so we did! about a year ago, we drove all the way to ptuj on a mission. i remember it was unbelievably cold and windy, and yet we sticked around through the folklore and performances, warming our hands on steaming mugs of glühwein (one of the best i’d tried so far!) until finally the kurenti came out. i froze my fingers off making a video of the whole thing, and with the move to berlin, never got around to publish it… so here it is now:

quite something, isn’t it? i don’t think carnival will ever be the same without these big guys and their cowbell cacophony!

and of course, we stopped at the famous trojane krofi house that everyone had told us about, and bought a bunch of them for the road!

i don’t think they were the best we’ve had in slovenia, but there were certainly up there in the top 5, and well worth the short detour on the highway! :)

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

when our friends first suggested it on a roadtrip through the slovenian mountains, we couldn’t even imagine how it would be possible. small mozzarella sticks are one thing, but whole slices of cheese? we had our doubts, so we stopped on the first roadside restaurant we could find to correct our ignorance. and of course, they had fried cheese – along with bear goulash and other local specialities.

i think something might have clicked when the first forkful of delicious melted cheese hit our tongues. soft and chewy cheese and crunchy breading… that was a moment when i realised “wow, i could eat this forever and never get bored!” it was so good and irresistible we had it 2 days in a row. :)

yum yum! :D

but meanwhile, how about some loose bits of slovenia to take our minds off this? i know just the thing…

…burek! :D

we were introduced to the deliciousness of burek in slovenia, but later discovered they are popular all throughout the balkans and turkey. it consists of layers of flaky pastry filled with cheese, spinach, meat or apple. although this is probably the most popular street food in slovenia, we’re not big fans of the ones that you can buy on the street, because they are usually soggy with grease… but if you can get frozen ones at any supermarket and do them on your oven, they take 40mins or so in medium/high heat. when the outer shell gets brownish, they should be cooked all the way through. the insides will remain soft and melt in your mouth… and the cheese is a sort of cottage cheese that tastes really good with the pastry.

mham! just looking at these photos is making me really hungry! and given the number of turkish people in berlin, we should be able to feed our addiction from here as well :)

it’s pretty much set in stone at this point: the bags are more or less packed, the bikes have been sold, the vacuum cleaner is gone, and we have the train tickets on the table.

berlin is our next stop! :D

we’re moving on april 1st. we’re excited, we’re nervous, we’re knee-deep in decluttering and packing… and we’re quite sad to leave, yet insanely pleased of our choice of living in slovenia – it’s been a wonderful wonderful year.

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! :)

ok, so we might be a little late for pi day… but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a slice of delicious wholewheat pie on the market today! every saturday, they are handmade in place by a chubby baker, who always attracts big crowds. doesn’t hurt that the pie (with prosciutto or egg) is really good too! :)

20 minutes from ljubljana, krvavec is a ski resort by winter, and a pretty quiet place the rest of the year. on clear days, the views of the karavanke mountains are stunning.
the 8-min gondola ride that will take you up there still works during summer at certain hours, so we decided to take my parents there for some hiking when they came to visit last summer. walking on a ski resort in summer feels a bit like crossing an abandoned town in the desert, nobody in sight and the chairlifts waving eerily in the wind…
that day we walked and walked and walked, and then lost track of the trail and almost had to run downhill to catch the last gondola down :P

start at the lovely snežnik castle, for instance, the best preserved in the region.

once every hour, someone will come and guide you through the stories of this residential castle. it’s in impeccable state of conservation, and best of all, it has all the 19th century furniture from its latest owners in display. walking those rooms will take you straight back into one of jane austen’s books :)

nearby you’ll find one of the most intriguing places in slovenia: the cerknica lake, which is an intermittent lake. when at full capacity in rainy periods, this is the biggest lake in slovenia. but in dry periods, the water goes away, and the lake can disappear completely!

the magic? it’s all in the ground. the karst landscape topography is shaped by the dissolution of limestone, often with sinkholes and underground systems of caves which can fill up with water, or drain it. wikipedia explains it better:

It lies in a depression of the limestone plateau known as the Karst, and exhibits some of the most remarkable features of Karst phenomena. The lake, which under ordinary conditions has an area of about 10 square miles (26 km2) and a mean depth of 20 feet (6.1 m), communicates through a number of openings with a series of subterranean reservoirs or caverns, some of which are above the lake level in the surrounding hills. In the autumn, when the rainfall is slight, the lake is completely drained into the reservoirs lying below its level, and its bed is speedily covered with rich vegetation. With the returning heavy rains, the surrounding higher reservoirs are filled and discharge suddenly through the subterranean passages into the lake, so that the latter very rapidly regains its ordinary volume and may even inundate the surrounding country. The changes in level are, however, very irregular. Sometimes the lake does not disappear for several years, and it can remain dry for over a year, as it did in 1834-35. It is rich in fish, which disappear and return with the water.

very near to the lake, there’s the perfect place to eat: a tourist farm called levar which we discovered on slovenia.info. tourist farms and mountain huts are some of the best things in slovenia: wherever you go, there’s one waiting to win you over with delicious traditional food.
and charmed we were! from bread with pancetta to homemade liquor and apple juice, chicken soup, pljescavica with all the sides, donuts… it was a banquet!

last recommendation for a day in the region goes to rakov škocjan, a park famous for its natural stone bridges. sadly, we didn’t have a lot of time to explore it, but from what we saw, it must be a spectacular place to walk and enjoy nature. next time, we’ll save a bigger part of the day to explore this park!

and there you go! notranjska might be an often understated region, being a bit tucked away from the bigger cities or other well-known tourist destinations, but it packs a lot of interesting sights! :)

so one day we brought some home from the supermarket to try. and whoa! i actually like it a lot! reminds me of the kind of syrups parents give to children when they’re sick: sweet and herbal, evocative of medicine but with bubbles! very nice. paulo disagrees and prefers to drink multisola :)

from wikipedia, i learnt it was invented in the 50s by emerik zelinka of slovenijavino, in his research for an original slovenian beverage. it’s made of rosehip, lemon, orange and lots of different local herbs. the design of the logo and unique bottle was made by architecture students.

all in all, a genuine slovenian drink!