Olde-too funny! Yes, we went to Myanmar in 2014. When did you go? Parking in ljubliana, just costly as you surmised. Google “parking Ljubljana” and see where the garages and lots are. We parked in a lot, Nuk, that wasn’t bad, ~€17 a day. That shuttle service is great if you’re staying in the historic district. You call and they come get you. Traffic isn’t bad at all. It’s a small city and easily walkable.
On the food tour they took us to a new place trying to push “fast food.” It was really good sausage and I’m not a sausage lover, it’s called KLOBASARNA. The food was uniformly good wherever we ate, but nothing outstanding. Lolita’s had good cakes and pastries. And yes, we ate salmon and avocados all the time in Chile. Have a great trip.

ann, if you’re into statues this is the country for you.

denise-thanks! The wines have been uniformly good and well priced to boot. Glad to hear you can get Slovenian wine in the States. I’ve never had it there, but will certainly be looking for it. Dobro is the only word we can say and it does come in handy! Actually anyone under 40 speaks English and they are super nice.

Sounds (and looks) like a great city to explore! So true that everything looks and feels better with a little sun on it! Take heart that weather is similar here in DC at moment. Rained most of weekend and was cool. Great reporting as always.

Tp- should be an interesting time in Armenian. I’m getting into the incredible cloud formations.

Loving the cloud formations in the absence of sunny days.


LL- you are making Macedonia more and more appealing.

glover- I keep hearing DC weather is wet and cool. Weird weather everywhere.

Breakfast this morning
TP-there has been some freak storms here, but I hope we finally turned a corner and will have better weather. Harbor in Rovinj

An Ill Advised Adventure into the Alps
We left sunny, warm Ljubljana and headed north to the Logar valley in the Kamnik Alps. Our drive took us through several typical alpine villages with their onion dome churches and roadside shrines. We stopped for lunch in Luce and chatted with the owner. Our first premonition of what lay ahead came when the owner rolled his eyes at the mention of the name of our lodging. I had selected lodging on the top of a mountain seeking a spectacular view in spring weather, perhaps naively. Alarmed I asked, “what’s wrong with it?” Our new friend shrugged and replied, it’s just not near anything. That’s fine by us as we like isolation.

Our pleasant afternoon drive slowly deteriorated as we climbed into the mountains. Temperatures dropped. The roads narrowed and were under construction. In some places roads had been partially washed away. We became a little concerned but forged ahead. We reached our turnoff. Now the fun began...it was a muddy, gravel road with snow lining the shoulders and down the mountain.

After two kilometers we hit a mud patch and gottravel gunned the car through fearing getting stuck. After another km and half of driving on a narrow road next to precipitatious drop off we finally arrived at our destination. What more could go wrong? We were greeted by a braying donkey, practically ran over the owner and spotted multiple pairs of children’s boots. Our lodging was indeed remote, high on a ridge top, overlooking a partially snow covered valley. The owner cheerfully informed us it had snowed 40 centimeters, about 16 inches, a couple days ago. Much of the snow had melted and left mud everywhere. We tiptoed thru the mud to the Pension and checked in and it was time to check out the area of the KamnikAlps.
We headed out, skidded again across the mudslide and headed higher into the alps. As we traveled up vegetation and guard rails became increasingly rare, but the views were stunning if nerve wracking. Shortly we arrived in barren, black mountains with snow filled crevices. We turned a curve and arrived at a defunct border station. We had inadvertently crossed into Austria! We drove on a bit, but the sheer drop offs and absence of guardrails unnerved even gottravel. In addition the sky had darkened and it appeared a storm might be on its way. We had a hair raising turnaround on a road slightly wider than a double bed.
We decided to head for lower altitudes and visit the Logar Valley Landscape park, “a place of peace and harmony.” Entry fee was €7. The Park started as a small, wide valley and narrowed as you reached the far end. Despite it being nearly empty we saw none of the touted wildlife. It pretty much looked like the area outside the park that you could drive for free. Afterwards, we returned to our lodging.

We faced a decision. We had booked for one more night, but bad weather - heavy rain - was coming and we had a feeling that we’d exhausted the local possibilities. We pulled out our maps and iPads. We searched for rain free alternatives, even including places as far afield as Trieste, Italy. After some debate, we settled for Piran on the Slovenian coast. We’d heard good things about this Slovenian beach town and the weather looked stunning for the following afternoon. We selected hotel possibilities and gave the kindly owner the news that we were leaving a day early. We’d paid in advance and were uncertain as to whether we’d receive a refund for the night we weren’t staying - not that it mattered, we wanted out.

Dinner that evening was a private affair - nobody else was foolish enough to have driven up there in the face of past and future inclement weather. The owner was out and we were served by her mother in law, who spoke nary a word of English. At one point, we had to request spoons - we looked up the word on line and gottravel’s pronunciation brought big smiles to her face. Our first course was a tasty soup, our second traditional cheese-filled dumplings with a fresh asparagus sauce. Desert was a dark chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce. All were good, all the ingredients (other than the chocolate) had been grown on site.

The following morning we began packing the car, only to discover that the left front tire was partially flat. After some panicked conferring with the owner, she arranged for her husband to reinflate the tire and contacted a garage down the mountain near Luče for us to stop at for repairs.

Before breakfast, the owner showed us her storage room for farm cheese and meats, a large underground room with several types of cheeses aging on racks, and numerous salamis and hams hanging from the ceiling. We were impressed. Breakfast itself was excellent and immense: Three types of cured meats, three types of cheese, three types of fruit flavored yogurt, bread, paté, home made jams, home made honey, coffee. There was an offer of eggs or pancakes that I refused. Again, almost everything was from the farm.

After breakfast we profusely thanked them for taking care of the tire, and the owner mentioned that she would refund me the money once she figured out how to deal with booking.com as she had not done that previously.

Off we went down the mountain, on the mud slick, half eroded roads in search of the garage in Luče about 20 km down the mountain. Once we found it, in less than 10 minutes the cheerful mechanic pulled out a stone of all and plugged the tire for the grand sum of €10. We looked at each other and swore off gravel roads.

if you’re looking for an isolated, simple pansion with helpful, friendly owners I can recommend Kmetija Marti in Slocava.

Alpine Village

Storehouse

Pansion

Glad your travails did not turn into anything more. The photos of the mountains are beautiful though.

Your description is wonderful and hysterical at the same time even though I already knew the ending!!

Fabulous Plitvice National Park
Annhig-chilly has been a constant companion this trip☹️

Tp- mountains were indeed beautiful. It was amazing how much taller and how much more snow was in Austria. It looked like mid winter there.

Alison-glad you’re enjoying and following along despite knowing the outcome.

bdokeefe- fascinating story. Too bad you didn’t have more opportunities to explore Osjek. Glad you took matters in your own hands as you moved on.

karen- I hope your surgery is over and a success! I love driving in the mountains, but the snow and mud and lack of anything but a sheer drop next to the car was daunting, If I recall you are staying at Plitvice Miric? If so, when you book your online tickets for the park go for Entrance 2 as it’s closet to Plitvice Miric. Entrance 1 is only 5-8 minutes down the road and that’s the one we used not knowing which one to book. Also if you can I would try to go as early as possible even at 8 when it opens. It was incredibly crowded when we departed around 11 am. A quick peek above at what you will see.

Simply stunning!