The destination for today was Ljubljana, the capitol of Slovenia. The planned itinerary would have been over Austria and down the Jezersko pass. While talking yesterday evening, a local recommended to do the Vršič pass instead though, which is the highest pass in all of Slovenia. So I took a right turn right when leaving the village and entered the fairy land…
The pass consists of 50 hairpin bends, all numbered on blue signs with their respective altitude. The road is just wide enough for two cars to pass each other and is shared with hikers and quite a few bikers. Every few kilometers there is a bridge over the river Soča, which is used by local river rafting companies. And all of this while you have to be extra careful not to lose sight of the road while staring at the beautiful mountains left and right.
Upon reaching the top, one is greeted by a few tourists and a very nice view both on the south and the north side. A souvenir shop sells your local knick-knacks nobody asked for. I took a few pictures and hit the road down on the north side. On this side every bend is laid in cobblestone, so I had to slow down a bit more. All in all, definitely an experience worth doing…
Upon arriving on the bottom of the valley, I decided not to do the Jezersko pass any more since I didn’t want another 5h driving day. So I quickly bought a highway vignette and hit it until I entered Ljubljana. The hotel I picked was just outside of Ljubljana. It’s pretty nice and cheap, but it turned out to be a pretty bad choice after all. A few years ago the public transport company introduced the Urbana card. It turns out, you have to buy one of these to be able to ride the bus and you can only buy it in the city itself. So I, as a tourist, had to take a taxi to the city instead of being reasonable and taking the public transport. So after all, the hotel was probably more expensive than a hotel downtown because of my two taxi rides.
The Slovenska Hiša bar provided me with some local beers for tonight. The first one was called Tektonik’s Iggy IPA, but it wasn’t much to my liking. The second one, called Grim Reaper IPA, was a lot better and deserving of the “IPA” label. I finished the evening with a nice steak at Sorbara Steak House for a grand total of 40€ including 2 glasses of red wine and a starter. What a nice way to finish a beautiful day…
