Category: EuroTrip

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That’s One Giant Causeway

For our last 24 hours on the island, we crossed the border into the UK and headed for the north coast. In case you were wondering, we did purchase ETAs beforehand, but it was completely unnecessary. There isn’t even a stop when you leave Ireland. Who knows if that’s how it will always be, but as of August, 2026, there was no need for the authorizations.

We made advanced reservations for both Carrick-a-Rede and Giant’s Causeway. We got to Carrick-a-Rede at around 11 am. This is a fun, short hike along the coast to a rope bridge leading to an island. It’s unique and beautiful, but the line for the bridge gets really backed up as moron’s spend 10 minutes trying to get the perfect photo. You should definitely go but try to get there as early as possible.

Giant’s Causeway is nothing short of spectacular. The hike is great, and the payoff is amazing. It’s hard to understand how these rocks could have gotten like this naturally, but as of now, there’s no explanation other than that they were put there by a giant. This area gets pretty crowded too, but it’s very expansive, so it’s not as much of an issue.

We drove into Belfast and grabbed a drink at Northern Lights Brewery. We really just wanted to do something in Belfast, and this seemed like a good option. We were able to sit outside, and they had a nice IPA.

We stayed the night in a town called Donaghadee, at Pier 36. This is pub, restaurant and inn. The food was good, the beer was good, and the rooms were clean. Check out in the morning was a bit tricky, as there was no staff on site until 8 am, but it was still pretty great.

This wrapped up our island tour. We didn’t get to do everything one might want; there simply wasn’t enough time. We could go back and do an entirely different trip. I am glad that we extended by one day; getting to visit Northern Ireland was terrific.

Next up for the Traveling Igoes…I actually don’t know. For the first time a in long time, we don’t have our next trip planned. I guess we’ll see where the road takes us…

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A Family of Dubliners

The morning we left the Galway area, we decided to use the drive to explore a bit to the north. We drove up to an area called the Caves of Kesh. If you love caves (like I do), there are like 17 of them lining a hill. It’s not the type of thing that takes more than an hour, but it’s very cool.

It’s also very close to an called Carrick-on-Shannon, another one of the cutest little towns on Earth. We ate at a cute little cafe, visited a tiny chapel and bought cheese from a woman from Los Angeles. We also made a quick stop Killukin Cascade. This is a very small little stream with a small little ‘watefall’. The kids thought I was being ridiculous for making us stop, but I thought it was a pretty cool detour.

From there, we made it our way north of Dublin, about 30 minutes or so, to a place called Duleek where we checked into our AirBNB. This one was basically a B&B that we fully rented. It had a tennis court, indoor pool and like 11 bedrooms. There’s not a ton of inventory in Ireland that can sleep a dozen people, so we were lucky to find what we did.

On our first morning on the east side, we got up early and headed into Dublin. We parked at Q Park St. Stephens and made our way over to Grafton Street. Eileen and Alyson wanted to shop, and I wanted to see the Molly Malone statue. This area is really vibrant with lots to do.

We slowly walked from there to our planned tour of the Guinness Storehouse. On the way, we stopped at Trinity College, Dublin Castle and Harkin’s Pub for lunch. This meal wasn’t anything special, but it is right by the Guinness building.

This was my second time touring the Guinness facility, and it’s definitely something that shouldn’t be missed. It was probably a bit boring for the kids, but it feels like a must-do in Dublin. We decided not to make them do any whiskey tours; one alcohol-based excursion was enough.

We spent most of the rest of the that afternoon, just wandering around. We visited the Brazen Head (which also claims to be Ireland’s oldest pub), Temple Bar and a really cool spot called the Confession Box. It’s now a bar, but it used to be a spot where Catholic priests would secretly hear confessions during The Troubles.

We had dinner that night with the whole crew at a place called Beouf and Frites. It had only four menu options, two steak, two chicken, but it was a lot of fun. Since we had 12 people for this meal, we’d made reservations beforehand, but even with that, there weren’t a ton of options.

