Brezice & Tower of Hearts
It should come as no surprise to you to know that the real beauty of Green Slovenia can be discovered outside the towns, so one of the best pieces of advice you can get for discovering the Greenest little country in Europe is to ignore the traditional way of joining up the dots and town hopping to explore a new country..
There is also no need to stay in the biggest dots on the map, like you might do in other countries..
Slovenia is so tiny that you can pretty much get right across it in a few hours, so it seemed obvious for us to locate our comfy Lodge between the mountains and the sea in the perfect logistical location to allow our guests to pick & choose which Green Dots they go visit!
And we call those Green Dots our Secret Places to Visit!
But there is a whole array of very different pretty, interesting, cute, medieval, wierd & wonderful towns & villages that could easily fit into your daytrip agenda for a bit of a look around, something to eat, maybe visit a micro museum and meet the locals!
So we also did a page to help you find the little urban gems around here, called Pretty Cities & Villages..
Some of the cities will surprise you how close they are to the Lodge, but we guess a lot of the smaller towns worth visiting will most likely be completely unknown and often unpronounceabubble names to you!
Well, Brezice, tucked away in the far Eastern corner of Slovenia, just before the border exit to Zagreb is certainly one of those towns, but even this is just a one hour 30 min drive directly from the Lodge and we absolutely love the place, so we are gonna tell you all about it!
Green Slovenia has lots of towns and villages that are spelt and look a lot like Brežice and the wiggly worm on top of the Ž makes it sound soft, whereas the C does not have a wiggly worm on top, so is a hard sound, which means we need to say "Breshizza" to get it right!
Well, we would not describe Brezice as cute & cuddly, but wierd, wonderful and a little bit kooky..
It would be a great alternative secret place to stop off & explore, either on the way to or from Croatia, OR as the first stop on a daytrip from the Lodge, opening up a whole array of other secret places to see on the way back!
The town grew on us, our first trips here were connected to a couple of routine hospital visits.. Slovenia has lots of regional hospitals, specializing in different stuff, so sometimes you get sent to places you wouldn't think to go otherwise.
The town sits on quite a flat region with one very long high street in the middle and the rest of the town spreading outwards in blocks, so it doesn't have the look or feel of what you might imagine a traditional Slovenian town would look like.
The stand out, unique feature is the tall pink tower that dominates the skyline around here and our first question, when we popped into the TIC, (Tourist Info Centre) over a decade ago now, was of course.. "Can we go up the tower?"
The answer we got is all too familiar to us in Slovenia, unfortunately and one of the reasons we try put so much info into this website to help you discover the secret places that are open and worth visiting..
Our answer was "soon", which is marginally better than never..
So we left this tower on our list of places to discover and kept our eye on the situation..
Of course there is a castle here too, (this is Slovenia!), but we had also found a really, really fab restaurant and learnt about the existence of a micro brewery AND discovered that the Krka river joins with the bigger Sava river on the edge of town..
So a proper Brezice adventure day out was literally brewing and finding out that the tower was finally open to the public, tipped us over the edge and we left after breakfast on a hot summer's day to go explore Brezice!
Getting to Brezice..
The motorways are so good here that it really is just a 90 min whizz from the Lodge past Ljubblyjana, direction Zagreb until you are rolling up the high street in Brezice and wondering why there are so many empty spaces to park..
The only slightly tricky thing in this trip is to make sure you do not miss the Brezice motorway exit and carry on to the Croatian border, Zagreb is just another half an hour from here..
When you exit the motorway you go over a river bridge into Brezice and note this is over the mighty 990km long Sava river, which starts in Green Slovenia and flows about 220km to Brezice and the border..
There is plenty of parking in the town centre along the long High street, just pay a few Euros in the parking meter unless you are averse to contributing to the local economy and then there are plenty of side streets just off the town centre.
The castle is one end of the High st and the restaurant we will recommend is at the other end, with the tower in the middle, but just one street back.. You can walk between them all, so best to find a parking spot somewhere in the middle of the High st..
Visiting Brezice..
Our plan was simple.. Start with the pink tower and then visit the castle for the first time and take it from there, with lunch at one of our fave restaurants in Slovenia..
It is a combination of the EU money being thrown at Slovenia and in our humble opinion, the lack of understanding of quite a few of the people in charge of actually spending that dosh, that means you will unfortunately find several very impressive, brand new sparkling towers here, but seemingly just built for the sake of it, with views that frankly leave you wondering what you are actually looking at!
The best views are from the many old towers & castles in Slovenia still desperately in need of rennovation or TLC with spectacular locations, so if you do get the chance to go see a TOWER, generally we would say the older the better!
Well, cockadoodledo, Brezice tower is an outstanding example of what funding, local people and a decent bit of history can produce and we were totally blown away by the fantastic job that has been done.. many congratulations!
the Tower of Hearts..
This unique pink tower was built in 1914 as a water tower, so the big bit at the top was layered in concrete and filled with water for the residents of Brezice until the tower became redundant when new techniques of water supply became available.
But this is Slovenia, so it has that medieval look about it with the traditional red tiled roof and when you know where to look, it is obvious to see the large wooden hearts built around every window at the top of the tower..
Well, the guy who designed this tower had those big hearts put in so the love of his life, a lucky lady who lived down below in the town, could look up every day at the tower and see the hearts from every angle!
This is real Shakespearean romantic love story stuff and we decided that just being called water tower was not enough for this building..
So with your permission, we are gonna call it.. The Tower of Hearts!
They have done a terrific job of renovating this tower and the only thing missing is to get the marketing toolbox out and properly call it "the Tower of Hearts"!
