Slovenia Tours and Trips

A lovely trip to some beautiful places, and a well thought-out itinerary. On our tour the optional walk in the Triglav National Park, and the trip to Piran were well worth doing.

I enjoyed the tour , it is an all encompassing ride through the former Yugoslavia , My tour highlights - I had an extra day prior to the tour staying in Ljublijana , I'm glad I did. If you go to the castle get there for 9am , before the crowds arrive. Walking around Lake Bled , visiting Plitvice National Park walking on well established trails not difficult to do Sarajevo - The Tunnel Of Hope and going up on the Trebevic cable car, the views are fantastic Mostar Novi Sad - compared to Belgrade this city is very relaxed situated by the Danube Skopje - Amazing public statues Lake Ohrid Pristina - not the most attractive city but interesting to walk around , I stayed an extra night and went to the Bear Sanctuary , which looks after rescued and traumatised brown bears , well worth supporting. I thought all of the hotels were of a good standard , only one did not have a lift. I enjoyed the local food and beer. I used a debit card extensively, didn't use much cash. Food and drink were reasonably inexpensive, Dubrovnik was expensive , 40 euros to walk the city walls. I was impressed with the rail service , fully electrified , comfortable . The train from Belgrade to Nis was interesting , 7 hours and 43 stops going through the heartland of rural Serbia , this train had Wi-Fi ( it worked ). The sleeper train was interesting , good fun. There are lots of stairs at rail stations and some trains have high steps , if you cannot lift your bag you need to repack. This tour would not have been as enjoyable and interesting if it had not been for the hard work of our tour guide - Ana Medesi. Ana went out of her way to make sure everyone had a good time , always well organised and good humoured.

A very varied trip combining the lakes and mountains of the Julian Alps, the Slovenian coastal area and the capital, Ljubljana. We enjoyed the different activities on offer - hiking, sightseeing, swimming. Slovenia is a beautiful country and this tour incorporated the very best of it.

This is a full on trip with some early starts and long travel days. But we thoroughly enjoyed travelling through all 7 countries of the former Yugoslavia. The hotels are all reasonable (all had fridges, a couple had kettles in the rooms) but there usually was no elevator so pack light as you need to carry your luggage upstairs. The guides we had (Filip and Ana) were excellent and managed all the logistics brilliantly.

Having done so many stops and different hotels, I am finding it hard to fully remember each place we visited but have tried to recall as best I can. I may have got some of the places confused though. Our guide, Lazar, was lovely and really helped to bond the group together and was fun to be with. He looked after us all really well and gave us a lot of useful and interesting information. All of our drivers and local guides were also good, although there were a lot of dates and information to take in and by mid week two, we were all cultured out. Our group was mixed but we all got on well and had a lot of fun together. I did feel a bit sorry for one of the solo ladies who was a lot younger than the rest of us. There was no problem with getting on with everyone but I think she would have had more fun with at least one other person nearer to her own age. Overall the trip was very good but I did feel some of the places we went to were a box ticking exercise and not necessarily the best places to go. The journey itself didn’t always flow well and we seemed to travel big distances going backwards and forwards. Ljubljana was nice as was the visit to Lake Bled. There was only a half day scheduled in Zagreb as the 2nd day was a planned visit to Plitvice Lakes. We were not able to go on the Plitvice trip as my partner wasn’t able to walk the distance suffering with a bad knee, however this did give us more time to explore Zagreb which we found worthwhile. (A half day wasn’t really enough time to see the city). We had also seen the lakes last year so didn’t feel we had missed out. Hotel was nice but would have been better to have stayed closer to the centre as it was a 10 min taxi drive to the centre. Really like Sarajevo and Mostar, time was tight to explore fully but had 2 good guided tours. Hotel Hecco was quite basic and we had to carry suitcases up 3 flights of stairs which wasn’t easy, (Lazar helped us all with our cases). Good location though. Dubrovnik – we have been before so we were happy to have a chilled afternoon but for everyone else there was not a lot of time to explore and would have been good to have a city tour as there is a lot to see and learn about its history. Tivat was lovely. We only had half day in Kotor which was enough and we had to catch the overnight train. We were lucky as most of us only had 2 people in a 3 berth cabin. I would not have wanted to be in a cabin with 3 people as not enough room and hard to get up to the top bunk. Otherwise the train journey was more comfortable than I thought it would be. It was a shame that the train trip is listed as being one of the most beautiful, as we were not able to benefit from the scenery as it was dark for the majority of the trip. Belgrade needed more than one day. The 2nd day was an optional trip to Novi Sad which I would have liked to have done but we didn’t feel we had seen enough of Belgrade so the 2nd day gave us more time to get trams and find our way around. The train journey to Nis was scenic but very slow. Nis was ok for half a day but a long way to go for such a short time. Would like to have gone to the Creveni concentration camp but there was not enough time as it closed at 4pm. Skopje was nice and one day was enough to see the main sights Ohrid was lovely but unfortunately we had torrential rain and got soaked through on the tour and could not do the boat trip. No one’s fault. The hotel in Ohrid had a function on in the evening with loud music playing to the early hours of the morning. There was no warning of this and not acceptable to be going on so late. The last day’s drive to Pristina was very long. We passed through some beautiful scenery and I think we would all have liked to do a few more stops to take photos and to enjoy the National Park. Basically we had a very long drive to arrive in Pristina late afternoon, giving us just over an hour to look round before having dinner. Our flight the next day was early as otherwise we could have spent the morning exploring. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the Kosovo. Overall a very interesting and enjoyable trip.

