Our original plan was to drive northwest out of Bled and go across the Vršič Pass to Bovec, with plenty of time for photos of mountain views. Alas, that is not how the day unfolded! What should have been an 85km trip turned into 278km trip. Read on…
We left Bled on a Monday and cars were just pouring in to town. The route to Kranjska Gora was pretty industrial along A2, then turned into a beautiful valley drive. Along the way we saw a few instances where a single rope seems enough to keep cows in their pasture? And since it was early Fall there was lots of hay drying on racks.
In Kranjska Gora we stopped briefly in a huge lot to take a photo of Slapovi Pišnice, a small waterfall on the edge of town.
We also stopped at Jezero Jezna (lake) where we walked across the suspension bridge and did a quick loop for views. The small gravel parking lot cost 2,60€ per hour, card payment only and all the spots were designated with tacked down blue strips of tarp.
The road started to get really curvy at this point, making the parking lot entrance for the Russian Chapel a bit of a challenge. However, it is worth stopping to see this wooden memorial chapel commemorating Russian prisoners killed in an avalanche during construction of the road in 1916. The structure was beautiful, they even used bark from the trees for decoration.
Less than a mile later, we arrived to a line of cars and a guard standing in front of a barrier. Uh oh. Eric got out to ask what was going on and was told the road would be closed until 5pm. Considering it was just before noon, this was not great news. Our choices were to wait 5 hours for the road to reopen, call Avis and let them know we planned to take the car into Italy (and pay an extra 70€) or drive 3+ hours a different way. We chose the last option (but if I had to do it again I would have just paid Avis).
Thankfully, while long, the detour gave us several nice views of small villages along the narrow, twisty roads of interior Slovenia.
Plus a surprise WWII memorial (Dražgoše Spomenik) – arguably in the middle of nowhere.
We arrived in Bovec around 4pm, checked into our apartment and decided to get BACK in the car to approach the pass from the south because at this point it was after 5pm and we had some daylight left.
We made it! It was very chilly and windy at the top and once again (seeing a theme here?), a lot of the parking was paid (2,60€ for 120 minutes). While there were some free pullouts along the river on Rt. 206, not many stops at the higher elevations had views – most were blocked by trees. We also noticed construction vehicles but at no point was the road so bad that cars had to take a significant detour. When we asked, our host in Bovec mentioned the closures but said they were sporadic so I think we just got unlucky.