If ever there was a classic example of a Secret Place to Visit then this is the one! Yes folks, in our tenth year living here and 15th exploring Green Slovenia, we are still managing to completely stumble on even more hidden little green paradises!

We found this stunning green lake surrounded by forest & mountains mostly by accident, but also by following our own advice to guests for Green Slovenia and that is to have just a little peek around that corner!

the lake is a man made reservoir along the river..

Our plan for the day was to whizz up past Bled one hour 20 to Mojstrana and hike to our second favourite waterfall in Slovenia, Pericnik Slap (slap is waterfall) then pop in to see our new beer suppliers and pick up some stock!

If you are reading this from the comfort of your office, then that was us too a little over ten years ago.. but now we are doing stuff like this in the most beautiful country in Europe.. we know just how lucky we are!

OK, back to the story, we cannot tell you how amazing the Pericnik waterfall is.. it is a huge drop of water and one that you can almost get up to and touch and if you are brave enough you can even take a path that brings you directly behind the flow!

the uberamazing Pericnik waterfall..

There is a new road and path from just outside Mojstrana following a stunning crystal clear river that is fed from the waterfall and the Alps leading to Slovenian's highest mountain, Triglav, (2,864m). At the Falls there are two main marked choices of forest hike just 15 mins up to the waterfall.

Once you have left the motorway at Jesenice, the country road up to Mojstrana straddles the best part of Slovenia's longest river, the Sava, which flows completely unpolluted from where it first pops out of the ground at it's source in the top left corner of Slovenia down towards Jesenice.

this is where the mighty Sava river starts its journey, not so far up from Mojstrana..

You can also see cyclists on the fantastic bike path that follows the river too and all is beautifully flanked by the Alps, so we stopped off at a roadside local restaurant for a lovely lunch and headed down the country road from Jesenice towards our next target of Moste along the Sava.

We had found a new micro beer producer at a recent chocolate festival. Carnolia brewery make some delicious pale Ales and use fresh water from another spring that flows into the Sava river! Foolishly we had not phoned in advance, but instead checked an out of date website to see if they were open and when we did phone after lunch to double check.. they were not!

So we arranged another delivery and with a little time on our hands, decided to explore around Moste, which is pretty much just over the other side of the motorway from Bled.. Generally, if you come off the main roads, there is usually a more local road that joins up the smaller villages and we were really enjoying the ride..

plenty of places for a picnic..

You would only realise this delight when you come to Green Slovenia, but one of the most difficult pleasures to photograph well or describe when you go back home, are these little picture perfect Slovenian villages on the back roads. Balconies stuffed with flowers, sweetcorn drying on racks, perfect wonky roofs.. sights that fill your eyes up with joy.. so our best advice is to enjoy it while you are here!

If you read our little blog on the dodgy signs here, then you will know we are always on the lookout for road signs that show where there might be a river spring or a castle or whatever hidden away..

Well just as we were about to leave Moste and head back towards Bled on the country road, we noticed a sign that said something about a "recreational park", so of course.. we followed the sign!

Following road signs in Slovenia is sometimes not so easy.. Almost nowhere is flat, so if you are gonna follow a sign for a river spring for example, you will likely head off along a stone track into the forest or go a bit up a mountain!!

On this particular quest we stayed within the town, but the roads curved up and up and up, until finally we happened upon a long new car park, with the end bit still being worked on.

the park is built into the mountains..

We were surrounded by Slovenia's third Alps, the Karavanke, (which is shared with Austria) and we could just not believe our luck as we had parked in front of a large picture perfect lake, reflecting the mountains and forest like a mirror with a little Hobbit like wooden hut on a bridge at the end.

That bridge and the wooden hut are like a magnet, so we marched over to stand on the bridge and admire the beautiful green water. We realised this lake was man made and this bridge was a dam. There are paths leading off into the forest from here too and we felt like kids on Christmas day opening presents, not knowing which one to open next!

