Discovering Slovenia: Too Many Reasons to Fall in Love

Welcome to our latest European campervan adventure! In this video, we take you on a journey through the enchanting landscapes of Slovenia’s Triglav National Park. From its stunning alpine scenery to its crystal clear lakes and the sublime colours of the Soco River, Slovenia offers countless reasons to fall in love.

We absolutely loved our time in the Triglav National Park. It is probably one of our happiest places in the world. Join us as we hike to to stunning waterfalls, cycle the famous Vrsic mountain pass and drop into the exquisite Soco river valley.

We are Richard and Jackie and we live in the UK. We retired from teaching at the age of 51 in the summer of 2022. Our plans for early requirement include relocating to the Yorkshire Dales, developing our forever home and travelling the UK, Europe and eventually the world in our VW campervan Nelson.

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Many thanks,

Richard & Jackie

Timeline:
00:00 Come join us as we discover the Triglav National Park- Slovenia
01:36 The road to the Triglav National Park
02:52 Cycling the Vrsic Pass in Slovenia
05:05 Campervan in the rain- top tips
07:17 The Martuljski Waterfalls
10:29 Kranjska Gora Camping Aire
11:53 Jezero Lake
13:02 Zelenci Pools
13:37 Driving the Vrsic Pass in Slovenia in a campervan
15:16 Discovering the Soco River Valley in Slovenia
19:13 Final thoughts on Slovenia and where too next?

