Skiing in Slovenia (Julian alps)

Hey all,

It has been so long between blogs! Christmas / New Year has come and gone.
We were in Koln, Germany spending time with our relations. A lovely way to spend Christmas, plenty of food and alcohol to get through the chilly weather!

So a few months have gone by and not much has been happening other than the usual London madness. It's always so busy over here! Our Kiwi roomies Mark and Shelley decided that Canada would be a better place to be! And who could blame them? Out goes the Kiwis in come more Aussies! Our new house mates Hannah & Callan, are a happy, lively couple from Brisbane.

Nat's brother Matt, his girl Darcy and his mates have recently come over to see Europe during winter. It has been quite a cold winter here this year. But no snow in London :(

After their bus tour, they returned to London. We then headed off to Slovenia for a week of skiing. One of our favourite countries!

Day 1
It was Matt’s birthday so we went out for dinner and drinks at a local pub, the Bison & Bird. Nice place! And happy hour even better! So after necking a few drinks it was back to ours for final packing. The travellers had only got in the day before, so some organisation required to get all their stuff organised. The boys staying in the hostel had an issue as the hostel was full but their luggage was there! So they crashed at our place but their friends had to pack up their stuff and bring it along the next day.

Day 2
We were on the train up the Stanstead airport quite early. We were seated on Ryanair for our £10 journey to Maribor in the North-east of Slovenia. Although it was a cheap flight, there was 2 hours driving ahead of us to get to our Chalet in the North-west of the country near Bled, one of our favourite destinations in Europe.

We picked up our hire cars, with our car being upgraded to a Volvo S60. A very nice machine, fitted with a 2.4l Turbo diesel and all the creature comforts. A bit of grunt under the hood for a change!

Stopping off in town at Maribor, we did some sightseeing and had a great lunch at a local restaurant. Very cheap and very tasty! About €10 each including drinks. But Cam was on his best behaviour as there is a ZERO tolerance on drinking and driving over here. Hehe, Nat had a beer and Cam had a coke! A very rare occasion! Nat tucked into some stuffed and grilled squid which was very tasty indeed!

Hit the motorways through some picturesque countryside. Going via Ljubljana we were stuck on the circle road around the city and could not find our exit. Finally after finding our way, we were heading towards our final destination. What was supposed to be a 2 1/2 hour journey was about 4! We arrived into our little town winding through narrow mountainous roads at night, which was kinda scary.

Upon arrival we met up with the neighbour who was so helpful! As we had no food or milk, she provided up with all the ingredients for pancakes in the morning including ingredients. And all the local information we could wish for! So helpful, it was a great introduction to the area. She was even kind enough to lend a couple of the guys some snowboards and gear, which saved them some money. We were very impressed by the chalet, perhaps a little small for 7 people to stay in but we managed to fit us all in ok.

Day 3
After a fine breakfast were off to the closest supermarket to stock up on food, beer and plenty of cheap Jagermeister! (€10.80, how can you go wrong!) Its always fun buying the local food and cheap alcohol! After dropping off our food we headed to the nearest ski slopes, Cerkno. It is about a 15 mins drive up a tight mountainous road to arrive at our destination. We were off in the afternoon for our first taste of skiing. We picked up our ski equipment, a couple of the guys even got free lift passes for the afternoon, lucky sods! Cooked up a feed then off to bed for some well earned rest.

Day 4
Today was some time off from skiing to spend it with Nat doing some sightseeing. Today we were off to Vogel, about 40 minutes through the Alps. A very picturesque drive indeed! So once the car was parked up, we were off up on the awesome cable car to the slopes area. Absolutely amazing! Greeted by clear blue skies, we had a look around, although there wasn't much of a village, still thoroughly enjoyable. We even found some deckchairs to bask in the sun for a while! AFter this leisurely afternoon, we stopped off around Lake Bohinj to take some photos of this spectacular scenery. Some of the prettiest we have ever seen!

From Vogel we took the cable car back down and headed to Lake Bled for lunch and another look around. We found a small local restaurant with no customers which wasn't a good sign, but the food was great. Cam opted for a whole local trout, stuffed and grilled. Very tasty indeed...

As we had plenty of time we spoke to the other boys and mentioned there was a ski shop as Ryan was keen to get some new snowboarding bits. After dropping into a sports store, we were advised of a factory outlet about 1/2 hour away that didn't close until 7pm. So with some very rough directions we found ourselves out the front of the store, in an industrial area about 10 minutes off the main road. Great place, Ryan walked away a happy camper with some smick new gear! Pete got some new ski pants too, which looked the goods!

It was then time to head home in the dark, an interesting drive to say the least. It should of taken about an hour, instead took about 3! Certain roads were closed so we had to go the long way home, without a decent map was kinda scary. Needless to say, a quick dinner was cooked up that night and then into the Jagers again of course. Just was the doctor ordered.


Day 5
We had decided that another day at Vogel was in order. Back in the Volvo to tackle those alpine roads. Love that drive! Today was time for Cam to cut loose on the slopes at Vogel. These slopes are amazing in the fact that it is a national park so all the snow is all natural. A little icy in parts it was a lot of fun! There is heaps of mogels (small jumps) around the place, really spicing things up.

Today would be the day that we would get our pictures of the jumps. Lets go sick! Had a blast and no injuries. And some great photos to boot, check em out! Nat spent the day relaxing and not doing a lot! Just watching the world go by. After we all caught up for lunch, it was then on for the young and old with a huge snowball fight, even including some of the younger locals keen to get in on the action.

