Our Slovenia trip was planned without any guides or travel agencies. Slovenia is easy to visit, so no need to pay someone else to guide you around. This webpage has some comments that may be useful to someone else planning their own Slovenia visit. Have fun!
We flew through Frankfurt to reach Ljubljana, and went through Munich on the way home. Hiking poles are not allowed in carry-on luggage, so we got tickets that included a checked bag. Our plane was two hours late leaving Seattle due to some
ridiculous change in the flight plan that required some bureaucratic approval. Because we had the long layover in Frankfurt, we did not miss our connection to Ljubljana. I have found that with the large international flights, it can take
half an hour to disembark once the plane reaches the gate (and the Frankfurt airport is so huge that the plane will taxi for 20 minutes after landing just to reach the gate). Plus, we have to pass through customs upon reaching Europe. Thus, I always try to allow at least two hours to make a connecting flight if we are traveling internationally.
The public transportation options worked well for us. We were able to take buses from the airport into Ljubljana, from Ljubljana to Lake Bled, and from Lake Bohinj back to the capital and the airport.
Railway Ljubljana ROOMS is the only place that we stayed that I was unhappy with. It was noisy and the proprietor lied to me about being able to store luggage long-term at the Ljubljana train station. If I had to stay again in Ljubljana, I would look for a place near Preseren Square.
The storage lockers at the Ljubljana train station only allow for 24 hour storage, there is no option for longer storage at that station. We ended up using the luggage storage in the Fit City Gym, which is located behind the Grand Union Hotel near Preseren Square.
We stayed at Vila Alice Bled in Lake Bled, which was conveniently close to the bus station.
At Lake Bled, the public bus to and from Ljubljana, the free shuttle to Vintgar Gorge, and the free bus to Pokljuka Plateau all used the same bus stop in central Lake Bled. We used a free shuttle for transfer to and from Vintgar Gorge.
At Lake Bled, the free shuttle has three different routes - blue, green and yellow lines. The green line took us out to Pokljuka Plateau where we started our Julian Alps trek.
We did not need any reservations to use these shuttles, but perhaps in the peak tourist season there is competition for a seat on the bus?
The green shuttle only runs twice a day, so be sure to catch the morning bus. You need this shuttle to get from Lake Bled to the trailhead at the start of Trek Day 1, and also again the next morning to get from Hotel Pokljuka back to the trailhead on the morning of Trek Day 2.
Book the Julian mountain hut reservations first, to make sure you can get the dates you want, and then plan the rest of the trip around those days.
In hindsight, I wonder if a better plan would have been to hike from Dom Planika hut and stop at Koča pri Triglavskih jezerih rather than continuing on to Koča pod Bogatinom. Then, on the next day, hike down from Koča pri Triglavskih jezerih to Lake Bohinj. The hike between Koča pri Triglavskih jezerih and Koča pod Bogatinom is not very scenic, you walk through a lot of low trees. We could have skipped that part of the trek and not missed much. This would have shortened the third day of our trek and made it an easier adventure.
We prebooked tickets for Vintgar Gorge and Tolmin Gorge.
The rental car must have a vignette, which is an auto-pay pass needed for any tollroad. Almost all rentals have one, but be sure to ask.
I got an International Drivers License from AAA before we left, but the Alamo rental car representative said it was only needed if I got stopped by the police.
Stick to the main highway if driving from the airport to Tolmin. We followed Google/maps optimized route, and it led us on narrow one lane roads through winding mountainsides.
We bought the combo ticket for Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle online. We utilized the shuttle for the twenty minute ride to and from the Castle from the Postojna Cave parking lot. You must buy tickets ahead of time for Škocjan Caves. All tickets were sold out for the entire day when we visited (we had prebooked our tickets online. In fact, we bought all our admission tickets online a week before our arrival in Slovenia). Grocery stores are closed on Sundays. Be sure that any lodging you book in Piran can be reached by car. The roads there are narrow and tricky. Note - the expenses shown below only display the cost to Melanie and me. If, for example, our five person party rented a house in Ribčev Laz, the
costs shown here are only 2/5 of the total cost, because that was our portion of the total. We paid for everything with a credit card with no foreign transaction fees. All of the expense transactions were in Euros (Slovenia uses the Euro), but the prices shown here are in US dollars. We brought some food with us, such as noodles or rice dishes, and did a lot of grocery shopping to take advantage of the fact that many of the places we rented had a kitchen.
This explains why our food bill is so low. Lodging Expenses Travel Expenses Admission Expenses Food & Drink Expenses tips on hut to hut in Slovenia
Date Cost Comment July 14 - 15 $197.50 Ljubljana 2 nights Railway Ljubljana ROOMS July 14 - 15 $15.28 Ljubljana City Tax, €3 per person, per night July 16 $241.58 Bled 1 night Vila Alice Bled July 16 $7.72 Bled City Tax, €3 per person, per night July 17 $145.69 Hotel Center Pokljuka 1 night Hotel Pokljuka July 18 $143.02 Julian Alps Hut 1 night Dom Planika July 19 $143.02 Julian Alps Hut 1 night Koca Pod Bogatinom July 20 - 22 $609.17 Ribčev Laz 3 nights Bohinj Lake house July 23 - 24 $170.87 Tolmin 2 nights Pri Mlinarju apartment July 25 $191.62 Piran 1 nights Apartments Mirjana July 26 $98.45 Cerklje na Gorenjskem 1 night Rooms & Apartments Jana Total Lodging $1963.92
Date Cost Comment July 14 - 27 $3147.42 Lufthansa 2 roundtrip plane tickets July 15 $7.66 2 Bus tickets from airport to Ljubljana July 16 - 23 $72.07 Bounce Luggage Storage Ljubljana July 16 $13.69 2 Bus tickets from Ljubljana to Lake Bled July 23 $18.00 2 Bus tickets from Lake Bohinj to Ljubljana July 23 - 27 $317.34 Five day rental Ford Focus wagon from Alamo July 24 $37.71 Petrol Kobarid July 26 $15.75 Shell Gas Total Travel $3629.64
Date Cost Comment July 15 $3.41 1x St. Nichols Cathedral Ticket July 16 $35.20 2x Vintgar Gorge Tickets July 21 $67.98 2x Mt. Vogel Cable Car Tickets (Senior Discount) July 23 $23.47 2x Tolmin Gorge Tickets July 24 $4.64 2x Kozjak Waterfall Tickets (Senior Discount) July 25 $118.45 2x Postojna Cave and Predjama Cave Combo Tickets July 25 $56.43 2x Škocjan Cave Tickets Total Admissions $309.58
Total Trip Expenses : $6335.85
Date Cost Comment July 14 - 27 $432.71 Food Total Food $432.71
