Slovenia, To Go or Not To Go?

Take my word for it.  Go to Slovenia!  Really.  There’s a high likelihood, if you are from the United States you’ve never heard of this pint sized treasure.  Realistically, many of you will never venture to this unbelievable land but I’m telling you people, you’re missing out.  Those of you from Europe are close and may have never considered it a vacation destination.  You heard it here first…it is!

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Slovenia is a small, gorgeous country that shares borders with Italy, Croatia, Austria & Hungary.  It’s a country that has a bit of everything, the beach, the mountains, unbelievable rivers & lakes, a small wine country, and then, being part of Europe, most recently part of Yugoslavia, there’s some amazing history here as well!

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We entered this gorgeous country via Trieste in Italy.  Let me just say, I wouldn’t advise someone to do it our way.  I had in fact researched it and had gotten advice that clearly wasn’t up to date.  Without launching into the entire slightly nerve-wracking, supposedly unique, up a historical tram, gorgeous and exciting journey, lets’s just say the “it’s 20 minutes longer but a must do” turned into a several hour, rain soaked, 2 kilometer lonely walk laden with backpacks – seemingly to nowhere – and commencing at a very abandoned looking train station.

DSC05023In fact the train ride turned into a windy, steep mountainous bus ride full of confusion on whether we were doing the right thing.  Miraculously it turned into a thankful journey because it actually got us exactly to where we needed to be – strangely arriving at the same time as originally intended but happened to include about 8 extra steps for the end result.  However, had we not taken previously referred to journey we could have saved ourselves several hours and much stress.  On the flip side we would have missed meeting the kind man on the bike that turned around and let us know we were walking to nowhere, the friendly Croatian who brought us road side berries she had just picked out of concern for the mom and 3 kids at the seemingly deserted train station in the rain and the curious teen on the bus who just had to know “how is life in America” and the 20 minute conversation that ensued prior to his night out with friends.

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So, two lessons…when traveling with kids, always keep in mind, you are traveling with kids….and maybe just take the fastest, most reliable, least connections possible, most traveled way to get there.  Lesson 2…sometimes it’s okay to take the road less traveled…surprises and kindness are around every fork in the road and behind each bend in the curve.

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