When was the last time you did something for the first time?”

Summer holidays

Time for a road trip – in my Mini

We are still in Covid times (surprise) and some countries are still closed for tourism unfortunately. Blake and I are together in Germany so it would be unpractical to leave Europe. Plus, we did not want to fly somewhere this early into Covid. So we thought it would be fun to do a road trip together – not in a campervan though, but in my little Mini instead 😊. Obviously, we wouldn’t sleep in my tiny car (20-year-old-me would have definitely done it).

Since some borders were open again, we were ready to leave Germany and head to Eastern Europe – Slovenia and Croatia to be exact. At first we wanted to include Montenegro and Bosnia as well on our five-week-trip. But on the trip we realised that we were a little too ambitious with our time on the road. In addition, Bosnia still had closed borders and Montenegro just started quarantine laws after the time spent there.

On the first day of my summer holidays (happiest day for a teacher – just saying), we started our road trip in hail, rain and strong winds – don’t you just love German summers?!

Luckily, by the time we had arrived in Munich six hours later, the storm was over and we were greeted with sunshine on our first stop.

Germany

Munich, Germany

Other things we did in Munich (besides drinking beer):

• visit the “Viktualienmarkt” (biggest market in Munich) and buy some fresh fruit and veggies (or in our case: sit in the beer garden on the market place)

Penzberg, Schloss Neuschwanstein and Murnau, Germany

After three nights in Munich, we went to Penzberg, a small town in Bavaria, to visit my friend Wiebke who I had met during my semester abroad in Australia (the same time I met Blake in 2011/ 2012). Wiebke’s boyfriend recommended the town Murnau to us. This is what I love about travelling with no set plans: you are always flexible and open to new places. So we first drove to Murnau, then to Schloss Neuschwanstein and then passed Murnau again to drive further to Salzburg, Austria. We weren’t in any rush and Blake didn’t know that we went back and forward anyways, so who cares 😉?! The beauty of a road trip.

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Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Before we went to Slovenia, we had one night in Salzburg which was the first time for both of us. I love exploring new places with Blake, whether it’s in Germany in covid times, in Europe or somewhere else in the world.

Where to stay and where to eat in Salzburg

The drive to Salzburg with massive mountains around you was stunning. By the time we arrived after a full day of exploring, it was already dinner time. We had booked a cute hotel called Pension Elizabeth and the owner recommended the restaurant “Fuxn” just up the road. Being about 4 months into covid, it still felt special to us to eat out again.

Things to do in Salzburg in one day

You can also do your own guided tour around Salzburg which we did with the help of this link.

We both really enjoyed Salzburg with its impressive architecture. The same night we took off to drive to Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital.

Slovenia

Ljubljana, Slovenia

For a capital, Ljublana is such a cute town! There is the Ljubljana River (very creative name) that runs through the city. Ljubljana has lots of little bars, restaurants and cafés right by the river which we visited intensively. Our first day we started with relaxing in Tivoli Park and then did a three-hour-free walking tour (you might have probably figured out by now that we love free walking tours to get a first good overview of a city; they exist in nearly every bigger city these days).

Typical food in Slovenia

The walking tour was very informative and throughout the next couple of days, we tried all the foods they recommended (we are definitely “wannabe-foodies”). This included beef goulash with polenta, buckwheat, potica (nut roll) and struklji (dough with various types of sweet fillings – so good!).

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But our highlight was definitely Slovenia’s most famous cake: Gibanica!

Prekmurska gibanica is a type of Slovenian layered pastry. It contains poppy seeds, walnuts, apples, raisins and quark fillings. […] it has achieved the status of a national specialty of Slovenia.

wikipedia

We also walked up to Ljubljana Castle from where we had a nice view over the city. To be honest, the city looks much nicer from the ground than from above.

Ljubljana is definitely a hidden gem that is worth a visit!

Logar Valley, Slovenia

On the way from Ljubljana to Lake Bled, we took a little detour to Logar Valley. Already the way to this park was gorgeous with alpine glacial valleys and big mountains all around us. If you are into hiking, Logar Valley is your playground! We only did one hike (for some reason it always takes forever for us to get going in the morning) which involved the beautiful Rinka Waterfall and a lot of hiking upwards.