For our only other full day on the east coast, we drove south to another national park, the Whitlow Mountains. We hiked the Spinc and Gleanalo Valley Loop. This is a solid 6 mile hike, but it was clear, so the views were spectacular. Even though it was longer, I would say it was probably the least strenuous of our hikes. The views are great, we saw two mountain goats attacking each other, and the back half of the trail follows a mountain stream most the way. I still preferred the Upper Diamond Hill hike, but Alyson says this was her favorite trail.

On our way back, we stopped at a place called Squirrel Scramble where there is a ropes course with several zip lines. It’s not the greatest we’ve been to, but Clara was able to participate, and the kids needed a break.

The next morning, we left the Dublin area and head towards Belfast for just about 24 hours in Northern Ireland. I’ll touch base on that one final Ireland post. We really enjoyed our time on the west coast but given the choice, I’d much rather be in the Galway area.

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Galway Girls (and Guys)

To follow up on our trip with my wife’s family along the Danube, the Traveling Igoes set off for the motherland, Ireland, at the beginning of August. We were there basically Sunday to Saturday, not including travel days, and split time between the east, west and north coasts. We landed in Dublin and drove straight across, so for the purposes of this blog, this post will focus on our first three+ days that took place in the Galway area.

After leaving the airport, we made a few stops along the way in a wonderful little town called Althone. The town is absolutely charming, and we grabbed a quick lunch at a place called Left Bank Bistro. Very good, very affordable, and since it’s Europe, they don’t ask you to tip.

The real reason, though, that we stopped in Althone was for a quick visit to Sean’s Bar, which according to the sign on the outside and some sources on the online, is the oldest bar in Ireland. It was packed, but there’s a nice outside area in the back. It was a great place to grab our first Guinness of the trip.

We had planned to utilize a bit more of the drive to stop at Birr Castle and possibly the Clonmacnoise monastic site, but our flights was delayed almost three hours, so we decided to pass.

From Althone, we made the rest of the drive to our AirBNB, which can be found on the map as the Lisdonagh House. It’s a very large, historic home, and the approach feels treacherous, but it was a great place for 12 of us to stay, in a small town called Caherlistrane, about 30 minutes north of Galway proper.

As mentioned, we were with my family which is three brothers, three sisters-in-law, one niece and one nephew. My parents actually planned this trip, but dad has fallen quite ill, so they couldn’t make it. With this many people, it is hard to find things that everyone wants to do, so our modus operandi was and is to plan the things that we want to do and invite anyone else to join. Then we try to all get back together in the evening for dinner.

Following that line of thinking, on our first day, our family of five split off from the rest of the Igoes and drove over an hour south to an Irish National Park called The Burren. It an area that reminds me a bit of Sedona, except green and limestone-y. There’s a great trail there called the Mullaghmore Loop. This is a fun hike with some great views, although it was probably lowest on my list of the trails that we did. We took the blue route, which is the most difficult, but still under 5 miles. If you are planning this hike, you should be aware that the first three-quarters of a mile are on a paved road. You can actually drive up this road and park closer to where the real trail starts. If we were to do this hike again, that’s definitely what I would do.

From there, we drove in County Clare and went kayaking with Nevsail Watersports. Kayaking is always a mixed bag for me; it sounds like a ton of fun but is usually pretty exhausting after about five minutes. The real gem of this part of our trip was kayaking to a spot where we were able to get out a do a bit of coasteering and cliff diving.

As we were in the area, we then drove to the Kilkee Cliffs. The west coast of Ireland is crawling with great sea cliffs, the most famous of which are the Cliffs of Moher. You could make the argument that if you’ve seen one cliff, you’ve seen them all, and there’s some truth to that, but we saw several, and it was inspiring every time. Kilkee is definitely smaller but still very striking, and there were almost no crowds.

Finally, we drove back to a cute little town called Doonbeg for the real purpose of the trip, visiting the Igoe Inn. This is a great bar in a great town and happens to bear our name. The owner’s mother’s maiden name was Igoe, and they were excited to see us. They no longer serve food, which was too bad, but it was a great experience.

On the way back, we stopped at pub called Brogan’s for dinner. It’s hard to find a place that can seat 12, so we split into two groups just to make things a little easier. Brogan’s is really cute and definitely served the best fish and chips I had throughout our experiences.

