The old saying goes that the big man upstairs had just a little bit of everything left over after creating the world, so he put them all in Slovenia, but guess what else he or she did? Well, they only went and put the warm Nadiza river in the Julian Alps!

You can't quite believe it, but even with the incredibubble wealth of nature we have in Green Slovenia, its quite ridiculous to think that just a stone's throw from all those waterfalls and gorges filled with freezing cold crystal clear water and of course, the most beautiful river in Europe, the Soca, we also have a river in the Alps that is regularly above 20 degrees and perfect for a quick dip! 

Well we couldn't believe it anyway, so we went there and it's true! We were also delighted to discover that the Nadiza river is extremely pretty, tucked away in such a pretty western corner of the Slovenian Alps, surrounded by mountains.

We spent one late sunny September day out driving slowly up through the wine covered Vipava Valley and stopping for a coffee and ice cream at Kanal (where you get a special view of the Soca river). We continued up the stunning river road, basically turning left at Kobarid and followed the road west until you get to Robic, where there is a big car park and a little café, (see below), with a rather lovely view!

You could easily swim in the river right by here, but the nice lady in the café explained to us that if we just followed a path through the forest upriver a wee bit we would get to a gorge, (yet another Slovenian gorge folks) and here was a great place to swim.

So we followed a stony track for about 15 mins and kinda went through a gap in some bushes and found this stunning rocky gorge area with deeper water, absolutely perfect for swimming and sunning yourself. It was getting later into the afternoon on a beautiful September day, so we just dipped our toes to confirm the water was indeedadoodledo warm! 

The other thing to make a note about September and please add April, May and October into your diary for this note, is that most of Slovenia is completely empty at this time, the days are usually warm here on the sunny side of the Alps, so these months are really terrific times to visit!

You can combine a day out at the Nadiza river from the Lodge with so many wonderful possibilities.. here are just a few.. Vipava, Kozjak waterfall, Tolmin gorge, Goricia hills, Kanal, Kobarid, the list goes on and on, but now we know about this special river, the next time we go back, we will probably bring a book & picknick and sit on the other side of the gorge all day! 

And by the way, there is another warm river in the south of Slovenia called the Kolpa and much beloved by Slovenians for swimming and relaxing. It forms the border with Croatia, but not many people outside Slovenia have heard of this one, which is a shame as you can even do a gentle white water rafting here, which is really fantastic for younger families.