90% of my day revolves around postcards, and yet i speak very little of them on this blog. so today i thought i’d share some of the best postcards i’ve found in slovenia. it’s still too early to judge the ones from berlin, but slovenia has plenty to share! here are some of my favourites (click for bigger):

doesn’t it make you want to visit? you should go! :)

logarska dolina is a glacial alpine valley.

say that slowly, and enjoy the images those three words pop into your head. if you’re picturing an extremely green narrow valley surrounded by big snowy mountains, you’re exactly right.

logarska dolina is picture perfect all year round, and has a little bit of something for everyone: long walks in the valley, lots of waterfalls to see, and also plenty of trails for hiking in the mountains. it’s located in the kamnik-savinja alps, a good 1h30m from ljubljana, but if you can make a day trip and take the time to enjoy it slowly, you won’t regret it.



and the food…! i’ve mentioned it before: wherever you go in slovenia, you can be sure that you’ll find a nice restaurant, a mountain hut or a tourist farm. meet the best mushroom soup we’ve had to date:

we also had štrukli and meat ravioli, but none as impressive as that soup. definitely worth the trip! :)

mangart, at 2679 meters is the 4th highest peak in slovenia – and our first attempt at some serious hiking with our friends sara & gandalf. mangart has the highest road in slovenia, just over 2000 meters, so you get to drive almost to the top, and hike the rest of the way. we didn’t hike it all the way to the top though, but instead took it easy and enjoyed every minute of it… until the wind became too strong and cold and we had to come back in a run. can you believe there was still a patch of snow up there!?
i’ll let the pictures do the talking, because words don’t do justice to this place. meet mangart:

from up there, you can pretty much see the whole world:



or at least a good portion of slovenia, italy and austria. you can sit and relax while below you the world goes on and fluffly little clouds pass by, floating over the top of the mountain to the other side. it’s really precious – and probably our new favourite place. :)



we’ll definitely go back again – preferably on time to see the autumn foliage, which i am currently obsessing over! if it wasn’t for all the rain currently falling on slovenia… the country has been hit with heavy floods in the last few days. we’re safe & sound, but worried with the local tv reports showing serious damage in places we’ve recently been to. they say the worst is yet to come, so we’re crossing our fingers and staying indoors for now. stay safe.

the julian alps, around kranjska gora, and through the vršič pass.

Crossing the Karavanke tunnel from ana campos on Vimeo.

i shot this the last time we went to austria, crossing the mighty karavanke, all 7 minutes of it. the purpose? i’m not sure, but perhaps to focus me on something rather than letting my mind free to image the tons of earth above us and how far the nearest exit is. it worked. the song is “you will pull through” by barcelona – which is somewhat appropriate to the situation. i think i’m getting better at crossing mountains through tunnels. :)

ps-the border between slovenia and austria is around 3:43.

yesterday we went to austria for a night balloon festival, which was going to be great: 40 or so balloons in a little village in a mountain, lighting up their ‘fires’ in the night to the sound of music. just dreamy… but when we got to the hostel we had booked, we realized it was actually 20km from the festival, far up a hill… it was dark already and snowing, and i was afraid we would get stuck somewhere in the middle of the night. so… yesterday we went to austria and instead of seing a balloon festival, we spent a night in a hostel.

and it was well worth it, if only for the trip! :) just two hours away from here, austria is this snowy fairyland, filled with monochromatic sceneries and people who don’t speak english. so intriguing.

anyway, pictures. this is the view to which we woke up in the hostel, which made it all worthwhile:

and the road we had to go on for over a kilometer to get there:



it doesn’t seem as menacing in the morning, but at night, i was pretty scared. it’s all the way up a steep hill in what looks like just a path someone drew in the snow!

on the highway, mountains and pine trees covered in snow and mist all the way there and back:






and the tunnels. we made 20 km in tunnels in this trip *gulp*, the most menacing of which being the karavanke tunnel:

(pardon the specks in the pictures, the water in the windshield was frozen most of the trip… :))

friends have been asking for piiiiiiictures, but i’ve been laaaaazy to take them. truth is, we really like it here. we’ve visited lakes, castles and thermal spas, drank gluhwein, done some geocaching, and even went to austria! slovenia feels easy and relaxed, and that’s how we’ve been enjoying it. i plan to report on ‘our life on slovenia’ in more detail… but i’m postponing that to 2010 since we’re leaving for portugal next week :)

i took some photos of the karavanke mountains though, because they were the first thing that made us go “wow!” when we got here. on nice days, you can see them a bit from everywhere in the city, and if you climb all the way up to ljubljana’s castle, you can have a really good view at their snowy peeks in the distance.



last friday we had a close encounter with them, while crossing the country on our way to austria (ikea!). they’re magnificent, like a children’s drawing of the perfect mountains!




what was not so magnificent was the 7.8km tunnel we had to drive through to cross them…