The next day, we went into Galway proper and took the Aran Islands Ferry to Inis Mor, about a 90 minute ride into the Atlantic. When we got there, we rented bikes a cruised all over the small town. If you’re doing this, I strongly recommend e-bikes. By the end of the day, the uphills were getting very depressing. Inis More has a castle ruin that’s about a ten minute hike that offers great cliff views and very unique scenery.

This portion was probably my least favorite part of our trip. It was still a lot of fun, but the boat ride out there is long, and the ride back is longer. The seating on the boat is first come, first served, so that situation wasn’t great, and overall, it didn’t feel like the greatest use of our time. The boat ride back is actually almost 2.5 hours, but it goes down by the Cliffs of Moher. This part was pretty great. Seeing the cliffs from the sea is a great experience, and definitely different than walking on top of them.

This portion of the trip was planned by someone else. Had we made the arrangements, we would have gone south and taken the Doolin Ferry to Inis Oirr. This is another of the Aran Islands, offering basically the same opportunities, but the ferry ride is only like 10 minutes.

When we got back to Galway, we made our way into the Latin Quarter. This is one of the best places I have ever been. It’s kind of like Bourbon Street but without the vagrant, heat and human excrement. We ate at a place called The Quays (which is right by the Galway Girl statue), and it was nothing short of fantastic. I got an authentic cottage pie, for sure my favorite meal in Ireland.

On our final full day on the west coast, we drove into Connemara National Park. The drive there was incredible; it’s what you think of when you think of the Irish countryside. We went specifically to do the Upper Diamond Hill Loop. This trail offers great views, wildlife and if you get there early, it’s pretty empty. It’s about 5 miles, and at about the 1.5 mile mark, it becomes pretty strenuous. It is also frequently covered in fog, as it was for us. At the top, it felt like we were walking in a cloud and could barely see 10 feet. It was quite a unique experience.

We ate lunch at a fun little spot right outside the park entrance called Veldon’s Seafarer. Good food, fair pricing and again, no tipping. The Kylemore Abbey is also in this area. It wouldn’t have been worth it for us to drive just for that, but it’s worth seeing if you’re in the area.

Also in the area is Killary Sheep Farm. This a cute little, active farm that does sheep dog demonstrations. We got to watch a dog heard about 20 sheep, feed some of the smaller sheep and actually hold one. This is definitely geared more towards the kids, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.

The next morning we left, so I’ll pick that up in the next post, but I wanted to touch on a few things before moving east. First of all, driving on the wrong side of the road takes a lot of getting used to. You constantly feel like your about to either hit the curb or run headlong into oncoming traffic.

Second, the west coast of Ireland is one of the best places I have ever been. We are legitimately thinking about moving there permanently. Everyone is so friendly, and way of life seems incredibly laid back

Lastly, the tipping situation is great, and the conversation rate for Euro’s is pretty good right now. I do suggest, if possible, that you look into getting a credit card that offers no foreign transaction fees. We got one right before we went, and it probably saved us over $100, maybe more.

Next up, we take a left turn and head for the Dublin region of Ireland…

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Going Down the Danube

This summer, we were blessed with the chance to take a Danube River cruise with Alyson’s family. The cruise started in Munich, finished in Budapest and hit several places in between. Because this was a relatively rigidly planned out itinerary, this post will likely not be as exhaustive as was our EuroTrip last year, but hopefully I can offer some insights that might help you.

We flew into Munich on Delta, which was actually a pretty nice experience. We flew back from Budapest on British Airlines. Given the choice, I would avoid BA in the future. Everything about the experience was just a little bit crappier than with Delta.

We landed a day in advance of boarding, so spent some time in Munich. If you’re there at the right time, don’t miss the turning of the hour at the Glockenspiel. We hit the 11 am show and were happy that we did. It’s basically an elaborate cuckoo clock, and it is very touristy, but it’s a lot of fun.

We also rented a car and drove about two hours outside of Munich to a mountain called Herzogstand. We took a gondola up, hiked for a bit and had a really nice meal at a mountain hut. The weather wasn’t great, so it wasn’t super clear, but it was still a lot of fun.

