Day 40 – Wednesday 17 June

Todays agenda was to drive the Vrsic Pass on our way to our next stop of two nights in Bovec.  The Vrsic Pass is the highest mountain pass in Slovenia reaching an elevation of 1,611 meters in the heart of the Julian Alps. They are born of the similar era and rock as the Dolomite (except limestone) and therefore when eroding form spectacular vertical sheer and craggy formations. The Dolomite is one of my favourite places I have visited, so I was excited to experience this route – including its 50 switchbacks!

Before entering the pass road the scenery from Bled was lovely. Again, as I have described – lots of green, stoney rivers and picturesque villages and hamlets. About 40 minutes into the journey we came across Lake Jasna. 

This was a very pleasant surprise, as we did not realise the road went right past it and it is stunning.  Not only is the water absolutely clear, the backdrop of the craggy Julian alps and the pale blue mint green river running over chalk white rocks displayed the quintessential alpine lake scene.

It was a no brainer to park the car and have a walk around.  We also had lunch and coffee break at a pleasant cafe there.  Magic. The only downside was the water temperature, which was too cold for feet beyond 2 minutes. 

Our lunch was a delicious Slovenian smoked sausage with brat kartoffel, horseradish cream and a nice side salad to share.  We enjoyed the whole 1.5 hours we spent there, soaking in everything including that relaxing fresh air.

Directly following the lake you begin the pass road which narrows eventually to a narrow unmarked lane road.  It is just wide enough for two cars to pass each other, albeit one may need to stop-pause for a moment to assist the safety.  We followed a reasonable sized dual axel dump truck for a while and it was interesting how he navigated the switchbacks.

Before 1915, the Vršič Pass was a simple, remote mountain track used by local shepherds and hunters. This changed when Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, sparking the brutal conflict on the Isonzo Front in the Soča Valley below.

The Austro-Hungarian army needed a fast way to move food, weapons, and ammunition over the mountains to supply their troops. In 1915, they put over 10,000 Russian prisoners of war (POWs) to work building a proper road. They cleared the rock by hand, froze in the alpine winter and suffered extreme exhaustion, starvation and disease.

In March 1916, a devastating avalanche completely buried a POW camp, killing around 110 Russian prisoners and 7 Austrian guards. Later that year the surviving prisoners received  permission to build a small wooden Russian Orthodox chapel near the site of the avalanche.

The chapel is unique not only because it is on the side of a mountain range, but because it’s built using local larch wood and tree bark over stone foundations. Apparently inside is lovey artwork protected for 100 years, but we were unable to go inside to see it – appears no allowable entry.  Next to the chapel is a stone pyramid-shaped tomb holding the remains of the fallen soldiers. 

It is a peaceful memorial, and we sat on a bench for a while and took time to reflect on the history of the road and its surrounds of woodland trees, a tiny brook and huge mountains in the distance. 

As you climb there are quite a few opportunities to pull over and take in the spectacular views, which we did, including at the other side of the peak.  The views are not for the vertigo inclined, and look like a blue screen.  Again at the peak we had the place to ourselves for about 15 minutes where we enjoyed the summer alpine nature.  

In that space we admired the unique flora and insects including, wild raspberries, rose hip buds forming, an electric neon green beetle going about his business, bumble bees working the flowers, and four different types of colourful butterflies flying around us. One of the butterflies was as curious of me as I of them, and kept circling me then landing and looking right at my lens.

I could have stayed there for a lot longer and was hoping to see a grouse or chamois but Vern moved us on and we descended to the valley where we got our first view of the Soca river. It is meant to be emerald or blue in colour, but was more of a pale mint to blue. I think the time of year is affecting the colour as mentioned previously. 

Bovec was about 20 minutes from the peak and is a small alpine village catering to bikers, cyclists, hikers and adventure water sports.  On check in we hit a snag, no ones fault but booking.com who did not pass our booking onto the hotel reservation system.

Fortunately we had printed copies of our booking, including confirmation number and receipt and luckily there was an emergency room left as the hotel was fully booked.  It did take quite a bit of time to sort, including a call to booking.com to get them to sent the details to the hotel.

Later that evening I got an email from booking.com telling me it was a shame the hotel could not accommodate me and here was another place half a km away – a grotty 2 star apartment. They would cancel my booking with the Alp hotel. FFS. I emailed them and gave some strong feedback, so hopefully they will just pay our hotel and do their job properly. Idiots.

Whilst that all took a bit of time and the hotel will follow up with them this morning, we did end up getting an upgraded room which is nice. The downside is there is construction next door, so we will no doubt have an earlier wake up than usual. This will not do us any harm.

I researched places to eat and we chose a family restaurant a couple of hundred metres up the road. We were pleased and very satisfied to taste two traditional soups; a sheep cheese and a sauerkraut one.

We shared a main of roast lamb and polenta with gravy, and a side salad of  fennel, rocket, sheep’s cheese, walnut and orange. The ambience was lovely on a terrace covered in a tall grape vine pergola with the setting sun colouring the tall surrounding peaks.

A note on hotel booking – I always prefer to book direct, however in this instance I did not hear back from Alp in good time, so went through booking.com.  Good note to self to continue with minimal use of them or similar, especially this experience and seeing a lot more complaints on line.