Author: admin

Lepena, SLOVENIA: This time the hike went to Lake Krn at about 1400m altitude. We started at the Dr Klement Juga House near Lepena, which is located near the Soca Valley. The Dr Klement Juga House has a restaurant, so you can take care of yourself before and after the tour. The parking lots are a bit critical, so it can get really cramped when many people want to do the tour.

The way goes from the house up an old military road. From the road you can see mostly gravel, but it was once a cobblestone road, which you can see clearly in some places. It is impressive how something can decay again. The road was used to transport troops and artillery into the mountains during World War I.

Today the road is quite easy and has no difficulties except all the rubble on the ground. Here good trekking shoes are really essential. The path goes 700m quite steeply up another valley. There is again a kind of restaurant and guesthouse if you walk 10 minutes to the left of the path. We did not do that.

In the valley it hardly goes up and after another 20 min you reach the lake. From the valley there are more treks to the surrounding mountains. We went back quite fast after a meal, because again a thunderstorm announced itself.

Triglav National Park, SLOVENIA: After a strenuous hiking tour in the Soca Valley, this time we went to visit two waterfalls and the lake and the town of Bled. The first waterfall was actually located by chance on the road. The second waterfall was the famous Pericnik.

The special thing about this waterfall is that you can go underneath it. This is quite impressive and not often possible with other waterfalls in the world. The last thing we did was to visit the lake Bled and the castle at the lake. Unfortunately, the museum was not very interesting. The view was pretty much the only thing that was interesting but still worth seeing.

Soča Valley, SLOVENIA: We decided at relatively short notice to go to Slovenia for camping. Slovenia is not too far away from where we live and yet it is a new country for both of us. The region is the Triglav National Park and is quite touristic. The trip took place at the end of July 2020 and the campsites were full.

But it was not so crowded that there were crowds everywhere. The Triglav National Park is located in the southern part of the European Alps in the Julian Alps and allows a variety of activities like hiking, climbing, cycling, rafting and much more.

In this video I show the part of the Soča River where the campsite is located, right after our arrival in the evening.

As I said before somewhere, I did not know how many castle ruins are in the area. For this reason I went this time again to the ruin Fleckenstein in Alsace and from there I walked to the nearby ruins Loewenstein and Hohenburg. Unfortunately almost nothing of Loewenstein has survived the times. But from the ruins of Hohenburg Castle you can still clearly see the former mightiness.

This weekend we went again close to France to the Alsace and the Northern Vosges to visit the castle ruin Windstein. Actually, these are three ruins of the three castles Neu-, Mittel-, and Altwindstein in a rather small area. The castles are only about 10 minutes away. The castles all date from a period of about 12th century and were mostly finally destroyed in the 16th century. Especially the ruins of Altwindstein are evidence of an extremely complex complex complex with many remains as dug caves in the rock or as remains of masonry around the rocks. Even the well is still present at a considerable depth.

This time an excursion led again to France to the Alsace in the Northern Vosges. On the plan was the castle ruin Wasigensten. The former castle dates from the 13th century and was actually two castles. A smaller and a larger one. The castle was finally abandoned in the 16th century and almost completely destroyed in the 17th century. Nevertheless, some of its old splendour can still be seen today. On the one hand, it lies in the middle of the forest on a small hill and on the other hand, not everything has been completely destroyed. There are still the main stairs and some rooms that were dug into the rock. There are also remains of other rooms, towers and staircases, which make a visit here extremely worthwhile.

ALSACE, FRANCE: On this Sunday excursion we went to nearby France to visit another castle ruin. The destination was the ruin Fleckenstein not far from the German border. Fleckenstein is a typical robber baron castle as there are many in the area. The castle ruin is however relatively well preserved for a ruin. So rooms and corridors can be visited, which were dug into the rock. Of course you can also go to the very top, where you have a wonderful view over the forests and mountains of the area of the French Alsace and the German Palatinate Forest.

This time we visited another ruin in the Palatinate Forest during our Sunday excursion. The ruin Drachenfels was a robber baron castle until the 15th century. It is assumed that the castle was built before the 10th century. Due to problems with the robber knights the castle was finally destroyed after it was captured by surrounding troops. Today you can hardly see anything, because many stones were removed and houses were built with them in the village. Nevertheless, after 500 years there are still clear traces visible, which give an idea of its former mightiness.