Lake Bled before lunch. A cave train after it.
Which stretch of the Soča a raft actually runs. What Postojna costs once Predjama Castle is attached. Whether Bled is a day out from Ljubljana or a base of its own. Reviews of every tour you can book in Slovenia.
The cave, the lake, the river and the castle over Ljubljana.
Nearly every week in Slovenia is built on these four. What each costs, and what the people who booked it said afterwards.
01Everyone books thisPostojna Cave & Predjama Castle Tickets and TourA timed train into Postojna, then the fortress wedged in a cliff at Predjama. Take an early slot: the cave sits at 10°C in August and the queues do not.
02The lake half-dayTrip to Lake Bled and Bled CastleBled island, the castle above it, and the path round the water. From Ljubljana it is a comfortable half day with time left for the cake.
03The river dayWhitewater Rafting on Soca River, SloveniaRafting the Soča out of Bovec, where the water really is the colour of the photographs. Wetsuit, helmet and guide come with it.
04The hour you have spareLjubljana: Castle Entry Ticket with Optional Funicular RideThe funicular up to Ljubljana Castle and the view over the red roofs. The cheapest thing on this list and the easiest to slot in.
From the capital to the coast is two hours. Pick a base and drive out of it.
A river city with a castle over it, a lake with a church in the middle, an adventure town on meltwater, a working cruise port, a Venetian old town on a limestone spit, and the cave country lying under all of it.
Three ways down the Soča, and what each one costs.
Meltwater off the Julian Alps keeps the river cold and running well into September. Rafts take the wide stretch below Bovec, kayaks take the technical line, and canyoning leaves the river altogether for the side gorges above it.
Ljubljana is small enough to walk and stubborn about cars.
Everything in Ljubljana →
The old town is closed to traffic, the river is lined with terraces, and the funicular to the castle leaves from behind the market. Most of the country’s day trips pull out of here before nine and are back for dinner.
Postojna and Predjama, there and back
An hour south, a train ride through the cave, then ten minutes down the road to the castle in the cliff. The tickets are timed, so a coach trip that includes them is worth more than it looks.
Bled, and whether to add Bohinj
Bled alone is a half day. Adding Bohinj and the Savica waterfall turns it into a long one and swaps the crowds for a quieter, higher lake. The pletna out to the island is almost never included.
Over the Vršič pass into the Soča valley
Fifty hairpins over the pass, then down to water the colour of bottle glass and the First World War museum at Kobarid. The road is shut under snow, so this is a late spring to autumn day.
The cave, the lake and the river, in the order Slovenia books them.
Every Slovenian tour review →The days out more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each one its slot.
1
Savica Waterfall, Lake Bohinj, and Lake Bled Tour
Visit Savica Waterfall, Lake Bohinj, and Lake Bled from Ljubljana with a small group, local guide, scenic walks, and traditional Slovenian lunch.
From · $94
Read our review →
2
Slovenia in One Day: Lake Bled, Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle
from $151
3
Adventure Rafting with Photo Service in Bovec
from $71
4
Lake Bled & Postojna Cave with Entry Tickets
from $173
5
Canyon Učja — The Longest Zipline Park in Europe
from $90
6
Guided Day Tour to Soča and Kranjska Gora
from $115
7
Canyoning in Susec Canyon
from $78
8
Guided Walk & Funicular Ride to Ljubljana Castle
from $23
Bled is a lake with a church in the middle and a queue for the cake.
A pletna is rowed out to the island, ninety-nine steps climb from the jetty to the bell, and the castle on the cliff opens at eight. Vintgar gorge and the quieter water at Bohinj are both twenty minutes further on.
Every Lake Bled day out →
Slovenia keeps its best rooms below ground and its best views on cliffs.
The karst runs the length of the country. Two show caves, a fortress built into a cave mouth, and a hill castle over every second town. Postojna takes a railway, Škocjan takes a canyon, Predjama takes about an hour.
Slovenia gets forty-six kilometres of Adriatic and spends them carefully.