We also rented bikes and tooled around Munich for a bit. There’s an area in the English Garden where people actually surf. It’s man made, but it is pretty cool and is fun to watch. We also had a nice meal at the Hoffbrau Haus. This is very touristy, and basically what you would expect from a German beer house, but it is a lot of fun.

We boarded the boat in Passau and set off along the Danube. This cruise was done through a company called Tauck. My mother-in-law has used them several times, and everything is very well done. It is similar to a Viking Cruise, but a little bit nicer. There were 130 guests, including several children. Most Tauck trips don’t allow kids, but they do a few each year that allow for younger passengers.

The boat isn’t as decked out as a major ocean liner, for obvious reasons. There were a few bars, two restaurants and a hot tub, but it is not the type of cruise where the boat is the destination. Most of the actually cruising was done at night, but everyone was very friendly. The food service was wonderful, with several options at each meal, and every meal available on the boat, if you liked.

The cruise included several stops, the first of which was in Linz, Austria. We didn’t spend much time in Linz but were bussed about 1.5 hours to Salzburg. Here, we learned more than most want to know about The Sound of Music and spent time in the Mirabel Gardens. If you’re really into that movie, like Eileen is, you would love this.

Next, we cruised through the Wacau Valley and parked for a bike ride along the Danube. This was a lot of fun, and good way to see the town of Durnstein. That night, we left for Vienna, where we spent a day and a half.

We did a walking tour, climbed the south tower of St. Stephens and had dinner in a palace. We spent the next day in Vienna as well, visiting the Prater amusement park, which has several pay as you go rides. This was a favorite for most of the kids.

Overnight, we sailed to Bratislava, Slovakia, which was by far my favorite part of the tour. We didn’t do anything spectacular, just another walking tour, church visit and site seeing, but there is something really special about this small European capital. We also went to Devin Castle and experienced the medieval games, which were quirky, but fun.

For our last night on the ship, we were supposed to sail to Budapest, but the Danube was too low, so we had to stop outside the city and get bussed in. This was a little disappointing, but what are you going to do.

My overall impressions of this trip are all very positive, but frankly, it doesn’t rank in the top 10 trips that we have taken. There were a lot of walking tours, which start out interesting but start to drag. There were a lot of really cool churches to visit, but that too starts to get a bit old. I believe these Tauck trips are definitely more geared towards an older audience. It was a lot of fun, but we probably didn’t do much of what we would have we planned the trip ourselves. That said, I am not at all complaining; it was a ton of fun, and a great way to visit several countries.

Next up for the Traveling Igoes, a 9 day trip to Ireland with the extended Igoe family. We’ll touch base soon…

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EuroTrip 2025

If you’ve been following along, you know that for our daughter’s high school graduation, we took the whole family across the pond for a road trip through Europe. We hit Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia, and all were fantastic. If you want more details about the trip itself, please reference our three previous posts. This post is really going to speak more about what we learned, what surprised us and what we found out along the way.

Currency: Prior to heading over, we exchanged $615 for 500 Euros. I thought we would need more cash in some of the smaller towns, but we really didn’t, It was nice to have the cash, and since we had it, we used it, but we could have gone with less. That said, we didn’t have to pay any foreign transaction fees when we payed with Euros. Something else to keep in mind is that tipping is a relatively American creation. Eating out is a lot less expensive when you don’t have to add 15 to 25%.

Credit Card Fees: Unless you have a certain type of credit card, expect to pay foreign transactions fees on almost everything purchase you make. At the hotels, we put charges on our room, to minimize the fees, but there is only so much you can do.

Language Barrier: In Italy, almost everyone spoke English, if not fluently. This was not the case in Austria, Slovenia or Croatia. We never really struggled to communicate, as generally speaking, someone spoke English, but it was far more ubiquitous in Italy. If you’re linguistically gifted, you can download several languages on Google Translate, which will even pronounce most words for you. We had very little difficulty communicating, overall.

International Flights with Kids: Our kids are great at traveling, but an 8+ hour flight is a long one. British Airways does offer free drinks and food, so that’s something. About an hour into both the flight there and back, we gave the two younger kids melatonin gummies. I am not giving any type of medical advice, but this knocked them both out within minutes.

