Kamen Castle
We hope you clicked on this Secret Place to Visit article cos the photo of the castle looks so amazing!
That is exactly the reason we hunted down Kamen Castle for ourselves after seeing a piccy and thinking, wow, where is that?
So prepare now to have your cotton socks blown off as we can tell you this magnificent rock of a castle is less than 10km from Lake Bled! (You have probably heard of Lake Bled)!
Yep, it took us just over an hour to drive up to Kamen Grad ourselves from the Lodge and it is almost unbelievable that such a beautiful castle could be so close to one of Europe's top tourist destinations and yet almost perfectly hidden away from view!
When we looked on the main tourist map that we too give out to our guests, we couldn't even find a castle symbol showing where this castle is and this is not uncommon in Green Slovenia, with just too many amazing castles in all shapes, sizes and conditions, so not all of them are shown.. our mission is to track down all the best secret ones and bring them at least to your attention, so you have a chance of visiting them if you want to!
So here is our little Adventure Fairy Tale day out at Kamen Grad!
The village you need to shoot for is a bit of a mouthful, Begunje na Gorenjskem just over an hour direct from the Lodge.. When you take the motorway exit for Bled, instead of going left to Bled, go right up to the opposite side of the motorway towards the mountains.
In two shakes of a dragon's tale you will arrive at the very pretty Alpine village of Begunje na Gorenjskem, named after the chap who built the first house there and this north western Alpine region of Slovenia called Gorenje.
But for us, the name sounds a bit like the flower "Begonia" and as the village is as pretty as a flower, please forgive us if we refer to it as Begonia from now on to make things easier for us all!
Now the next tip is quite an obvious one for castle hunting, but if you don't spot the brown Slovenian sign for castle, which will say "Grad", then the next best thing to do if you can't actually see the castle.. is keep going up!
There are not many places at all in Slovenia when you can look up to the skies and not either see a mountain, a church or a castle.. sometimes all three!
In Begonia's case, continue along the very long village high street past the big church and a car park on your left until the road gets narrower and you get the feeling that you are leaving the village and heading into the mountains..
That is because you are.. but fortunately at the very end of the village there is a little sign for Grad and you take a left following the P for parking.
Considering the magnificence of this grand castle, it is a little bit disrespectful for everyone invloved that you now have to squeeze your car past someone's house! It feels like you are going along their driveway and you probably are!
Then you pop out into a very small parking area and will probably breathe a sigh of relief that nobody else knows about this amazing castle, so you can get a space!
You will need to be reasonably fit to explore Kamen Castle as it is huge and there are lots of steps up past the main crumbled battlements and then quite a way further up to the main tower, but of course you really must make it up there for the views!
This castle is gracefully heading towards being 1,000 years old and at it's peak was owned by the Counts of Celje, Slovenia's only ever Royal family and part of the magical Carniola as Slovenia was known back then..
The most dangerous times for Slovenian castles since then have been the Turkish raids and more recently at the start of socialst Yugoslavia, when the locals tended to nick as much stone or roof tiles from the castles as they could!
More recently this castle has been lovingly and incredibly put back into some shape by the local society.. so for us, it makes this Kamen Grad all the more special to visit.. It is one of the many regional fortresses here brought back to life again by local people..
On behalf of all of those lucky people who can now enjoy visiting Kamen Castle, a big thank you to the local people who restored her!
So the kids can run around safely to explore and you can get a really powerful image of how it all was here in the good old days of the Counts!
YOU MUST CLIMB UP INTO THE DEPTHS & CORNERS OF THIS CASTLE, otherwise you will miss the most special sensation here, which is the overwhelming magnetism of a huge stone building that has somehow attached & merged itself into the stunning backdrop of rocks, forest and mountains.
There are some very special vistas here indeed..
The castle commands a very special junction leading up into the hills of the Draga valley and the mountains you can see in the background are the Slovenian Karavanka Alps to the left and the very start of the Slovenian Kamnik Alps to the right.. wow, what about that!
Kamen means "stone" in Slovenian and so is the perfect name for a castle that seems to merge into the green rocky surroundings of the Draga valley and to become part of the mountains behind.
It is a very beauitful spot indeed and the further up into the castle you can advance, the better the views get form all angles.
The local society have done a great job restoring the main tower so you can go all the way up and if you are lucky, also past some tiny resident bats!
We found out from the TIC (Tourist Info Office) further down in the village next to the main car park, that this is pretty much as far as this castle will be restored for now, so just like some of the Welsh castles, this will be a visit of about an hour in beautiful and safe crumbled ruins to set your imagination running.
We met a young local couple and the only other visitors to this castle at the top of the tower and it took them a few moments to get over the usual shock that we get from locals when we rock up to these very secret places, going something like this..
1. Yes, we are foreigners actually living here 2. No, we didn't go to Bled today and we don't need to either, cos this is much more fun and adventure. 3. How on earth did we find this place?! 4. Everyone then agrees how beautiful and undiscovered this amazing little country is.
We said our farewells and headed back down to the little car park, looking even littler below, down the many steps and castle pathways!
There are a couple of very nice restaurants in the village, one nearer the castle with a metal horse statue outside, but we parked back in the main village so we went to check out the large restaurant in the centre.
We had kinda heard something about this before, being in central Europe, Slovenians are also into Polka bands and there is one famous band here that have been going since the 1960's and would you believe it, THIS is their home town and THIS is their restaurant!
This is the closest you are gonna get to the Munich Oktoberfest in Slovenia.. There is a huge tent over the main terrace with lots of benches and tables and a stage where the band perform.
The waiters are dressed up in the local oompah gear and there is a joyful feel about this place under a canopy of music, beer and dancing.
The band and restaurant are called Avsenik, which is a little too close to "arsenic" for our liking, but the heayy local food was excellent and to be recommended as a one off treat. There is even more seating inside, but we were grateful in covid times to be able to eat in such a large open space outside, but still under cover.
Begunje na Gorensjkem would be a great spot to start a trek or bike ride into the mountains, forest or Draga valley, so you could easily spend the day just here with Stone Castle as your focal point.
If you are just visiting the castle, then it would also be possible to leave the car in that other car park in the centre and walk up to avoid having to squeeze into that tiny castle car park and then you would also have more opportunity to stroll and get a feel for the Alpine magic of this place and a real reward at the end of your mini hike up to where the castle sits like an Inca temple, fused into the rocks.
You will seriously not believe how close this castle is to lake Bled, but Begonia is affiliated to the Radovlica regional area.
The small medieval town of Radovlica, or Radolca as the locals call it is one of our very favourite places in Slovenia with an old town packed with medieval frescos on the walls you can stroll around, a new chocolate factory, one restaurant with a centuries old gingerbread kitchen in the basement and probably the most "switched on" dynamic TIC (toursit info) in the entire country.. (Go in and ask them a question, you will see)!
We love the place and you would not be disappointed dividing your day between Radolca and Begonia to make a very special Alpine medieval experience surrounded by mountains, but crucially NOT by so many other people and probably one of the few kinda days you might have been able to dream or imagine about before having arrived in Green Slovenia.. but better!
French Connection en Slovenie
