Visiting Slovenia
flgAZ
My mother's parents emigrated to America from Slovenia so I consider
myself a Slovenian.
I would like to visit sometime in 2008, it will be my first visit to
Europe. I plan to do extensive geocaching while I am there. (wonder if
I can log at least 50 Slovenian caches in 8 days?)
I'm sure I'll spend some time in the cities but I'm going to want to
see the country too. My Grandfather came from Ponikve a very small
village East of Ribnika that I will definitely want to find.
My questions:
How early in the year is a good time to visit. Coming in the summer
there would be the most tourist activities to do, but it would also be
the most expensive and crowded. Would visiting in the spring be good?
Would like to see how Carnival is celebrated.
Because of time, for at least part of the time I will need to rent a
car. Should I plan on reserving a place in Ljubljana and doing day
trips or would it be OK to get a room where ever I find myself without
a reservation?
How big of a disadvantage will I have without a Europe basemap in my
GPSr? I don't worry about getting lost because I will be able to use
my "track back" function. Will a basic paper roadmap get me to the
starting point of most caches? My Slovenian language skills are not
very good :(
Entering and exiting Slovenia. There are no direct flights from the
USA to SLO. I will have 2 weeks. I primarily want to experience
Slovenia but I would like to see Italy too. What airports should I
consider to fly into from the USA (in Italy, Austria or other) then
taking ether a train or bus into Slovenia?
Any comments would be welcome, thanks!
Robin
Geocacher name flgAZ
Soncek
I hope following will help.
I think it can be a bit of a challenge to log 50 SLO caches in 8 days.
I will not say it is not doable but I have not
seen that somebody would do that till now. There are few factors that
might enable to do it.
- number of SLO caches increased during last year
- you can find several in regional groups
however
- Slovenia is not easy for travel so 10 km sometimes can take some
time.
- usually easy caches in the area are mixed with some difficult one so
you might have to travel.... (and that takes time)
Based on that I would say that 50 caches in SLo in 8 days is a serious
challenge. You have to plan in advance. You need a car (for all of 8
days if you plan to have 50 caches in 8 days). You have to have some
caching experiences.
Autorouting GPS can be of an immense help to go quickly to caches and
without it you'll be probably stuck a bit. Do not count on 50 than....
You would have to do some serious planing on map.
On the other note you can reach main border crossings of Slovenia
within 1 - 3 hours drive from Ljubljana. So one can envision that you
cold locate yourself in Ljubljana and do daily trips to reach mosat
parts of Slovenia within a return trip, Some challenges for that
might be a travel to Soca valley and Pomurje region. It would be a
shame to skip Soca valley. It is beautiful.
If you will search Ponikve one can say that you hopefully is looking
for Ponikva at Sentjur near Celje. You should get some caching
opportunities there also (Celje) If you ask me about when to visit I
would say that late spring on early fall would be probably the best
time to do it. At least from caching experience. Slovenia can get
quite some snowfall and than finding a cache van be a bit challenging
(to put it lightly). From the cost perspective I could not say but I
would asses that there is no so much difference. But I'm not the right
person to respond on this. Sorry...
Regarding the Carnival ... frankly I do not know which one do you
refer to. Can you be a bit more specific?
In regard to air travel.
I suggest you travel to one of the European flight in centers like
London, Frankfurt or Paris. You should be getting a direct flight from
there to Ljubljana Airport. That is a best way to do it. There are few
low cost companies flying to Slovenia you could consider. But those
low cost companies have airports a bit far away from main flight-in-
European airports. One of those is Ryan air (flying to Maribor - 1,5
hour drive from Ljubljana - from Stansted in UK) and second one i
Wizz air Flying in from CHARLEROI in Belgium (some 45 minutes from
Brussels usual plane-arrival destination)
O would not try my luck with train or buses from Trieste (Italy) or
Vienna (Austria) to Slovenia, You will be much more "on-time" by
flying directly to Slovenia- But that is up-to you at the end..
I hope this helps. Mybe somebody else will be alo respond to your
questions.
Regards, Soncek