Driving: This was one of the more nerve-wracking parts of the trip, going in. It turned out not to be too bad. Much of the time, we were on smaller highways but had very little difficulty. It is worth keeping in mind that traffic, especially in Italy and Slovenia, can get really backed up. We used Google Maps, which allows one to download directions in advance. We also used Apple Maps from time-to-time, which was helpful. Waze is not nearly as helpful in Europe as it is in the U.S.

International Driving Permit: We got one of these from AAA prior to going. It only cost about $20, but I am not sure we needed it. No one asked for it, neither at the rental car pick up or any border crossings. Had we gotten into an accident or been pulled over, perhaps it would have been necessary.

Driving Vignettes: If you look online at the requirements needed to drive in countries like Slovenia and Croatia, you’ll get info stating that you need something called Vignettes in place of having to pay tolls. This was honestly not super clear. We bought one at a gas station after crossing into Slovenia, for like 10 euros, and got another for Croatia online. No one ever asked for them, but again, we weren’t really stopped, so it’s hard to say how necessary they are.

Border Crossings: We weren’t stopped at a single border crossing, as all the countries were visited are EU members. We did consider a quick hop into Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that is not a member country, and we were worried it would be too much of a hassle or that they might not actually let us in.

ETAs/ETIAS: Whilst researching our trip, we came across info that stated we would need Electronic Transit Authorizations for several areas in Europe. This is not yet the case, but evidently, will be in the future. Do not buy one from a third party website, like I did. There are already fake sites available, so be careful.

Housing: We found AirBNBs a lot easier than hotels. Europeans can be very fickle about the number of people staying in a room, so renting from individuals was easier. We were even quite late for several check-ins, but all of the hosts were very accommodating.

Our trip was amazing and exhausting, and I hope that it created great memories for our kids. We actually have plans to return to Europe next year for a river cruise out of Germany, but until then, we’ll be back to exploring our local 50.

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Croatia (Eurotrip Leg 3)

For the third and final leg of our European adventure, we moved south out of Slovenia and into the country that I had been anticipating the most, Croatia. Croatia has recently blown up as a tourist destination and is more able to handle it than was Slovenia, but it was still crowded. Compared to Italy, much like Slovenia, it was very affordable.

Most who visit Croatia go for the Mediterranean beaches, which are beautiful, but that was not our target. We did hit up Split for a few hours, but the majority of our time was spent visiting two of the most spectacular National Parks I have ever seen.

What We Did

Plitvice National Park: If you Google Croatia, images from Plitvice are some of the most frequent you will find. When traveling like this, it is always a worry that the real thing won’t live up to the social media hype. I was pleasantly surprised. I can safely say that Plitvice is one of the most spectacular places I have ever been, if not the most.

Plitvice is a waterfall lovers paradise. It is simply one spectacular fall after another, with beautiful greenery and strikingly blue lakes in between. We bought tickets in advance and arrived early, both a must, and set out from Entrance 1 (the north entrance) following the signs for Program C.

Program C is 3+ miles long, and kind of uphill, but the trek is mostly along well developed boardwalks. About halfway in, you’ll get to spot where you can either go left and walk around a lake or go right and take a boat. We went right and took the boat, but we had to wait over half an hour for the boat.

At the end, we took a shuttle back, but if we had more time, I would have wanted to walk back. It would have been another 3 or so miles, but would have been mostly downhill, and we’d have gotten to see everything again.

This park can definitely be done in less than a full day, but I could probably have spent a week there. Several of the features are closed, and don’t appear likely to re-open anytime soon, including the caves and the hike up to the Veliki Slap Viewpoint. You can drive to this locale, however, using the coordinates 44°54’9″ N 15°36’27” E.

If you get there early, you will have company, but for us, it was not terribly crowded. It is really hard to describe how wonderful is Plitvice; I should simply say that if you’re in the area, it should not be missed. If you are pressed for time, go north to south. Going the opposite direction will have you looking over your shoulder the whole time.

