If you are staying in Portoroz, take the bus into Piran - a venetian city with very limited parking! If you are travelling by car, why not visit Istrian Croatia just for a taster! You might enjoy Bohinj and Bled and the Triglev National Park from KG; if there's a train line near by, it's not too far to do a trip to Ljubljana - lovely compact capital city.

Hi Corinne76,

My name is Anita from Slovenia. I saw your post going to Slovenia and if you have any question regarding Slovenia let me know, i will be more than happy to help you if i can.

Sorry I've not replied sooner - been off work with RSI. I have one question - what are the main second languages spoken in Slovenia nowadays?

Second language by Portoz and Piran(coast line) is italian however they also speak english there. Everywhere else is english and german.

Anita

Thanks Anita - that's really helpful. I hope we have good weather while we're there - the forecast doesn't look too good at the moment!

When are you going to Slovenia? Am going to Slovenia next week so fingers crossed for nice weather. But spoke to my mum today and she said it,s sunny and hot so i think the weather will be fine.

Anita

We fly out on Saturday -can't wait! Hope you have a good time as well.

We went to Kranjska Gora last year and had a wonderful time. It is stunningly beautiful. We had one week there staying at the Hotel Kotnik. Of all the Hotels in Kranjska Gora I would say the Kompas is probably the best so I am sure you will be fine there.

We did lots of walking and cycling. We hired bikes and cycled down the old railway line (which runs for miles from village to village) and cycled to Italy to the Italian Lakes. We walked to Podkoren and had a wonderful lunch in the Podkoren Hotel (we wanted to see the apartment that was featured on Place in The Sun). We walked to the Lake (begins with J cannot remember the name now).

We did the cable car and chair lift (the chair lift was extremely scary for me) and you can come down by the toboggan.

The weather was always beautiful and sunny in the morning but terrific thunderstorms in the afternoon.

We used to go to the supermarket and buy our sandwiches which they sell at the bakery part and you could get a really fine sandwich for about 80 cents. Incredibly cheap.Beer, coffee etc was also very very inexpensive.

We would go back to KG like a shot, just a tad difficult getting to from Aberdeen!

Any other questions feel free to ask and hopefully you will get to read this before you go. Have a FAB time.

great report there sugarbabe

I would love to spend a week in slovenia in the spring but in the meantime im hoping to do a weekend in Ljubljana next year some time. tried to do it this year but flights were more than I wanted to pay for a weekend at half term so will try to get in early for next year

we had a lovely break last year in slovenia, it was beautiful ive put quite a few photos of varies places in slovenia in the photo gallery if anyone wants to look, we stayed in izola which is near portoroz and piran and also ljubljana and visted bled which is gorgeous and postojna caves , have a look at these links ,both were wonderful

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postojna_Cave

http://www.bled.si/en/

We visited the Postojna Caves many moons ago when it was Yugoslavia and they are highly recommended. They knock the Caves of Drach into a cocked hat.

luci

Have been back for nearly a week now - unfortunately! Had a fab time and will post a report when i get chance.

How was your holiday in Slovenia? Did u like it?

ANITA

Have finally got round to writing my trip report - here goes:

Portoroz & Kranjska Gora Twin Centre Holiday, Inghams Lakes and Mountains, June 2008

We spent 4 nights at Portoroz on the Slovenian coast during June 2008 followed by a week at Kranjska Gora in the Julian Alps. Here follows an account of our trip - hope it is useful!

The Journey

We flew from Manchester to Ljubljana with Adria, the Slovenian national airline, which took around 2 ½ hrs each way. We had delays of an hour in both directions and the in-flight service was not great (meals were included but were unappetising and there was no entertainment). We had a very short wait at Ljubljana airport before boarding our transfer minibus for the 2hr drive to Portoroz. Our transfer between Portoroz and Kranjska Gora should have taken about 3 hrs but actually took over 4 hrs as we had to drop people off at Ljubljana airport and Lake Bled, which was a bit annoying. The transfer from Kranjska Gora back to airport only took an hour.

The Weather

Slovenia had been experiencing 3 weeks of heavy rain before we arrived so we were prepared for some poor weather while we were there. For once, luck was on our side and we only had 2 sharp showers in the 12 days that we were there, with temperatures ranging from 20-30 degrees. We were glad we had chosen to go to the Alps as our second centre as it the altitude made it slightly cooler than the rest of the country!

The Hotels

Grand Hotel Palace, Portoroz (http://www.lifeclass.net/en/hotel_portoroz)

We were originally supposed to be staying at the Hotel Marita nearby, but some building work there over-ran so Inghams very kindly moved us to the Grand instead. We were really pleased about this as we could see the facilities and reviews were much better. We arrived after dinner had finished on our first night so the hotel left us a cold buffet in our room which was a nice touch. We were also lucky enough to be given a high-floor room in the ‘tower' block with a lovely sea view. We stayed there for 4 nights which gave us enough time to take full advantage of the indoor swimming pool complex, apart from the sauna park which we avoided due to its ‘no costumes allowed' policy. All the public areas of the hotel are well decorated and maintained and we found the staff to be generally very helpful.

