Slovenia’s ULTIMATE mountain road trip! 🇸🇮 (4 days in the Julian Alps)

We have spent the last week road tripping in a camper van all around Slovenia. From the Adriatic coast to stunning mountain valleys, the country's most well-known lake and even going underground. And for the final part of our road trip we're exploring the Julian Alps, the most famous mountain range in the country. Here you'll find rugged rocky peaks, alpine lakes, countless waterfalls, adventurous activities and quite possibly the bluest river we have ever seen. This is the area of the country we have been most excited to explore and we cannot think of a better grand finale to what has been one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited. We are kicking off our time in the Julian Alps by hiking the Seven Lakes Valley Hike. This is a 24.5 kilometer hike that gains about 1400 meters as we go up into the mountains and past a bunch of different lakes. And to get to the trailhead you can either drive and pay a 20 euro toll or you can take a two euro shuttle bus. Camper vans are not allowed on the road to the trailhead so we're taking the shuttle bus and if you want to know where we parked and what shuttle we took we'll put all that info in the description. The trail starts out so steep. You can see down the hill like this it's been at this like grade of steepness for how long have we gone? Over two miles. Over two miles like pretty much non-stop. The trail also started off insanely busy. There were two shuttles full of people that got dropped off at the same time plus people who drove up on their own. So it was basically just a line of people but once we got to the first hut some people stopped some people went a different way so it's really thinned out now. The Seven Lakes Valley is located in Triglav National Park, the only national park in the entire country which gets its name after the country's highest peak, Triglav. This park takes up a large portion of the Julian Alps and is where we'll be spending most of the next four days exploring. And just this hike alone is going to give us a great first glimpse at the beauty it has to offer. The first part of the hike was mostly through the trees with occasional views but we have now entered this valley with this insane lake and just mountains all around. One of our favorite things about hiking in Europe are all the mountain huts where you can get food and stay overnight and we've passed a bunch of them along the trail already but we decided to stop at the one at Double Lake to get a little something to eat. So this is Jota which is a traditional Slovenian soup that has sauerkraut, turnips, beans and then we got it topped with some smoked meat. So we had this earlier on in our trip in Ljubljana and it's pretty tangy. I liked it but I just wasn't in the mood for it at the time but I'm excited to try it again. This one's better. Yeah I think this is a little less tangy than the one we had before it's so good. The tanginess just kind of makes it a little bit more refreshing than like a really thick and hearty soup. Get a bite with the meat in there, a little smokiness. This is the best. Enjoying a hot meal in the mountains and a dog just came to say hi to us. Another bonus of these mountain huts at least this one is that they have toilets you can use, they have water you can fill up with and this one took credit cards which was amazing because we realized on the bus ride out here that we had barely any cash on us. So we have made it to Kidney Lake and just look at this it is this deep emerald color. It is stunning we're kind of in this bowl of mountains and our plan was to keep going up that way to the next hut but the hard thing about doing this hike with the shuttle is that you're kind of tied to the shuttle schedule and the final two returning shuttles of the day are at 4 30 and then at 7 10 which is a pretty large gap. It's 1 34 right now we've been hiking for just over five and a half hours so we have about five and a half hours left until the final shuttle so we just don't feel super confident that we can make it to the hut and then loop back around. There's a pretty steep looking section after the hut and we just don't know what to expect on that side and it just feels way too risky so unfortunately we are going to turn around here but even if you can only make it to this spot and turn around it is phenomenal out here. So we made it back to the first hut on the trail at about 4 15 which is only about an hour from the shuttle and we ended up grabbing some food and some drinks. We got some rechette which is a traditional Slovenian soup, some coffees and an apple pie. Wow that is just what I needed right now. It was so nice to just relax for a little bit but now we're off to catch the shuttle. Today we're hitting the road towards Bovetz which is only about a two-hour drive but we have a bunch of stops we're planning to make along the way and first we're heading to Slat Pericnik. The photos do not do this one justice at all. So the coolest thing about this waterfall is that you can actually walk behind it. We are getting soaked back here. One important thing to know about visiting this waterfall in the summer is that you have to park in the nearby town and take a free shuttle to the waterfall and our return shuttle is about to arrive so we need to hustle back to the shuttle stop so we can get to our next stop. Before we continue exploring the Julian Alps we want to give a big thank you to Element for sponsoring this video and for keeping us hydrated on the trail. We are hiking quite a bit while here in Slovenia and with some big inclines long distances plus many exposed trails it's important that we not only drink water but that we also replenish the electrolytes that we are losing while we sweat to avoid headaches muscle cramps and fatigue