John & Sun-Ling Wander the Earth: Slovenia: Kranjska Gora, Day 1 (And it's John's Birthday!)

After the weekend, we left Lake Bohinj to backtrack to Kranjska Gora on the other side of Triglav National Park. Now that the trail run was completed, we could get a room. Getting there was not too easy. First, we had to take a bus towards Ljubljana to connect with a bus from Ljubljana. Slovenia has bus schedules, but when the routes are so long and intercity buses also double as village buses, you might as well not have them—and be like other developing countries. I have to remember that not everyone judges countries by their public transport systems.

After arriving in Kranjska Gora in the afternoon, we rode the bus to Rateče, the first/last village on this side of the Italian-Slovenian border, to walk back to Kranjska Gora. The valley walk started on the Alpe Adria Trail, a 750 km long-distance trail through Austria, Slovenia, and Italy that is very popular with bicyclists. Around here, one of the Caminos to Santiago de Compostela also coincides with it. The trail took us by the Zelenci Nature Reserve, which looked like a wetland on the map but turned out to be pretty dry. Surely there must be more water in the spring, except for the small lake formed by the underground spring. Nevertheless, the setting is very scenic.

We veered off the trail to look at the village of Podkoren, yet to be infected by mass tourism, before plodding our own way back to Kranjska Gora. John had a hard time on the walk. His cold is still not getting better, and it was his birthday, too; however, when we went out for dinner, he still had his usual good appetite.

On the bus towards Ljubljana.