Piran is a Venetian town on a spit, with a bell tower borrowed from San Marco and a square where the harbour used to be. Koper is the working port the cruise ships use, and the road out of it is in wine country inside twenty minutes.
From a castle ticket to a private day on the Soča.
Every day out here, grouped by what it costs. A cave ticket and a city walk come in under lunch; a private guide with a car is the other end of the same country.
Castle and cave tickets, the funicular, city walks, wine tastings and the short river trips.
The full-day standards: Bled and Postojna in one run, rafting with photos, Triglav and Bohinj by minibus.
Private guides, canyoning with a photographer, and the days that take a car and driver of your own.
A church you row to, a train inside a mountain, a castle in a cave mouth.
Alps and old towns are everywhere in this part of Europe. A bell on an island, a nineteenth-century railway running through a cave, and a fortress built into a cliff face are not.
The Island and the Bell
Bled island is reached by pletna, a flat-bottomed boat rowed standing up under a licence handed down through the same Bled families for generations. Ninety-nine steps run from the jetty to the church door, and the rope inside rings a bell you are meant to ring for a wish. Engines are banned on the lake, which is most of the reason the water sounds the way it does.
- 1Savica Waterfall, Lake Bohinj, and Lake Bled Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,015 reviews
- 2Canyoning Bled Slovenia★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 408 reviews
- 3Bled Rafting★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 334 reviews
The Postojna Cave Train
Postojna has run a railway inside the mountain since 1872. Open carriages carry you three and a half kilometres into the system before the walking starts, through chambers the size of cathedrals. The tank at the far end holds olms, the pale blind amphibians the locals called baby dragons for a couple of centuries before anyone worked out what they actually were.
- 1Postojna Cave & Predjama Castle Tickets and Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,146 reviews
- 2Slovenia in One Day: Lake Bled, Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 879 reviews
- 3Lake Bled & Postojna Cave with Entry Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 694 reviews
Predjama Castle
Predjama sits in a cave mouth halfway up a wall of rock more than a hundred metres high, which made it miserable to besiege and simple to resupply through the tunnels behind it. Erazem of Predjama held out here for about a year in the fifteenth century, and how that siege finally ended is the first thing every guide will tell you.
- 1Postojna Cave & Predjama Castle Tickets and Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,146 reviews
- 2Trip to Lake Bled and Bled Castle★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,426 reviews
- 3Slovenia in One Day: Lake Bled, Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 879 reviews
Four things here run on a timetable, not on your mood.
Most of Slovenia can be arranged the night before, over a beer by the river. These four cannot. They run on cave departures, on snowmelt, on a gorge that shuts, and on a mountain road that is under snow half the year.
- 01Postojna Cave & Predjama Castle Tickets and TourThe cave train leaves on fixed departures and the last one goes early. In July and August the good slots are gone before the day starts.
- 02Whitewater Rafting on Soca River, SloveniaThe river runs on snowmelt. Rafting here is a spring and summer sport, and the biggest water has drained away by late August.
- 03Lakes Bled & Bohinj and Vintgar Gorge Small-Group Day Trip from LjubljanaThe gorge is a boardwalk pinned to a cliff, it closes for the winter, and only so many people are allowed on the planks at once.
- 04Triglav National Park : The Original Emerald River AdventureThe high road over Vršič and the Triglav trails stay snowbound into late spring. Out of season the route is simply shut.
The Julian Alps make their own rain. Slovenia has an answer ready.
Cloud parks on the mountains for days at a time, and the rivers go too cold for canyoning by October. Both have the same answer here: go under the ground, or go under a roof. The caves hold ten degrees and stay dry all year, the castles have ceilings, and Ljubljana was built for a bad afternoon.
Alpine dairy, Balkan grill and Italian pasta, inside one small country.
Slovenia sits where three kitchens meet, which is why lunch can be štruklji in Ljubljana, cured ham on the karst and squid on the coast in the same week. The wine goes further than the food does: Brda makes orange wine that was never a fashion here, and the oldest producing vine on earth is nailed to a wall in Maribor.
Alps, karst and coast
Ljubljana, Bled, the Soča, the coast. Two hours between any two of them.
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