Krka National Park: Only slightly less amazing is Krka, the more southern of the two water wonderlands. Whilst Krka is not as vast as Plitvice, it has some equally spectacular areas and is more spread out.

Since we had our own car, we entered through the Lozovac entrance. To find this, just go to the city of Lozovac and follow the signs. This option allows you to bus or walk in, whereas the Skradin entrance requires a boat. The boat might actually be easier but allows far less flexibility.

At the Lozovac entrance, we took the bus, about a 10 minute ride in. At the bus stop, there are plenty of restrooms and restaurants. They were not open when we arrived at 8 (get there early), but they were on our way out. When we arrived, it was not crowded at all, but it was by the time we left this area.

From this entrance, we visited one of three major parts of the park, the Skradinski Slap. There is a great, mile or so hike that takes you through the park to a breathtaking view of the falls. It is not like Plitvice, where there are waterfalls everywhere, but the payoff is about as unreal as it gets. We hit all three major parts of the park, and I definitely recommend doing this one first, as it gets the most crowded.

Next, we drove up to Roski Slap, another beautiful but less grand waterfall. In this area, there are a few cute restaurants where you can sit and have a beer under a waterfall. I definitely recommend this. There is also a very strenuous hike of over 100 stairs up to a cave that claims tenants back over 5,000 years. The cave is cool, but the hike is really tough. That said, the view of Roski Slap from above is far more impressive than below, and totally worth it.

The last portion we visited was Visovac Island. Rather than take the boat from Skradin, which can be round trip upwards of four hours, we drove and parked at Stinice, which has a ferry every hour, a ferry that takes only a few minutes. We spent an hour touring the island, which is home to an active monastery. This was a great part of the trip and wonderful way to end our time in Krka.

Split: Even though we didn’t stay in Split, we did take an afternoon to drive in and check out the coastal town. It is very touristy, but also charming in a way very similar to Venice. It is a very old, winding city, and we had a great time exploring and grabbing dinner. If you’ve got the time, I would try not to miss it.

Zagreb: We stayed the capital city of Croatia on our last night. We didn’t have a ton of time there, but we did walk around the downtown area and had a very nice dinner. I can’t really give a great recommendation about it one way or the other, but I enjoyed it far more than I did Ljubljana. It looks like a city moving in the right direction.

Where We Stayed

We spent two nights in Croatia, in two different AirBNBs. Both were very accommodating and both far less expensive than would have been hotel rooms for the five of us. The locations were also only a few minutes drive from the two National Parks.

Where We Ate

Vila Velebita: On the way out of Plitvice, there are plenty of restaurants, we were lucky enough to pick this one. They have a great menu available in multiple languages. We were able to sit outside and have what felt like a very authentically Croatian meal.

Al Dente: This was a very versatile restaurant in Zagreb that had a great menu and great outdoor seating. It is in a really cool location downtown and felt very vibrant.

Croatia was the last leg and to me, most spectacular part of our trip. I know that Eileen and Alyson probably enjoyed Italy more, but I have fallen hard. I am not a fan of visiting places more than once, but if anyone ever wanted to go back, I’d be on the next plane over.

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Lake Bled (EuroTrip Stop 2)

The second leg of our European road trip took us from Northern Italy, through Austria, and into Slovenia. We could have gone straight from Italy into Slovenia, but why not tick Austria off the list. I understand what you’re saying, driving through Austria for a few hours might not really give one the full experience, but we stopped in Villach for about an hour and had a nice pretzel and beer (Charles IM Palais).

From there, we made our way to an AirBNB in PiĆĄkovca, just outside of the Lake Bled area. It appears that Slovenia is about to blow up, tourism-wise, similar to the current situation in Croatia, and deservedly so. The area is beautiful, accessible and inexpensive. That said, they are not all that well set up for the volume of people that are coming, and the amount of English spoken is still limited.

Lake Bled seems to be the nexus of the tourism boom in Slovenia, and there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Again, the English is limited, and so is the parking. When we first got to Bled, we spent at least 30 minutes driving around searching. We eventually found the Central Parking lot, which is walking distance to Bled, but it was frustrating. You may also find yourself frustrated that some of the things you want to do will be first come, first serve, and at the pleasure of the locals. A lot can be booked online, but a lot can’t.

