I know these posts are a couple weeks late in coming, but better now than never...
The plan was when Stu came to visit, that we were going to climb Mt Triglav, the epic mountain thats on the Slovenian flag and that every Sloveneian has to climb sometime in their life. It's a 2 day climb so we were going to take the weekend to do it and stay in a mountain hut halfway up. But then the forecast said it was going to rain, on Friday and Sunday. Ugh. So change of plans. Stu really wanted to go to Salzburg while he was here, so we made plans to spend (rainy) Friday in Maribor, then a day hike in Triglav National Park Saturday (with our fearless Slovenian guide, Andreja) then to Salzburg Saturday night to spend the rest of the weekend there.
We left at 5am Saturday to make sure we would have time to make all the detours necessary for the many sights in and around Triglav. We drove into the park a ways and hiked for 15 minutes to get some great views of the North face of Triglav. It truly is a majestic mountain and Im so disapointed we didnt get to climb it. I guess I'll just have to return to Slovenia another time... Then we continued on our way stopping for breakfast at a mountain hut as we continued driving up these roads built by the Russians in the 1930s going through the park. Switchback after switchback, the tight hairpin turns were cobblestoned and the rest of the road was dirt or asphalt. Finally we found our trailhead, along with hundreds of other people. It was great to see the park so well used by people of all ages and as soon as we got on our trail, there was hardly anyone else in sight. Andreja said that the Julian Alps, the tallest Alps in Slovenia, differ from the rest of the mountain chain in their pure white color. 
The rest of the Alps are gray and brown, but in Slovenia its all white rock. The peak we came to had amazing views of the mountains all around us and even into Italy and Austria. Just before the top (vrh in Slovenian) we found a herd of sheep grazing in this beautiful meadowy area surrounded by steep rock going down. These sheep must be pretty talented to make it all the way up there. The sheep were perhaps a little too friendly but the meadow was a great place to take a little rest before going down again.
The rest of the Alps are gray and brown, but in Slovenia its all white rock. The peak we came to had amazing views of the mountains all around us and even into Italy and Austria. Just before the top (vrh in Slovenian) we found a herd of sheep grazing in this beautiful meadowy area surrounded by steep rock going down. These sheep must be pretty talented to make it all the way up there. The sheep were perhaps a little too friendly but the meadow was a great place to take a little rest before going down again. On our way through Slovenia and Italy to get to Austria, we stopped at a famous farmer's hut to buy some cheese. It was very good and an amazing setting for a sheep farmer's house.
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