found a beautiful campground by a lake nestled at the foot of the Lienz Dolomites.

Triglav National Park

Our next 2 days were spent exploring Triglav National Park and the Triglav 7 Lakes Valley hike. We got up early to a pretty awful rainy day and remembered we had forgotten to visit Vintgar (pronounced Veent-gar) Gorge, just out of Bled - something we had been planning to do and since it was rainy, seemed like the perfect thing to visit while we waited for the weather to clear. We'd been keeping an eye on the weather forecast and it was supposed to clear that night with good weather for the next couple of days.

Vintgar Gorge was beautiful - it's a really neat walk on a wooden boardwalk hugging the limestone gorge cliffs with some really amazing clear blue water and wonderful lush forest.

Beautiful Vintgar Gorge.

By the time we drove into Bohinj (Bo-heen) it was still raining quite a lot but after talking to the people in the tourist information we decided to book the hut for the night and head off on our hike with finger's crossed the weather would clear. As it was, the rain did stop it was just a bit damp and cloudy but not cold. It's supposed to take 3 hours 15 to reach the hut - we got there in about 2 hours 45 with a few stops for photographs and catching our breath. It's ridiculously steep! The first part takes you straight up the cliff-face about 700m of elevation climb - whew! Very cool forest though, especially with the swirling mist and we even saw 3 alpine ibex which we kept coming across at various stages up the valley.

The hut (Koca pri Triglavskih Jezerih) at Double Lake has double bed rooms and full board so we ate well even though it's really quite expensive! The next morning I got up early to take some photographs by the lakes - the clouds had all burnt off so it was a beautiful morning and we set of reasonably early to take advantage of that and get higher up the valley. We hiked all the way up to Prehodavci Hut at the very top of the valley, before turning round and walking all the way out back to the car - a good full days effort with amazing limestone alpine scenery and quite a bit of snow!

Dave in the mist.

Dinner in the hut - beer, macaroni, sauerkraut and kransky sausage!

A clear start to the day at Double Lake (Dvojno Jezero).

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Stunning views from Prehodavci Hut.

Dave crossing through some snow.

Logarska Dolina & Bled

Well am a bit behind on these - actually quite a lot behind as we are already back home again! Internet was not as easy to get on as we thought it would be over in Europe. Actually pretty expensive quite a lot of the time or just painfully slow and unreliable - it's really odd which places have good wireless or not!

Anyway, after our couple of nights in Ljubljana we headed north again to Bled via driving through the mountain-ringed valley of Logarska Dolina - a favourite nature getaway for the locals. Very pretty scenery and just nice to get into a different area not really on the tourist trails. We drove the Panoramic Road overlooking the valley, then headed up into the valley itself for a short walk up to the Rinka Waterfall and "Eagle's Nest" hut where we had a nice coffee enjoying the view of the mountains.

 Logarska Dolina from the Panoramic Road.

 The Eagle's Nest hut.

We next headed into the little mountain town of Bled where we would spend the next 2 nights. Bled was really pretty and very relaxing. We spent a whole day not doing much - just wandering around the whole edge of the lake, visiting the castle, eating "cream cake" (a Bled speciality), and reading books. We had 2 very loud thunderstorms also which were quite exciting in a tent! Bled has a world class rowing centre and will be the site for the latest World Rowing Champs held later this year - cool place to row, that's for sure!

Lake Bled from the castle.

Dave eating Bled cream cake - yum!