FUEGO
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2007
- Messages
- 7,746
I'll go first: Slovenia. We spent almost 2 weeks in Slovenia this summer and loved it.
Beautiful country and not very crowded. It's a little chunk that used to be part of Yugoslavia and in the past it's had some parts of its territory controlled by Italy and Austria at various times. Population around 2 million people and English is pretty commonly spoken by many. The whole country is about the size of New Jersey, which means were it a US state, it would be one of the smallest.
The capital, Ljubljana, is decent sized but not overly busy. Lots to see and do in the capital. And tons of outdoorsy stuff in the rest of the country. The Julian Alps are in the northern part of the country and look and feel a lot like the Alps in surrounding countries of Italy and Austria. It's not very crowded at all compared to Italy and Austria (from the limited places we visited in those other two countries). And prices are much lower.
For some reason it's not very popular with American tourists. It took us four days in the country before we saw a confirmed American tourist (after a false start when we overheard what turned out to be a Canadian tourist).
Prices are Eastern Europe cheap - good hotels $50-100/nt and the large 3 bedroom airbnb we rented right in the center of town was USD$86/nt and included a full kitchen, washer/dryer, air conditioning (rarely needed), and off-street parking. Sit down menu of the day 3 course meals from USD$5-6, street vendor lunches from USD$3-4. Bus ticket is $1.50 for 90 minutes. Taxis a few bucks for a short trip. We rented a car for 10 days for $180. Intercity bus and train tickets are cheap and they have train connections on high speed trains to Austria/Germany. They use the euro so it's easy to piggyback a Slovenian side trip onto a European vacation.
2 downsides:
1. Slovenian language isn't easy to pick up if you're a native English speaker with some romance language knowledge, however almost everyone spoke passable English (except the older grocery store clerks).
2. No rail connection from Italy (but several low cost bus lines will get you there - eventually). Apparently there was some sort of long-standing dispute that kept them from connecting the rails.
We loved Slovenia so much that we're strongly considering going back next summer for more.
One place that we thought would be an undiscovered destination (cheap, not overly busy) was Prague and we were wrong. That place was mobbed with tourists!
I'm brainstorming for a 2018 summer vacation of a month or two and looking for undiscovered destinations.
What are some hidden gems you've found on your travels?
Beautiful country and not very crowded. It's a little chunk that used to be part of Yugoslavia and in the past it's had some parts of its territory controlled by Italy and Austria at various times. Population around 2 million people and English is pretty commonly spoken by many. The whole country is about the size of New Jersey, which means were it a US state, it would be one of the smallest.
The capital, Ljubljana, is decent sized but not overly busy. Lots to see and do in the capital. And tons of outdoorsy stuff in the rest of the country. The Julian Alps are in the northern part of the country and look and feel a lot like the Alps in surrounding countries of Italy and Austria. It's not very crowded at all compared to Italy and Austria (from the limited places we visited in those other two countries). And prices are much lower.
For some reason it's not very popular with American tourists. It took us four days in the country before we saw a confirmed American tourist (after a false start when we overheard what turned out to be a Canadian tourist).
Prices are Eastern Europe cheap - good hotels $50-100/nt and the large 3 bedroom airbnb we rented right in the center of town was USD$86/nt and included a full kitchen, washer/dryer, air conditioning (rarely needed), and off-street parking. Sit down menu of the day 3 course meals from USD$5-6, street vendor lunches from USD$3-4. Bus ticket is $1.50 for 90 minutes. Taxis a few bucks for a short trip. We rented a car for 10 days for $180. Intercity bus and train tickets are cheap and they have train connections on high speed trains to Austria/Germany. They use the euro so it's easy to piggyback a Slovenian side trip onto a European vacation.
2 downsides:
1. Slovenian language isn't easy to pick up if you're a native English speaker with some romance language knowledge, however almost everyone spoke passable English (except the older grocery store clerks).
2. No rail connection from Italy (but several low cost bus lines will get you there - eventually). Apparently there was some sort of long-standing dispute that kept them from connecting the rails.
We loved Slovenia so much that we're strongly considering going back next summer for more.
One place that we thought would be an undiscovered destination (cheap, not overly busy) was Prague and we were wrong. That place was mobbed with tourists!
I'm brainstorming for a 2018 summer vacation of a month or two and looking for undiscovered destinations.
What are some hidden gems you've found on your travels?