which is where Element helps us out. Element is a sugar-free electrolyte drink mix that contains 1,000 milligrams of sodium 200 milligrams of potassium and 60 milligrams of magnesium all in this small packet which is super easy to bring on all sorts of adventures. We were chugging it like crazy on yesterday's hike. They have a bunch of different flavors to choose from which are all delicious and the perfect mix of Their fruity flavors which you enjoy cold are great for hiking cycling walking the gym or any other sweaty activities while their chocolate flavors which you drink hot make for a great hot chocolate substitute or addition to your coffee and if you want to try their most popular flavors at once head to drinklement.com slash a plus k or scan the qr code on the screen and you'll get a free sample pack with any order which includes two packets each of citrus salt raspberry salt orange salt and watermelon salt which is what we're having today. All right let's hit the road. We have made it to the charming town of Kranjska Gora which has one of the most stunning mountain backdrops of any town we have visited in Slovenia so far. We have a couple stops we want to make here and first we're off to try a special Slovenian treat. This is prekmurska gibanica which is a dessert made with layers of poppy seeds apple filling cottage cheese filling and walnut filling. It is such a beloved dessert here in Slovenia that when Slovenia joined the EU it actually got this designation called traditional specialty guaranteed which basically means that its traditional characteristics are preserved. I read that there's anywhere from eight to ten layers. Let's see how many ours has one two three four five six seven eight. Did you count the top? Nine. We'll just round up to ten. It is so beautiful it just looks kind of like if you were to grab a rock and then cut a rock open just all of the layers. I love the apple in there the apple's the strongest flavor to me and it just kind of tastes like an apple pie. Lots of stuff going on in this. I like the poppy seeds they're a little little bit of a crunch. It seems like they use cottage cheese in a lot of their desserts and I'm not totally sure how I feel about it. I'm not the biggest fan of cottage cheese but it does work and it adds a little creaminess to the desserts. Wow that's a lot of meat. We saw a photo of this plate here online we knew we had to come here. It's like Adam's dream restaurant. The waiter as he set it down he was like this is a real plate and I totally agree. We have all kinds of meats here I think it's mostly pork and chicken but we got some sausages here these are like some sausage patties, pork chops, grilled chicken, some other sausages, some onions, a sauce, homemade butter, and some coleslaw, and then their homemade bread. Oh my god that bread looks so good. It's ridiculous. I feel like you have to hold your forks like this here. Stab everything. Yeah baby. Looks like it has like cheese in it or something. So salty, meaty, savory, juicy. I don't know which one to pick and it kind of feels like I'm picking which meats gonna join my dodgeball team in PE class and I don't want to hurt any other feelings that they're not getting picked first. This one looks good we'll go with this one. As Adam said meaty, salty, juicy. Oh my gosh I thought this was going to be really light and airy. It's pretty hefty. I'm going to steal Adam's word because that bread is pillowy. All right I've tried a little bit of everything so far and I think my favorite is this cheesy pork patty and then the link sausage. Link sausage has a good little spicy flavor. It's not like a spicy heat but like a flavor of spice. With stomachs full of meat we continued making our way towards Bovec. First with a quick pit stop at Lake Jasna, a collection of two man-made lakes with clear blue water and an incredible mountain backdrop. And then it was time to tackle Vršič Pass, the highest pass in Slovenia at 1,611 meters which was built by Russian prisoners of war during World War I giving it the nickname the Russian road. Now for the moment of truth, will there be any parking for us? Keep going. All right we found a spot. I can't believe we got one. It's a little tight, a little hairy but we're in the spot. We're in the lines and the good thing is I've gained confidence with my driving over the last week, week and a half and when I was doing this even though it was kind of tight and challenging my heart wasn't pounding like the first beginning part of our trip where I was like oh like so scared of my heart was pounding so I felt pretty good. I felt I stayed calm and relaxed and we got in. Parking has definitely been the most challenging part of this entire trip. So many parking lots do not allow camper vans and sometimes we don't know this until we get there so pretty much every night I've been researching parking lots for the next day trying to find ones that we can actually park at. Another struggle has just been driving in general because a lot of roads also prohibit camper vans and Google Maps doesn't know this so it'll take us down roads that we cannot go down. We have to find a way to turn around and then find a new route so yeah it's been a little uh stressful at times. The only downside of this parking lot is that it is paid but hey we'll take what we can get. There are a bunch of different trails you can do at the pass and we're going to be combining two of them, Slemenova Spica, inverse each pass into one 8.2 kilometer hike. The scenery from up on the pass is out of this world even if you could only drive the pass you will be mind blown by all the mountain views but if you can get up here and hike this trail it gets even better. We just rounded this corner and had this come into view and I gasped when I saw it. I've kind of lost track of how many times