By the way, before this trip we had just purchased our first couple investment: a drone. Now we are all in! However, my first attempts of flying the drone from the top of the mountain went rather bumpy with the drone losing signal and me freaking out that I’ll lose it (probably the drone and my mind). Oh, the joys of having a drone. I also almost crashed it when bringing it back as we were right by the cliffs and there was no even ground for it to land on (one point we did not consider when starting to fly it from there – live and learn).

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Blake found such a cute Airbnb at Lake Bled which was a great homestay and base for the next five days (we decided to extend our time there as we liked it so much). This accommodation was great for meeting people as we had a common kitchen and dining area (inside and outside). We met a German couple from Regensburg who we met up with in Piran later on this trip and also visited in Regensburg on the way home from this road trip as well as at the start of our road trip through Southern Germany in spring 2021.

Things to do at and around Lake Bled

Click through the slide show to see what you can do at and around Lake Bled.

Triglav National Park, Slovenia

Chasing waterfalls

Triglav National Park is the only national park in Slovenia and is amazing for hikes and chasing waterfalls. The waterfalls (= “Slap” in Slovenian) we visited – partly on the way to Kobarid – included:

We also stopped in the town Kranjska Gora for lunch which seems to be a great ski area in winter. Furthermore, driving through Triglav National Park was stunning as we drove up winy roads all the way to the highest mountains from where we had a great lookout over the region.

Kobarid and Tolmin, Slovenia

We only spent one night in Kobarid and one night in Tolmin which we both thought was enough to get a good feel for the area.

Things to do in Kobarid

Things to do in Tolmin

Brda Wine Region, Slovenia

If you want to go wine tasting in Slovenia, the Brda Region is your go-to place! This almost hidden corner of Western Slovenia is often referred to as the “Tuscany of Slovenia”.

Smartno, Goriska Brda

We also drove to another small town called Smartno in the Brda region which was placed on a hill with lots of small alleys and town walls surrounding the town. Since Smartno is very close to the Italian border, lots of Italians and other tourists usually visit the town and arrive in big tour buses. However, due to covid the town seemed deserted, so we had it all to ourselves. No complaints!

We took a break at a little café called Olijcni Bar in one of the small alleys where we had amazing wine and the “best orange cake we’ve ever tasted” according to Blake. He does like to throw around his superlatives 😉. It was really delicious though, with drizzled homemade olive oil on top of it. After we talked to the owner for a long time, she gave us another tasty chocolate cake “on the house” and showed us her gallery upstairs afterwards.

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Predjama Castle and Caves of Skocjan, Slovenia

There are more than 10 000 registered caves in Slovenia, but the two most spectacular ones are: Postojna Cave and the Caves of Skocjan. The Skocjan Cave was recommended to us as it is less touristy and you also walk inside the cave and do not ride a little train like in Postojna (sounded quite commercial to us). I enjoyed the caves more than Blake (he thought 20€ was a rip of for it) but I think the width of the underground cave was really impressive. Unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to take photos inside.

Koper and Piran, Slovenia

Koper and Piran are in the southwest of Slovenia and are a great stopover before entering Istria in Croatia.

We had a quick stopover in Koper for some sightseeing before heading further south to Piran. Again, Blake didn’t really enjoy the town (did one of his sports teams lose that day or was he just hangry?!), but I really liked its architecture and the fact that we were finally by the ocean.

When it comes to nature, I’m definitely more a beach and island type of girl whereas Blake prefers the mountains. However, since I’ve met Blake and I’ve seen more of the mountains in summer (and not just for skiing in winter), I’ve really started to appreciate and love them more and more.

Worst accommodation in Piran

In Piran we probably had our worst accommodation yet. Even though the hosts from the Airbnb were really friendly and even offered us their stand-up paddle board (which we did not use as we would have had to carry it up a massive hill again), the place was a bit dumpy and out of town. Nevertheless, the coastal walk from their place to the city centre of Piran was beautiful.

Reunion in Piran

But it was time for new adventures: Croatia – get ready for us!

