Ribcev Laz & Most Na Soci, Slovenia

Ribcev Laz / Bohinj Lake

Oh, to be back home in the mountains. The air, the water, the mountain folk. Ribcev Laz is a small mountain lake town with crisp, clean, clear water surrounded by the tallest mountains in Slovenia, the Julian Alps. The excitement we felt to explore was of the outdoors, waterfalls, rivers, streams, picturesque gorges. All we really had to do was hike, swim, rest and repeat. Originally we were going to stay in Bled (google it and you'll see why we had thought we'd stay here), luckily our good friends, and fellow globe trotters, Shelley and Nicole had checked out Lake Bled a few weeks before we arrived and gave us the heads up that it only required a couple of hours, was crowded with tourists and to get out into the smaller towns. We completely agree.

Lake Bohinj (pronounced "bow-heen") is about 25 minutes by bus from the town of Bled. It's a beautiful ride through lush green mountain towns, following alongside the Sava Bohnijka river. It has one small grocery store, a post office and a handful of restaurants (mostly at hotels) and cafe's.

The town puts together free concerts in this old water run-off. We enjoyed listening to the band, drinking a beer and dancing.

There's a popular campground on the other side of the lake, complete with laundry facilities and restaurant. We bought the tourist card for $10 per person which allows for as many rides on the tourist boat that takes you from end to end of the lake (with impressive local and geographic history along the way), free bus rides around the lake and nearby areas, discounts at restaurants, excursions and busses. It's worth every penny.

The tourist boat

From the other side of the lake it's a nice, shaded 5k hike up to the Savica waterfall (you get discounted entry with the tourist card) and then hike up about 500 steps to the waterfall itself. It's well worth the hike and entry fee, and there is fresh drinking water available in a fountain at the entry gate, so drink up, the water is delicious and super cold.

From here we hiked back down and continued around the lake. There are many small beach areas to hang out at, but it's very popular during the summer so it's first come, first sunbathed. We ended up with the nudies and did our best to avert our eyes. New life goal: to go to a nudie beach and get naked! For reals.

We did go to Bled one day, rented bikes and forged our own path up to Vintgar Gorge, arriving just in time to stand in line. It moved relatively quick and we were able to venture down the well built wooden path through the gorge. It's crowded but worth it.

We decided to take the path less traveled and less marked back to our bikes, through the woods, cow pastures and hillside farms getting fantastic views of Bled and the surrounding small towns. Slovenia really is a beautiful country. About three minutes in to our return bike ride, Jason's chain broke in half, and then it started raining, hard. We got a free ride back in to town and refunded for one bike rental. It was hot, once the rain stopped, and we decided to go for a swim in Lake Bled. There are only a few actually allowed swimming areas, so we found one, discovered the ridiculous price to enter and got on the next bus back to Bohinj.

Lake Bled

We didn't want to leave. We extended our trip two nights and asked for an additional two nights, but our Airbnb host was full, so we decided to check out Most Na Soci.

Most Na Soci

Strolling through the backwoods into this one-horse-town we found it to be picturesque but boring as a political science class. There’s not much going on here, as observed by the days old meat pie I tried to consume for dinner, purchased at the local market, it was tough and crunchy. I was instantly regretting our decision to leave Ribcev Laz and yearned to be back. So we set off to find a place to swim in the emerald green river. And we walked, and sweated, and walked some more, never finding a single place to enter the water. We saw exactly zero people swimming in the river, except for a dead, bloated rat, which may have been our fate had we entered.

Day One: we ate pizza and salad at the local pizza joint for lunch, we ate salads here again for dinner. Day Two: we try unsuccessfully to hitchhike to Tolmin, some 5k from Most Na Soci; we call a taxi, we wait 30 minutes for the taxi, he’s friendly and we are hungry for breakfast. We find a hotel, and can have the remains of their morning buffet for 7 euro each, we are both sick of the traditional European breakfast of a ham-like deli meat substance, white sliced cheese, bread, jam, spreadable chicken substance, cornflakes, musli and yogurt, so we keep walking. We find a place serving eggs and pancakes. Eggs scrambled with bell peppers, two crepes, one filled with chocolate and the other with jam and cappuccino. This meal instantly brings smiles to our faces. We find the free shuttle to the gorge, pay the minimal entry fee and walk along the well maintained path.

This gorge is significantly smaller than the one just outside Bled, Vintgar Gorge, but less populated and in my opinion way more beautiful. The water is so clear it just makes you want to jump from wherever you are. But of course you can’t, it’s a national park and 32 degrees, but it still whispers “jump...jump”.

There’s a reggae festival happening here. The last of five music festivals to occur in this tiny town during the summer. In other words, it’s swarming with dirty hippies. We join them at the discount grocery store and stock up on all that Most Na Soci lacks. After lunch we hop on one of the very few busses that stop in Most Na Soci, dropping us in front of the larger grocery store, practically next door to our room. Grocery stores make me very happy. My love affair with grocery stores began when I was an adult making adequate money to allow for name brand purchases. As a child, this was one of the many things I looked forward to in adulthood. At the grocery store I dreamed of buying sugar cereal, soda, sugar gum, Oreo’s, white bread, Rice Krispies, Jet Puff marshmallows, spreadable peanut butter…you get my point. In adulthood I was going to subsist on junk food, and I could not wait. I remember my first purchase and consumption of sugar cereal, in college. I could feel the diabetes awaken in my veins. Nevertheless, I have always enjoyed grocery shopping and this continues to be one of my favorite adventures of traveling the world…walking the isles of the local grocery stores and choosing something new and unusual. I often do this at home too, and my garbage disposal friends (who will remain nameless) are grateful for my adventurous and quick to bore spirit as they reap the benefit of the over purchased and failure to excite my tastebuds, foods that I discard on a weekly basis.

To complete Day Two, we convinced a local restaurant to feed us spaghetti and gnocchi once back in Most Na Soci. We just couldn’t eat another pizza and salad. If you want to check this place out, or Tolmin, we recommend making it a day trip, while staying in Ribcev Laz or camping on Lake Bohinj. You can kayak or SUP here, but there’s something erie about actually entering the water. I’d wear a life jacket and a Pamper.