We stayed there on a half board basis so ate all our meals in the hotel's Adria restaurant. The food and service were generally very good but there was a distinct lack of labelling of the food (in any language) - vegetarians in particular should be wary of ‘hidden' meat/fish in some of the food. The drinks in the restaurant and the hotel bar were very pricy but we struggled to find any better bars near to the hotel so we were happy to stay put in the evening. The location of the hotel is very convenient for all the attractions of Portoroz and it is a short hop to Piran which is definitely worth a visit. It's also worth noting that there are a lot of good walks to do in and around the area - you can get maps from the tourist office.

All in all, we had a really great time at this hotel - but just before we left that we discovered the cost of our room had been 300 Euros per night - so we wouldn't go back there as it was in no way worth that much money. The formerly ruined Palace hotel next door has been taken over by the same chain and is due to open shortly so I think the Grand might face some serious competition in the future.

Hotel Kompas, Kranjska Gora (http://www.hitholidays-kg.si/en/kompas.php)

Having seen the Julian Alps from our flight into Ljubljana, we were really looking forward to our week at the Hotel Kompas, and we certainly weren't disappointed with what we found there. We had paid a bit extra to upgrade to a superior mountain-view room and were so glad that we did as the view from our balcony was stunning. The room itself was a good size and we were really pleased that the satellite TV channels included BBC World as we like to keep up with the news while we are away. We stayed on a half board basis and found the hotel food was generally excellent as was the service. We only drank in the hotel bar once as the centre of Kranjska Gora is only a few mins walk away with a good selection of much cheaper bars. It is also near the supermarket which is great for stocking up on drinks and picnic food (they sell rolls on the deli counter). We can also recommend Café Charlie near the hotel for ice-creams and strudel, Hotel Kotnik and Pension Lipa for pizzas and Kala for cakes and fruit pies (behind Pension Lipa, near the bus station).

In terms of the facilities, the Kompas has a small pool and Jacuzzi, a godsend after a hard day of walking and sightseeing, and you can also use the swimming pool complex at the nearby hotel Larix. We only went on one organised trip with Inghams - to Ljubljana. It cost 33 Euros each - which is not cheap considering you only get a few hours there, but it is a 4 hr round trip by local bus so it's definitely a convenient way to see the capital. We would recommend a trip up to the castle by funicular for a great view of the city.

We spent the rest of our time doing walks in and around Kranjska Gora - the scenery is absolutely stunning. You can get a walking map in English from the Tourist Office which tells you the length and difficulty of the suggested walks. We found that the descriptions often underestimated the nature of the walks though and after a couple of hairy experiences, we decided to stick to easy walks for the remainder of our time. In particular, the summit walk from the top of the summer chair lift in Kranjska Gora has sections where you really have to scramble up on your hands and knees - definitely take walking poles if you can and watch out for swift changes in the weather. A lot of the walks start in Kranjska Gora, but if you want to go further afield then there are plenty of local buses (more during the week than at weekends) - you can even get a direct bus to Lake Bled once a day. Also bear in mind that the summer season doesn't officially begin until mid June - there are more activities on offer during the season and the chairlifts and summer toboggan run (highly recommended) run during the week as well as at weekends. We had an absolutely great holiday overall and wouldn't hesitate to recommend both the Kompas and Kranjska Gora itself.

Excursion Prices from Portoroz/Piran

Flavour of Istria (Porec-Rovinj) - 47 Euros
Ljubljana & Bled - 55 Euros
Venice - 69 Euros
Wine, Olive & Salt - 42 Euros
Trieste & Miramare - 30 Euros
Postojna Caves & Lipica - 62 Euros
Skocjan Cave & Socerb - 41 Euros
Prince of Venice - 70 Euros
Postojna Caves & Predjama Castle - 50 Euros

Excursion Prices from Kranjska Gora

Postojna Caves & Predjama Castle - 54 Euros
The Julian Alps - 31 Euros
Inghams Wanderwalks - 13 Euros
Slovenian Coast - 57 Euros
Carinthian Lakes - 35 Euros
Slovenian Vineyards - 60 Euros
Ljubljana - 33 Euros
Bled and Bohinj Lakes - 34 Euros
Venice - 65 Euros
Postojna Caves & Lipica - 73 Euros
Vrata Valley & Pericnik - 26 Euros

we went to slovenia last year and loved it ,we stayed 1 night in trieste in italy then 3 in ljubljana and 2 in izola and we visited bled which we thought was beautiful, we also visited postojna caves which was amazing and even my 7 yr old daughter loved it too. im glad you enjoyed it ,slovenia really is a beautiful country

Corinne

I know what you mean re the scramble after you go up the chair lift Fortunately we had poles.

For me though, the scariest part was the chair lift. I hated the fact it was singular seats (nobody to cling onto) and it started off not that high above the grassy ground however it then went over a huge steepface rocky ravine and guess what??? The bloomin thing stopped when MY chair was right over the highest drop. Hubby was on the seat in front looking behind asking if I was OK. I cannot repeat my reply on here as I would face a ban!!! It was awful and so scary. It stopped for what seemed like ages (was probably only about a minute and a half) but boy was I relieved when it got going again. Worse though was once we had got up, we had to come back down. That was such a stressful day with the chairlift and the scramble walk. Funny now though to think back.