Croatia

Rovinj, Pula and Kap Kamenjak, Croatia

Who knew that crossing borders in Europe in 2020 could actually be quite thrilling? All I thought when crossing the border was “act normal”, like we were doing something illegal (which we weren’t for the record 😉).

Rovinj

Pula

After our short stopover in Rovinj, we drove for about 40 minutes south to the southern end of the Istrian Peninsula: Pula. Pula is a lot bigger than Rovinj and looked very Italian to us. There were a lot of German tourists in Pula, which is necessarily not a bad thing (especially when one of us is a German tourist as well), but it just seemed a bit too touristy and crowded for our liking.

Things to do in and around Pula

• explore the Arena (this Roman Amphitheatre is one of the most complete in the world and the 6th largest Roman Colosseum in the world)
• visit the Forum (= the city’s main square) and the Temple of Augustus
• stroll to the Kastel (Venetian fortress from the 1600s)
• walk up to the Monestary of St. Francis (on the central hill)
• see the Gate of Hercules (one of the earliest pieces of Roman heritage)
• admire the Arch of the Sergii
• relax at one of the city’s beaches, eg. Ambrela Beach (remember: most of the beaches are rocky and not sandy in Croatia!)
• do a day trip to Cape Kamenjak (Istria’s southernmost point) – highly recommend it if you are into nature (again: no sand, just large rocks)

Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

Plitvice Lakes National Park is UNESCO world heritage and is the biggest national park in Croatia as well as the oldest one in south-east Europe. We stayed at Osana House which was about 6km away from the Plitvice Lakes. After paying the entry fees of around 40€ (it’s cheaper in the low season, so anywhere outside of June to September), there are different routes you can do choose from:

• Trail A: 2-3 hours – 3.5km – easy
• Trail B: 3-4 hours – 4km – easy
• Trail C: 4-6 hours – 8km – moderate

We were quite ambitious and chose Trail C. Due to covid, all the routes are one-way paths and somewhere on the path you take a boat to cross the lake to get the next path. In the end we took the shuttle bus back to the entry of the park.

Split, Trogir, Hvar and Brac, Croatia

Things to do in and around Split

• do a free walking tour
• do a day trip to the Krka Waterfalls (I did that in 2013)

Korcula Island, Croatia

After Hvar and Brac we visited one more island near Split: Korcula. We absolutely loved this island and besides Split it was definitely our favourite place in Croatia! But what to do with my car while being on this island? Again, we were living the flashbacker lifestyle (= low budget lifestyle overall, but still eating out), but we were optimistic (or naïve?!) enough to think that my car would survive on the side of the road without paying for supervised parking. We even left lots of our belongings inside the car because we wanted to travel light on Korcula. Spoiler alert: It did work, but we were probably very lucky and I’m not sure if I’d advise this “plan” to anyone else…

The ferry ride to Korcula took 2.20 hrs where we were planning on staying for two nights. Well, as soon as we arrived there, we knew two nights wouldn’t be enough so 2 nights turned into four nights – the beauty of travelling without a set plan!

We stayed in a very cute homestay called Guest House City Center, run by a Croatian Mama who welcomed us with a bottle of white wine. We already felt at home 😊. The location was awesome as it was right by the old town of Korcula.

Things to do on Korcula

• explore the old town
• have a cocktail at Massimo Cocktail Bar and watch sunset (It’s up an old tower so they hoist the cocktails from the bar to the deck via a pulley)
• rent a bike and ride to Lumbarda for some wine-tasting
• visit the only micro-brewery on the island: Pinjac Pub and Brewery (we walked there in 34 degrees, which was so exhausting but made us feel like we deserved the beers afterwards even more)
• do a kayak tour
• relax on one of the beaches around the old town

That day on the bike where we rode to different vineyards and sampled different wines, tried different cheeses and had great conversations with the locals before riding to one of the only sandy beaches on the island where we happily dozed off, was probably one of the happiest days on this road trip. When we got back to Korcula town, we bought two beers in a mini market and set by the ocean to watch sunset.

It is so simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.”

Rabindranath Tagore

In this moment, however, it did feel very simple to be happy.

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In autumn 2020 we took our first flight in covid times. If you want to know which two islands we visited next, click here.