Back near the car park, we spotted a sign for "Stol", which at 2,236m is the highest Karavanka mountain, so from here you could also hike or drive up to the first mountain hut and then further up to the top, but make sure you plan this one.

There was still a lot of mystery for us about this place, but the penny was dropping quickly that this was a community park for the local people.. (But where in some countries a community park is somewhere to avoid or pick shopping trollies out of the canal), this community park is so well maintained and in such a beautiful location that it felt more like a national park!

you can walk across the dam to some more forest paths..

We drove up the main track, which we now realise goes upriver, to find a lovely quiet riverside wooden cafe with parking.

It was late afternoon by now, so we stopped by the car to see a herd of cows wandering back down to base from the mountain meadows.. rush hour in Green Slovenia..

With a coffee and ice cream we found out more from the friendly cafe staff.. Yes, this is a community park where local people come to exercise, be in nature and relax.

On weekends the cafe offer Black Swan burgers, (don't panic, not made from swans), which look amazing and we get the feeling there is a barbeque feel here at weekends, which might be right up your street, so if it is, plan to visit on a weekend!

the cafe is next to the river, you can sit above the water..

Don't be scared by the name of the park.. Zavrsnica is the name of the river that flows from several mountain locations where the water is dammed to create that pretty lake and then flows down to join the bigger Sava river.

The cafe is called Zavrh, which might make a little more sense now and means "the end", which won't make too much sense!

A local historian was sitting at a nearby table and when we asked the waitress about the sign we had seen for "Partisans", she brought him over and he explained there was a WW2 Partisans camp further into the park, walkable from here.

It is typical in Slovenia if you sit and talk with the locals they are very friendly and will try to help you out.

hiking path on the other side of the river..

Tito Village Secret Partisan Base..

One of the really special and unique things we have noticed about exploring Slovenia are the hidden Partisan WW2 Forest Hospitals.. such an interesting feature of history where the locals fought the occupying Nazis in a guerilla war, using their advantage and knowledge of the massive forests to create secret moveable bases and hospitals.

By defintion these places were often temporary and either destroyed by the enemy or abandoned, but there were hundreds of them spread around Slovenia in a network, so some have survived and one of our missions here is to find them and let you know where they are so you can visit them too!

Also by definition, these places were highly secret and hidden in the forests.. of course there are maintained paths and signs to them nowadays, but it is still such an adventure to go find one and then try to take in all that history and bravery in an area of remote natural beauty all at once.. indeed this really is quite special and unique in Europe.

Do not expect to find a complex of wooden huts exactly how it was in the early 1940's, these were destroyed or rotted away with time, but there are usually some concrete foundations or maybe a  machine gun nest or something remaining and some info boards to help you imagine how life was in these secret camps.

The best preserved & restored base and indeed one of the best natural museums in the whole of Europe can be found near Cerkno at the Franja WW2 Partisan Hospital, it is breathtaking and unmissable, but there are several others we have found in other stunning locations, so we had to do another entire section on Secret Partisan WW2 Forest Hideaways..

we were shocked to just stumble on such a beautiful place..

If you hike up from the Zavrh cafe along the forest road you can reach the Tito Vas (village), where another of these camps were hidden away.

Next time we visit here we want to cross the dam and explore a bit into the forest and then walk on the other side up the river to the cafe.. then we will hike the short distance to this Partisan Forest camp.

We will not expect huge buildings to still be there, but we will expect to have a fantastic walk in green nature to find a place of real history and courage.. and we cannot wait to go do this!

So all this Green nature and tranquility is a little over 10km from lake Bled!

Indeed Stol is the big mountain you can see from Bled castle if you look back to the huge Alpine panorama behind the start of the lake..

All in all a really great find.. we would describe this very long park as more like a nature park with a cafe and lovely lake than a community park that you might imagine at home.

There are outside sports by the cafe and we get the feeling this green pleasure park gets used fully by locals at weekends and summer evenings, but even then it might not be that busy for you! So probably the best time to come here might be in the week, when it will feel even more empty and you can do this cos you will be on holiday in Green Slovenia!