hi where Richard and Jackie from early retirement wonderlust so we’ve moved on from Lake bled and hopefully we’ve got six days exploring the mountains and rivers of the absolutely beautiful trig laav National Park in Slovenia [Music] in our last video we were down at Lake bled and we had the most horrific weather forast for the next week so we have decided to hunker down and we’ve spent the last three days at camping SP in the triglav national park and for the last 48 hours it has rained solidly but luckily the weather seems to have broke so hopefully we’ve got another couple of days exploring the ski resort of crunch gagor there a really nice Lake that we can go up to there is lots of cycling rich is hoping that he can cycle up the Ric pass which is not on my agenda whatsoever it’s got something like 22 hairpin bends on it um and then hopefully we’ll go over the visit pass in the van and explore around the river Sako which has the most beautiful Crystal Clear Blue Waters and there’s lots of river activities and Hiking up there as well but before we do that see how we’ve got on in the last 48 hours hunker down in the van [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] just about halfway up and I’m feeling pretty Goose um it’s I think I’m just over 4K up the climb and there’s loads of switch packs to go but the key is to just take it steady this is the Russian chapel and it’s a memorial to all the Russian prisoners of war that made the Ric pass and uh unbelievable place [Music] we climbed all the way up here thinking the road is at the far side there is no exit so I’ve cross country for no reason I’ve got to go back 150 M downhill to get to the road which is soul destroying [Music] [Music] well that was really hard um harder than I thought but it is for the fun bit now uh 18K back to the campsite downhill uh I’m looking forward to not making a pedal stroke at all but we’ll see how we go so as you can see from my little Adventure up the Fric pass the weather you can’t be guaranteed that it’s going to be with you all the time and I set off with all the best intentions and absolutely got caught out so much so that the camera stopped working on The Descent because it was that cold and wet I was absolutely Frozen through when I got back to the van but you have to make the best of the opportunities that you had and I absolutely Lov that cycle ride and it will stay with me forever and at this point in our adventure we’d had 48 Hours of solid rain and we do get asked by people how we actually cope with that in such a tiny van because it’s not easy we could have made a decision to try and move away where there’s better weather but we wanted to stay in Slovenia so we did just Honker down for 48 hours and actually we see part of that as a positive it gives us time to get things that we want done I sat and did my blog so I had 48 Hours of typing which was great cuz I caught up um Richard was able to catch up with lots of your editing aren you I think for us with the poor weather it’s just it’s a real mindset thing when you’re in a camper van because there was absolutely no outrun in that storm so we chose a campsite we decided to hunk it down and we just made it as cozy as possible so we’ made sure that we’d stocked up on all the Comfort Foods we made sure that we’d got everything we needed in terms of reading books and things to keep us entertained and we just had a really quite nice time slowing down I think at the end of 48 hours we’ probably had enough of that but it was just a really good opportunity to slow down and we did make sure we were on a campsite that had a little cafe and bar so that we could actually escape from the van occasionally and just go and have a drink and it had facilities an advantage of the campsite that we stayed on is that their tumble dryer was free which you don’t see very often so 48 hours of rain in a camper van everything was quite damp and we did manage to get that dried before we set off again so go more philosophically um my morning meditations keep telling me that life is impermanent and things always change and after a period of bad weather you can pretty much guarantee that it is going to change and you are going to get good weather so we have had good weather thereafter so have a look at what we got up to [Music] [Music] [Music] here [Music] let’s go so yesterday we woke up and the weather had changed and it was a really beautiful sunny morning and we decided that we would do a waterfall walk that we could actually take right from the van at the campsite and wow it was just stunning the color of the water I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before and it was just absolute isolation at times it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere we didn’t see hardly anyone all day and it was a fair old hike up to that top waterfall and as stunning as it was it was absolutely freezing from the water spray so yeah we had a a great Explorer there it was brilliant day out it was there are three different waterfalls the first one’s actually within about a kilometer of the campsite so if you’re ever in the triab National Park it’s a really nice place to go the third one it was a 10K walk alt together and it was actually really tough to get to the top there was wire steel ropes and pegs for your feet so that you could actually get to that top waterf but it was definitely worth it and then we made the decis de ision because the weather had improved to move on and we moved up into town and used the air at kagor which was actually probably one of the best moves we’ve made yeah the campsite is beautiful but it is with all the taxes and things about 35 a night whereas the air was only18 and it’s right in the center of town we had such a surreal evening there was a Slovenian evening in one of the local restaurants and we called in and had a beer and joined in some of the fun there it was really good fun and the air is just based at the bottom of the ski slopes and a cheeky little bonus for us 50 100 meters up the road there was some absolutely pristine public toilets so it pretty much had everything for us for €1 a night so much so that with the weather as it is at the moment we’re contemplating actually going back there tonight we were going to go up to the verzik pass which has got 22 hairpin bends and we were going to drop down into BC for three nights but I think we might stay here for one more night because we’ve just come to the Lake which is stunning and we think because the weather forecast is good we might just stay here for the day do a bit of a hike from here and just sunbathe and have a bit of a beach day yeah we’re just going to kick back gentle Saturday and see how it goes even though he got me up and it’s only halfast 8 now um so that we could be up and off early to get up that pass but what it did mean was that we were at the head of the bakery queue so that’s all good and well [Music] w [Music] w [Music] this is Sunday morning and it’s half eight Jackie is currently in the bakery and we are going to finally do the brisc pass in Nelson and he is going to love it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you’ll have seen it’s quite an adventurous drive over the Rik pass and the irony was not lost on me that actually we thought the weather was going to be really good on the way over and it was worse than when I cycled it because when we got to the top we couldn’t see a Blooming Thing and that made The Descent which I thought was just more hair raising than going up on the ascent it made it a little bit more sketchy but we made it down and the benefit of making it down is we dropped into the soaker Valley I’m going to putp my Cs on the table I actually think the Sako River Valley is probably the most beautiful River Valley in the whole world the water just is this deep blue and everywhere you look just through the forests or if you just catch a glimpse of it it is stunning we stayed on a couple of campsites so we had two nights in the Sako River Valley the camps sites are quite basic we’ve stayed in the socer valley before and we found that on our previous day as well the pitch sizes are small the facilities are adequate it has a really nice vibe to it it’s full of just outdoor adventury people and there’s just a really funky feel to it we love that area it’s very laidback and there’s not many places in the world where you can go around every corner and just have a moment of awe and wonder because we at times were literally quite speak speechless and it just takes your breath away because you’re not sure what you’re going to face the river at points can be absolutely raging and powerful and then it can thin out and just go to a beautiful calm Serene place but I think we both in agreement that it is possibly one of the best rivers in the world so we did a couple of hikes while we were there we did a hike up to the Baka waterfalls there’s two hikes you could do so you could have gone to the first level which was easier um and you got a really pretty view but you know we were adventurous we decided we’d go right up to the top we did get a fantastic view but oh my God I was so tired by the time we got up there and it was so hot and then we did a bit of uh World War I History tour yeah the triglav national park has a rich history which is predominantly based around the first world war so um quite high up on the mountains and based on the Riverbanks are a whole host of World War I fortifications um and they are really well signposted so there is so much exploring to do in the area and we have spent many an hour just following the brown signposted trails to all of these historic sites and they are literally everywhere I think you probably realized from our last two videos that we absolutely love Slovenia it is such a beautiful country it has a bit of everything for us with the mountains and the history and it’s somewhere that we will keep returning too but one of our main priorities for the trip was to get to the Italian dolomites and they are just a few mountain passes away so in our next video we are going to take you over the border and into the dolomites we are so excited because we have waited years to get to the dolomites and we just can’t wait to get going so that’s it from us see you later bye bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]