Wow! We had the most wonderful Christmas afternoon trip out in the nearby Vipava Wine Valley that we just had to tell you all about it!

Green Slovenia's last mountain, Nanos looms large in the Lodge's western vista and it is just a 15 min drive around that monstrous corner using Slovenia's super excellent motorway system to the other Mediterranean side of the mountain and the 40km long uberstunning Green Vipava Valley.

Just to start telling you about it, the valley has some of Green Slovenia's very best restaurants and this is saying something!

absolutely fantastic castle here, just waiting to be restored and opened up to you and me..

So a few days after Xmas day, we chose to have an early lunch at the sensationally good Theodosius restaurant, situated directly 23 mins from the Lodge at the place in history where Roman general Theodosius, with a much smaller army, prayed for and got his miracle to crush his brother's larger army in a battle that would convert Rome to christianity.. (Hollywood and Brad Pitt please take note of this story)!

Theodosius is run by our friend Gregor and his family and is one of our "go to" restaurants to show off ALL that is fab about Slovenian dining out to our guests.. for service, ambience, location, value and of course home grown local food.. it is second to none in Green Slovenia, (in our humble opinion and more importantly our guests agree too)!

After lashings of delicious local trout, unique pastas, innovative barley & beetroot creations, pumpkin soup, homemade bread drizzled with olive oil, unique Vipava valley wines and a dessert board delivered from heaven, we carefully jumped in the car to drive a little further up the valley to the lovely medieval hilltop village of Kriz..

fantastic Mediterranean shutters frame another special nativity show.. check out the grumpy old bald bloke taking the photo!

Vipavska or Vipava Kriz as you will find it on the map sits very prettily indeed in the middle of this long valley and has superb views EVERYWHERE!

Our afternoon plan was simple, pop in to see the wonderful Marijana at her castle side cafe and have a stroll around the village to check out the fantastic nativities we had heard about.. so that is what we did, but as always, what is written here on paper is 100 times better through your own eyes and senses!

It is not an exaggeration to say Slovenians are nuts about nativities.. A piece of Xmas that might be quite a small element of your own festivities at home can be quite a large chunk of the Xmas calender here and a special reason for a family to go out to a particular place.

And there are nativities all over the place here in a land where the older generation still refer to Santa as "Coca Cola man"!! 

check out Coca Cola man here on his sleigh!!

Probably the most famous nativity here is the interactive show with real actors inside the most visited tourist cave in Europe at nearby Postojna, where you whizz into the cave by train and are treated to a real show!

In the rest of Green Slovenia the shepherds and sheep tend to be a bit smaller and made of plastic and the little stables and crib for baby Jesus are home made out of wood or cardboard, but each creation is unique and made with so much care and love.

Vipava Kriz has built up a mini reputation in Slovenia as a "Nativity destination" cos the whole village have a go at their own nativities and light the place up!

It only takes about 15 mins to walk around the entire hill top village, but give yourself more time than this in either summer or winter as you will be stopping a lot to take photos, admire the incredible views and take in the beauty and innocence of this magical place.

expect to be treated around every corner here in Kriz..

The nativities come thick and fast, lit up like candles with fairy lights. They pop up in windows & corners and every nook and cranny of this Medieval secret place, with perfectly restored buildings, some Yugoslavian concrete lines and other Mediterranean wrecks with broken terracotta tiles just waiting to be restored.

At the far end of the village sits ye olde gaol (a medieval jail with stories to be told) and we hear this is in the process of being renovated.. hopefully into the much needed restaurant to make this place uberperfect as a visitor destination.

Some scenes are decorated with hundreds of little sheep, others have bicycles all lit up, (maybe they didn't have any camels here to string up, but of course, Slovenian Wise Men and Shepherds would have most certainly rocked up to see baby Jesus on bikes)!

Sometimes the bikes are hanging above your head and don't forget, the Vipava valley is one of green Slovenia's 7 wine regions, so also expect to find tables set up with local unique wines & schnapps to try from the valley.. sometimes you will get to meet the people who made those wines and other times you just pop a coin in the tin to try a wine!

xmas at the castle..

When you get back to the castle and the cafe there is a big Xmas tree with more illuminated shiny bikes to welcome you to the picture perfect village square.

As you would expect in Green Slovenia, Kriz is blessed with a castle.. this one was used mainly to ward off Turkish raids and nowadays half of it has been converted into a primary school.. how cool is that kids, with the other half joining the long list of amazing Slovenian castles just waiting for Europe to wake up and realise what incredible treasures Slovenia has stored all over the place here and get it restored!

(It is blatantly obvious to any foreigner that a little country with only 2 million people cannot afford to bring the hundreds of castles and towers back to life on it's own.. but wow, if say the US of A had just one of these amazing Medieval wrecks it would immediately be restored and become the best castle in that particular country)!!

Fortunately for Green Slovenia and us tourists, Marijana has stepped in to bring the Kriz cafe and village shop back to life and gives us a hook to grab onto and another reason to visit this Mediterranean hill top treasure!

Her shop is packed full of local goodies, unique valley wines to taste and above all a warm welcome and advice where needed!

Marijanas central cafe in the beautiful hill top village of Vipava Kriz..

Slovenia does not need to destroy it's stunning hill top masterpieces with too many souvenir shops and restaurants like you will easily find over the paper border in Croatian Istria, BUT it does need just a few more brave people like Marijana to open up and give visitors that extra reason to come..

So well done Marijana! (She should be awarded the Slovenian Cross for Tourism, which doesn't exist, but should.. (and Gregor at Theodosius for that matter) however we will happily settle for you just reading this article and deciding to ADD Vipava Kriz to your tick list and paying your own visit here! You will not be disappointed!

Our particular reward on this visit was a sensational hot chocolate topped with cream and snowflakes for the driver and others got to try some local wines.

Another tip you might not associate Green Slovenia with, but they make really good hot chocolates here, especially when topped with cream, so if there is even the slightest chill in the air, don't be afaraid to ask!

this is what we are talking about when we say hot chocolate please!

For us it was the perfect end to an unexpected treat of a Xmas day out in the Vipava valley.

Green Slovenia is absolutely NOT just a summer destination and for those who check us out at other times of the year You will be hugely rewarded with an even more magical experience than you can get in summer.. and it is pretty good here in the summer too!!