The Best and Worst of Slovenian Hospitality

After another day of great weather a low pressure system came in and lasted at least three days, bringing with it strong wind and plenty of rain.

The day before the trough hit our car broke down. On a highway. We pushed it 20m to a safe-ish corner, putting on the fluro vest and setting up a cone like Michael had instructed us to do in the Czech Republic. We were stressing. Majorly. We had no idea what to do in the event of something like this in quite a different country to our own like Slovenia.

Luckily a tow truck happened to be driving past who helped us out, taking us to a car yard. The people at the car yard offered no information, saying they'd have a look at it and it'd likely be fixed tomorrow. So with a deep sinking feeling in our stomachs we packed a pretty minimal amount of gear and headed back to the course in the complimentary taxi the car dealership set us up with. This would likely put a major dent in the budget.

The next day the man called, saying it wouldn't be ready today and it was a broken axle of all things! It would be ready on Tuesday. And it was only Thursday today. The following days were pretty hard with the uncertainty of what was likely a large car bill hanging over our heads and the aggravating effect of the adverse weather. I guess we had done some light four wheel driving in it to camp on top of a very steep hill near a tunnel outlet the night before, gotten it stuck in a weird exposed grate in Maribor and driven in on train tracks all in its first week in our possession...

On one of the days we stayed here I spotted some clifflines on a hill on the opposite side of the river and suggested we go check them out. After 40mins of walking we found them, revealing numerous sport climbs but no bouldering. I talked to a few local kids who spoke very little English, only saying one thing other than exchanging basic greetings; “ferrata”, accompanied by him gesturing towards a direction.

We walked around the crag the kids were climbing on to find a steep, protected gully. The iron cables and rungs making up the via ferrata were suspended 2m off the ground, indicating the extent of winter snow falls. This was comfortably ascended unprotected. Next the route assaulted a vertical headwall with a ladder, followed by a 10-15m traverse on rungs suspended 70m above the ground. After this was over it simply became a walk, although a very steep one. After maybe an hour from the bottom we popped out on a hill over looking Ljubljana, close to 700m high. We could see parts of the city as well as small but prominent snow capped ranges a short distance away.

On one day we bussed into the city and discovered that buses are always free when you're an uncultured westerner that doesn't speak any Slavic languages. I asked each driver how much it costs and not understanding anything I said they simply gave us the benefit of the doubt and waved us through every one of the six times we caught public transport.

The old city is built around a canal with a large car free urban area, dominated by a castle-capped hill covered in park land. We popped into another outdoor store for a chat and once again I got talking for close to an hour and was given the numbers of a couple of Slovenian climbers that might be able to help with a few things. He also generously offered to set me up with people to head to the Julian Alps with when I return to Slovenia. Almost everyone in Slovenia speaks English, except for bus drivers maybe, out of recognition of the number of speakers of their language and hence the importance to learn others. The language barrier is no barrier here.

The old town has a great feel to it with its soft pastel-toned buildings and live street performers, sweeping in a general arc, following the canal around the base of the hill. It seems far further from the tourist track than Prague, Budapest and Munich, the major cities we'd visited already. Prices were similar to those in the suburbs, designed for locals living and working in the city rather than the deep pockets of tourists, like in Budapest.

After the race finished on Sunday we headed out for a few beers with the Kiwis. We met them at the iconic three bridges and headed for a bar, where we met a Slovenian, Marte, that they had been staying with. Marte constantly bought rounds of drinks; pints and three 50ml shots of “blueberry brandy” as he described it, a kind of fortified wine, just for starters. Two or three rounds of blueberry brandy, with actual blueberries in the bottom was followed by more beer and a some tequila.

In the morning the full extent of the damage was discovered; one of the Kiwis got arrested and had his passport confiscated to compel him to pay a two-hundred euro fine and Dan... well no one had heard anything from Dan since like 2am in the morning!

We picked up the car the next day and the bill was a touch of four-hundred euros. It certainly hurt, but we were grateful it wasn't worse. It was just great to have the car back!

That afternoon we packed everything up and began the journey north out of the city, destined for perhaps Slovenia's most iconic destination; Bled. A church rises steeply out of its crystal clear waters, occupying most of the lake's sole island. On the opposite shore a castle adorns the top of a large cliff, juxtaposed against the backdrop of snow capped peaks. All the elements come together in some kind of perfect fusion, as if they were aligned to create an aesthetically pleasing composition.

We stayed by the lake shore for close to an hour before pushing on. A short time after we got stopped by the police who were running a check point on the highway. We showed them our licenses, passports and the technician paper. Next thing we know we were being slapped with a fine. For not having a vignette. Little did we know, vignettes, or highway tickets are not universal in the EU. We bought a month long highway pass in the Czech Republic, being told it was for all of Europe. This is not the case.

The female cop said that we were supposed to pay three-hundred euros, but this came down to one-fifty, supposedly because we were tourists. On top of this we had to pay another fifteen euro for a Slovenian vignette. Shocked and feeling gutted we drove on, having paid the fine on the spot out of fear that they would have confiscated our passports. Not long after we crossed the Austrian border, thankfully onto non-toll roads, Slovenia leaving a very sour taste in our mouths despite all the warmth this country had given us.