Our two days in Slovenia were packed, and they were spectacular. We saw some great things, ate great food and met a lot of cool people. If you’re going this direction, don’t skip this former Yugoslavian state.

What We Did

Vingtar Gorge: When you look up Slovenia on social media, this is one of the first things that will come up. Similar to Watkins Glen, the Gorge is a 1.5 mile cavernous hike along boardwalks that crisscross the Radovna River. It is nothing short of spectacular. The water is a color rarely seen in nature, and the way it has been developed will take your breath away.

Tickets can be purchased in advance, and there is a satellite parking lot that offers free shuttles. I think if you get there early enough, you can park at the actual entrance, but I am not certain. We got to the satellite lot at 8 am and were able to get on the second bus (it should have been the first, but we got screwed).

I do recommend arriving early. For us, the walk was great, but there are a lot of tour groups, and boardwalks can get clogged. I understand that later in the day, it can feel like a bit of a conveyor belt.

Something else to keep in mind is that it’s only a 1.5 mile walk along the river, but it is one way, so you have to get back, either along the River of Trees or the King of Triglav trails. The River of Trees is shorter, and reportedly less scenic. King of Triglav was long and kind of strenuous (and at one point, we thought we were lost), but there are some really nice panoramic views of the area. If I could do it again, I’d take the River of Trees.

Raft the Sava River: Our AirBNB was actually right at the put-in for the rafting outfitters in the Bled area. Our first afternoon there, we took about a three hour total tour with Sava Rafting. The guides are great and a lot of fun with the kids. The river is great, too, with several significant rapids.

Our boat stayed fully intact, but another boat in our group, filled with 20-something Brits, flipped twice. The river is in no way dangerous, or anymore so than any other, but there were definitely some exciting rapids along the scenic route. Our four year old loved it.

Lake Bled: Our second day in Slovenia, we spent time on Lake Bled itself. We had figured out parking, so went to the lake to find a Pletna boat. These are hand-rowed boats that will take you our to Bled Island, evidently the only island in Slovenia.

The ride is fun, but monotonous. After the first few minutes, it’s pretty much the same thing over and over again. I recommend going to the area called ‘PLETNA TO THE ISLAND BLED’ which you can find on your phone. This one is very close to the island, and, at least when we were there, more punctual. We went to a different area, and the guy showed up 45 minutes late and took quite some time getting us there

The island itself is pretty cool. There’s a church with a wishing bell, a museum and a clock tower. It wasn’t my favorite part of our trip, but it is worth doing.

Ljubljana: We made an unplanned stop in the capital of Slovenia, due to some terrible traffic issues. We basically walked around the old parts of the city and got lunch. Frankly, it was my least favorite part of our trip, but it is probably not fair the the Slovenian’s. Had we planned something and not eaten at a tourist trap, we probably would have had a better experience.

Postojna Cave: This was another unplanned stop on our way our of Slovenia, one that I enjoyed much more. The cave tour starts and ends on a train, which is a lot of fun, and the cave has all the classics you could hope want (including what they call a live dragon). Tickets can be purchased ahead of time online and bring a jacket.

Where We Stayed

PiĆĄkovca: We staying in an AirBNB just outside of Bled, which was great, as it gave us easy access to the city but was outside of the tourist areas.

Where We Ate

Gostilna Kurej: This is clearly a favorite of locals that was near our AirBNB and was one of the top two meals I had all trip. It was very authentically Slovenian, the food was spectacular and the service couldn’t have been better.

Spica: This is definitely a touristy spot right on Lake Bled. The food was good, and the view was great, but it wasn’t spectacular.

Kavarna Park: This is another touristy spot on Lake Bled, but the view from the balcony is great. The food was fine, but this is where we got our first (and only) taste of Bled Cake. I don’t think it’s actually all that great, but if you’re in Slovenia, you’ve got to try it.

Slovenia was a great stop on our European road trip and really made it feel unique. Vintgar Gorge was definitely one of the top three places we visited, and it feels like it is still off the beaten path. The next and last destination of our trip took us south into Westeros, I mean Croatia.