Some of the boys hang back, saying they were too tired after the monumental snowball fight. But us hardcore skiiers were out again for a couple more hours of carving up the slopes. It was then time to head home and rest our weary muscles after some intense skiing and play some cards and board games, listen to music and sink some more Jager and beer. Damn it's becoming a habit!

Day 6
Today was time for Nat to head home, back to work! She wasn't skiing after all. So up early to a very foggy day, into the Volvo and off to Trieste, Italy about 2 hours away.

We were told that the scenery was pretty special, and they were not wrong! It was so beautiful! Scenic mountains, passing by Aquamarine coloured streams and lakes all the way down. If the weather was as it was meant to be, it would all be covered in snow, but this season was that great for snowfall. But the streams were running well! It was a real test of concentration as the roads were quite narrow and very twisty. But Cam and the Volvo took it in it's stride.

We made it down to Trieste a little later than expected. We were hoping to have a look around town. But after getting lost trying to find the tourist bureau we did several laps of town, we decided we would get out of town and get something nice for lunch as a farewell meal...

We found a lovely restaurant along the coast on the way to the airport. We thought 'oh a quick cheap meal'. Well the waiter didn't speak any English, the menu wasn't of much help either. But we asked for the special, he brought out some lovely house white wine (one of the best whites we have ever had!) Cam had to be very restrained and only 1 small glass. We had lovely local crabmeat served in the shell with seasoning and a lovely local olive oil to go with it. If only we had known how much this crab dish costed we would of probably held back. We both also went for the seafood pasta, which was very tasty indeed! And desert served straight off the trolley onto your plate. Very nice and authentic, with Cam opting for the Tiramasu, what else? Nat had the Apple Strudel, very nice also! An espresso to finish off and it was time to try and find the airport without a map. Hey no probs, Cam was all over it.

We actually did find our way with time to spare. Saying our farewells, it was time for Cam to head back to Slovenia, without a navigator and a sub-standard map. Missed my turn somewhere in the mountains and was heading to Cerkno which would add about another 80 kilometres to the journey. Doesn't sound like much but this was through Alpine mountains! With the light fading fast, I had had enough! It had been about 9 hours on the road, and just wanted to get home. A few more wrong turns later, I finally found my way home about 10 hours after I had left. Phew! Good thing it is a great car to drive. An early night to be sure...

Day 7
After that intense day of driving, what better way to recover than another day of intense skiing! We had decided that Cerkno, the first resort would be the best as there is all these areas that needed to be discovered. The fog was still lingering and not getting any lighter, but that wouldn't stop us. It was a great day, with Cam really gaining confidence and carving up the red and some black slopes. I was amazed! I had really improved from a year ago in France. It really takes confidence to hold it together at speed and push hard when you need to change direction. Awesome! Got some more photos, although as it was so foggy it made it quite difficult to get a good photo. But we did get a few. After some lunch at the restaurant, hoping that the fog would lift it did! And some sunny skies late in the day. A nice way to finish off.

We had all decided after hearing about The Aqua park in Bohinj that we would all head there for some R&R. What an awesome place! Vodni (Slovenian for water) park, is a new geothermal pool with spas, saunas gym etc. All heated and very well organised. It was great. The spa really helped the sore and tired muscles! There is even a rock climbing part, where you climb and when you have had enough you fall backwards into the pool. Great fun and a great way to unwind. A crazy drive home in the dark, after picking up some more Jager for our last full day in the Alps. We tucked into another home cooked dinner which didn't come out to well :(, and hooking into plenty of Jager bombs, we had a great time!

Day 8
It was our last full day on the slopes. I guess it has to come to an end sometime! Cam finally got a day off from driving as I hopped into the Zafira with the others. So Ryan and I decided to get some more dutch courage, and downed 3 jager bombs before we left! What a way to start the day! No 3 was a struggle, but we were now charged up and ready to really hit the slopes of Cerkno.

It definately relaxed me as I was carving up the blacks including the most dangerous, Gzod. A crazy short black slope with over 30% decline. Crazy! But we did and I felt comfortable attacking it today. We had found a spot where there is some fun little mogels. We were even told off by the ski support team for going off-piste! Oops! The fog was even thicker now, damn it.

During lunch, we were kind of hoping that the fog would lift, but it wasn't to be. It was even thicker! Lunch was a pretty good affair with a buffet, you could get a huge schnizel and chips for €4.50! Good price for a resort. We could only see about 5 metres in front of us, making any sort of speed down the hill quite scary. But this made it so much fun! Madness. We had been holding back on the jumps for the last day so we could go all out in front of the camera, but with the weather being so crap this sort of killed our jumps session. Probably for the best anyway.

It was time to return the skis and head home, tired but smiling as you can tell by this photo.
We headed back to base, to finish off our food and our drinks. No mucking around! Even after all of this we were still holding it together ok. The neighbour came over to see if it all went well and to check in. She loved Cam's photos, and hearing our stories about the week on the snow.

After cleaning up the house, we settled in for our last night in the wonderful chalet.

Day 9
Today we would be heading back to Maribor, for our flight home. We kind of hoped that we could stop in Maribor for some souvineers, but it took us longer than expected to get there. So after dropping the car off we were checked in and on our Ryanair flight home to sunny London! What a trip!

We did enjoy having our own accomodation, but looking back to our first trip having it all inclusive was nice so you don't have to worry about cooking and cleaning. I think if the chalet was closer to a decent town, we would of probably liked it more there. It did feel really remote, which did have it good and bad points. But still a great weeks' holiday. And I think we all had a good time. I sure did!

Well that's about it for now. But stay tuned, we are off to Spain/Portugal/Morocco for April and May. So some interesting blog entires coming up!

Over and Out,

Cambo & Nat