Slovenia is a small, underrated country on the travel circuit where you can be winding deep through the old WWI Red Ambulance route in the Julian Alps one minute, and seaside in Piran a few hours later.
Lake Bled is storybook, not just because there’s a castle sticking out of a tiny island in the middle of a beautiful lake, with more castles in the surrounding hillsides, but because its devoid of tourism, and the locals are lovely. The nearby Soca River Valley boasts a river the color of milky blue diamonds, flanked by majestic mountains on all sides.
One prescription would be to make your way around the lake perimeter, rent bikes through the villages if possible, then hop in a car and follow the pillboxes that dot the routes through the Julian Alps, buy some honey and amazing locally roasted coffee at the markets in Ljubljana, and take in the views from Piran’s seafront spot. It’s a compact country, where the past can still be witnessed in the old Communist bloc buildings, but the red roofs rival Prague, and the country is resurgent as a wonderful Eastern European destination.