I've just been speechless and gasping and just completely overwhelmed by how beautiful it is here. Sheep! We have seen a lot of sheep on hikes before but normally they're bighorn sheep. These are sheep straight from the farm. We are on a perch and you can see 360 degrees mountains everywhere you look. I'll say it now one of the best views I've seen in a long time. We initially weren't sure if we should do both of these hikes since they're located right by each other. We were worried they would be a bit repetitive but I am so glad that we did both. Since they're located on opposite sides of this massive mountain right here you get completely different perspectives on each one. And now to head down the other side of Vršič pass to camp. So we made it down to the bottom of the pass and they numbered the hairpin turns and there were 49 of them. There was a lot of this. Check that I was wrong there's actually 50 hairpin turns. For the next couple nights we're camping at Camping Liza which is in an area right along the river full of different campgrounds and camping here in Slovenia has been quite a bit different than camping back home in the U.S. Since wild camping is not allowed we've been staying at both these roadside motorhome parking areas as well as campgrounds and the campgrounds themselves are what we like to call parking lot campgrounds which is basically where you're just kind of all sandwiched together and there's no privacy and your neighbor's right there and it's just very people-y which is not normally our preferred style of camping but I will say the camping infrastructure here in Slovenia has been excellent and all the campgrounds have had really nice amenities which I'm about to go take advantage of because I have a hot shower hopefully hot shower calling my name. This morning we are driving up to the main guard saddle and while Vršič pass is the highest pass in Slovenia this is the highest road in Slovenia at 2,055 meters. This is the mountain road we have been most nervous to drive one because the roads are supposed to be even more narrow than the roads that we've been driving and two there's five tunnels along the way that are supposed to be pretty tight but we've seen a video on YouTube of a couple who drove a van with a similar size and they made it and our rental company told us we could do it so we're going for it. All right our first tunnel. We should be yeah I think we'll fit just fine. It is very tall yeah this is this one at least yeah maybe they'll get smaller yeah this one we are good. This road is very tight though I mean there's some spots where you can pull off but really not that many. We intentionally came up here really early to ensure ensure that we don't have traffic coming the other way because we know on the way down we will so we figured let's make one way less stressful. Also Adam sometimes honks on blind curves so people know that we're coming. This one seems a little tighter but still plenty big. Yeah but it's very long. Final tunnel. Definitely seems like the smallest one but there's plenty of room. The road is not open all the way you have to walk the rest of the way up and there is a parking lot right where it's closed and it's actually decently full for just before 8 a.m but the problem is which is something we've encountered a ton is it says no motorhome parking but we think we can just go park on the shoulder right before it and it should be fine. All right we did it all right we almost didn't come up here we were too nervous about the tunnels but it was amazing I'm so glad we came up we'll see how going down goes but right now going up was a great decision. So that peak right there is Mangart which is the fourth highest mountain in Slovenia and you can actually hike up to it. We can see little tiny people making their way but it is a very rugged and tough hike. If you take the Slovenian route on the way up it's actually a via ferrata so you have to have all of the gear. There is an Italian route you can take where you do not need the gear and it is a bit easier but it's still really tough and we have been contemplating doing the Italian route to go to the top but honestly we are just so so exhausted so I think we're just going to enjoy the views from just the saddle. You might have heard Catherine mention the Italian route and that's because Italy is right here I'm actually standing in Italy and on our drive up here I actually got a message on our phone from Verizon saying welcome to Italy do you have this much service blah blah blah but we're in Italy that's wild. And now for the potentially difficult part getting back down step one get out of the spot success. Oh gosh I can't look oh no he's gonna try oh I can't oh I kept trying to tell him that I can back up but I think he meant like I was telling him to like keep going you can maybe go a little bit more to the right I can maybe a little bit yeah not too much more oh my gosh that was intense I don't think you could even tell what was happening but maybe this much space between our two vehicles. We're not out of the woods yet. This is the worst part. This is the beginning we're past the toll booth so we thought we were in the clear nope this has been the worst part. Now we're officially in the clear on a two-lane road we survived. Way to go you did amazing. Our plan for the rest of the day is to take it easy and find a spot to relax along the Soca River which is a vibrant blue river that this area is famous for. The water in this river is so blue I'm convinced they dumped the glacier freeze gatorade at the top of the mountain or something there's there's no other way. Today we are doing something we have never done before we're going canyoning. Canyoning is where you navigate down canyons and waterfalls by rappelling, swimming, jumping, and sliding. It's a very popular