I had done one trip previously – Amalfi coast hiking, fall 2023 – with EXPLORE. I was so impressed I asked my excellent guide, Pete, what else he would recommend knowing my abilities and interests. He immediately recommended the Slovenia trip, and it actually was on my list of places to visit. He had apparently set the trip up about seven years ago and was very familiar with it. I have been in 50 countries to date - some several times- and Slovenia is now in my top five and I am already planning my return for next May. We had a lovely small group, being the first of these hikes of the season, hailing from Canada, Spain, Australia, and the UK. The accommodation, staff, management, and food at Art Hotel Kristal were A+ – and I especially loved and took advantage of the options of the sauna and cold plunge, Ayurvedic massages with the wonderful Bhatri, chocolate tasting with the owner, Alenka, and a fantastic wine tasting with her son, Jan. I went home with a lovely assortment of chocolates and also a wonderful bottle of wine that I will try to hold onto for a few years until it is optimal to drink. The hikes were not difficult at all, but I found that I did feel like I got a good amount of exercise by the end of the day. I spent my free day doing a mountain bike ride. The whole area around Lake Bohinj is stunning and there are so many activities that one can partake in, as well as really yummy local restaurants close by the hotel. I loved that the hotel offered a pre-fixe three course menu for hotel guests for only €25 on the nights that were not included with the hike. An incredible bargain given the quality of the food, as with almost all of the food we had in Slovenia, it was locally sourced and delicious. I am not typically a meat eater, but I had the venison twice – locally sourced, and wild – and it was by far the best I have ever had. I would definitely stay at this hotel when I return to the area. I would strongly encourage others to spend some time in Ljubljana – either before or after the trip. A beautiful city a two hour bus ride awaythat is just the right size and full of so much to offer. Next time I am going to see a lot more of this country – it is half the size of Switzerland, but the variety of the terrain and ecosystems is quite impressive. Also, to be noted is that English is widely spoken and children start in grade 3, learning this second language. The Slovenians couldn’t have been nicer and more helpful everywhere I went. What can I say?? Get yourself to Slovenia before it is overrun: safe, clean, and green – a beautiful country of farmers, foragers, wine makers, and beekeepers. Also note that they have some fantastic fly fishing there as well as mountain and road biking – very cycling friendly. After all, it is the country of Pogacar.