activity here in this area and we're going on an intermediate canyoning tour with Nature's Ways which we are both excited about but also a bit nervous for. I feel like a Teletubby. Workout. Um maybe How are you feeling? I feel pretty good actually we've only done one tiny slide this one's uh much bigger. Don't look down How is it? Is it scary? A little bit. All right I'm doing it. Nice. I did it. And then it was time to be lowered down a 45 meter tall waterfall. That was the most intense thing I've done in my entire life. I don't think I've ever felt so alive. It was like a massive shower that was nuts. Way to go! Oh my gosh the hardest part was just going over the edge making yourself go over the When you first go over that edge and you see just how far of a drop it is. Oh it was one of the scariest and most exhilarating moments of my entire life. Oh but it was so fun. Oh my gosh what did we just do? Yeah oh man where do I even begin? Our camera cameras both died at the end but we captured most of that experience definitely the intense parts of that experience and wow we debated between the beginner and the intermediate tour we did the intermediate there were times I was like I should have for sure done the beginner. I enjoyed all of it you get pushed out of your comfort zone a little bit these are probably a little bit yeah I got pushed more than I've ever been pushed before. My favorite parts were the jumps kind of surprised myself you just just put just step up and just go and enjoy the ride. Whereas me on the other hand I my body froze with the jumps like towards the end I was kind of having a rough time because that's when most of the jumps happened and there was one jump that I I'm not kidding I stood there for probably 15 minutes panicking having a slight panic attack there were a few tears that were kind of shed because I just froze and I couldn't do it and I couldn't slide either it was just really steep and I was so scared so I ultimately ended up just going down with the rope because unlike Adam my favorite part was any part we had a rope so I liked the rappelling and shockingly my favorite part of the entire thing was the thing I was most scared of going into this and that was that massive waterfall that we just like I don't even know if it's rappelling we just kind of like floated down I'm surprised yeah that was the easiest one of all of them of all the jumps and repels and everything and shout out to our guide Tim we ended up having like a private tour like no one else was on our tour with us so we just had Tim all to ourselves and I appreciate his patience when I was freaking out a little bit he was awesome we are beginning our journey back to the U.S. tomorrow so for our final night we are making about a two-hour drive to Ljubljana but first we have one final waterfall we want to check out Slapkoziak. I cannot get over just how blue this river is most beautiful river I have ever seen hands down I had seen many photos of the waterfall itself but not the journey to get to it and this is one of the most magical trails that we have been on in a while you just had this narrow slot canyon that is covered in greenery with this crystal clear water rushing through we were so tired after that canyoning tour we were this close to just be like we're too tired let's just cut it but I am so glad that we suck it out last coffee in the van last night we stayed at one of the roadside camping stops near Ljubljana which if you missed our first video in this camper van these are basically overnight parking areas that you can sleep at for a small fee and often include a bunch of amenities like electricity water dump stations and sometimes have toilets as well and we have found these spots using both google maps and this website slash app called park for a night which we had never heard of before but it's super helpful for both here and I believe other European countries as well we are sadly going to be parting ways with our van Robbie in a couple hours but before we do we have quite a few chores we have to get done I really like how the gray water disposal is here you basically just drive over this grate and then you just let it rip it's super easy now time for my absolute least favorite chore it's just so gross the more involved process than our compost toilet at home it smells so bad right now and that's gonna do it for our time here in Slovenia it completely blew us away every single place we went was completely gorgeous even the drives between places was just gorgeous there were so many times where I caught myself like oh man I wish I could live here I could totally live here I'm very sad to leave and we are so so so happy that we explored the country by camper van it did have its challenges and quite a bit of a learning curve compared to van life in the US but even with the challenges it was just such a great way to explore and hop around and see so many different places and always have all of our stuff with us it just made it so much easier and we learned a lot that will make van life in Europe because we will be doing it again oh yeah so much easier in the future if you want to see the full tour of the van we have a video from earlier in our trip and we'll put a link to where we rented the van from below but from here we have a very long travel day or I guess you could say days back to the US and when we get back we're going to spend some time with Kona for a bit we are so excited we've missed her so much and for everyone asking Kona has been doing great and then from there we are heading to the other side of the world to explore a brand new country for us it is a dream trip that we have wanted to do for years it's going to be filled with ramen big hint right there mountains hot springs lively cities just temples just so much amazing stuff and we cannot wait bye Robbie