There is a modern cafe, TIC (Tourist Info Centre) and visitor centre at the base, which ensures a little bit of sustainability, until us tourists properly start finding and visiting it.. (That is where you come in by the way)!!
The dark green spiral staircase that winds it's way up inside the 46 metre high tower is the original one, but there is also a modern lift.
There are several levels on the way up where the lift stops with different museum style displays on each level, where you can learn the history of the tower and how people used the water in this town over the years.
The view gets better the higher up you go and once you get to the large water storage area you can see the thickness of the concrete and a submarine like window so you can really imagine how much water was stored up here!
The tower maybe feels a bit more like a lighthouse than a tower, with a really homely feeling and strong connection to the town below.
From up top you can see amazing views from the each heart window..
There is a fab vista over the old town and High st with pretty red roofs and you can see the straight road line that goes directly from the tower to the big castle..
You can also see the Sava river on the outskirts of the town, which is the longest river in Slovenia and will continue it's journey acroos the Balkons to Serbia and finally meet the Danube river.
This is also the spot where the stunning Krka river flows into the Sava, but try as we might we could not see this confluence from the top of the tower.. (We made sure to find it later on terra firma though)!
You will also notice up here how flat the surrounding terrain is, which is rare for Slovenia, but don't worry there are plenty of hills to see in the distance and direction East is Croatia..
There are lots of little features and nice touches everywhere inside the tower though and metal plates name various cities which only Superman could see from here, despite the excellent views..
Another display shows videos of other water towers around the world and each one is completely unique.. Maybe today is the day when you even realised water towers existed, but there are actually a lot around the world in all shapes & sizes!
But this big pink tower is absolutely unique and there really is a point to visiting apart from the fab views from up top.
The friendly staff also help to make this a really nice place to visit and one massive tip we can give you whenever you are visiting a quieter regional tower or castle like this is to be a bit cheeky and ask if someone could show you around..
There are usually not many other visitors around apart from school groups, so you might be lucky like we were and you can learn & understand so much more about the tower, the history and the town by hangin out with a local!
Brezice Castle..
You can buy a double ticket for the castle and the tower to visit in either order and now we strolled down the pretty High st to the castle.
Make sure you at least see that long side street leading directly from the tower to the castle as this and the High St would be the only bits that we would describe here as an old town.
We had no idea what to expect from the castle, except that someone had told us there were a lot of frescoes there.
And boy were there a lot of frescoes!
You go up a grand stone staircase to the first floor where most of the museum exhibits are and are immediately surrounded by Gods and warriors, even on the ceiling. It is very spectacular.
Like many Slovenian castles there is a big courtyard inside the castles walls in the middle and you also get a warm feeling that this castle is really connected with the town, there was a big marqee tent down there for some show or party..
It becomes clear when walking around here that the castle settlement dates back to Roman times and this area was very connected to river fishing, especially from the Krka river that flows into the Sava nearby.
It is no coincidence that nowadays the main motorway from Croatia and Eastern Europe passes past Brezice and along the Sava as this is an ancient avenue to Ljubljana and Rome..
There are Roman exhibits, including a fabulous chariot and other stuff about the history of the local fire brigade and fishing industry..
But if you thought that was the end of the frescoes, just wait till you enter a side door and pop out at the top of a staircase that leads down into a huge room completely covered in frescoes!
It is really spectacular again and full of chairs for meetings or maybe weddings, but how could you concentrate on anything but the frescoes in here!
This was a museum that we did NOT get guided around, so we didn't get an instant cheat or clue to locate the spot where maybe, just maybe the artist had painted themselves into one of the many frescoes..
This is a feature of several other castles we know here, but we do not know if this was done in Brezice, but we cannot think of another castle that has more frescoes in total than Brezice, so maybe have a look for yourself!
Most museums in Slovenia do not suck up your time and we describe them as micro museums, so it is always usually possible to go explore showing enough respect AND absorbing plenty of local info in about an hour or so.
Equally you could read every sign and info board in the place and spend 3 hours in most micro museums too.
Oh yes and make sure you do not leave this castle until you have explored the huge cellar under the castle.. It goes on and on and we will leave it to you to find out if all those bottles are still full!
Some of you will live in new world countries where museums might be housed in purpose built concrete warehouses, but this is Europe and Green Slovenia has a lot of very old castles, which make perfect hosts for museums and there is almost always a very local element to them too.
Here in Brezice look out especially for a map that shows the different flags or rulers of just this section of Slovenia to show how complicated the history was, with more changes than a Parisian catwalk fashion show..
But we urge you to remember that the language was always the same and this WAS always and IS always Slovenian and this language, despite being completely unpronounceabubble for the rest of us, is the glue that has held this proud little country together for centuries, regardless how the big boys in the playground have tried to twist and shape it..
Restaurants..
We really enjoyed the castle and now it was time for lunch so we high tailed it down the other end of the High St to a restaurant we already knew called Debeluh, or the Fat Man.. and if you eat here and taste the amazing food on offer at this Michelin starred restaurant you will understand how you could get quite fat eating here!
We should also explain there are several other restaurants along the high street and some nice cafes too. One pizzeria is very grand & quirky and looks as if some frescoes and paintings have been borrowed from the castle!
But we only had eyes for Debeluh.. We could not care less if it is a Michelin or not, just like you, we are interested in trying good home cooked local Slovenian food and for the slight premium you pay here it is probably impossible to find such quality, uniqueness and value for the same price in your country.
We ordered the daily menu and received several imaginative, colourful, inspirational and creative wonders that perfectly matched the beautiful interior of this restaurant.
But like we said, there are pizzerias and other local restaurants if you prefer and if you fancy some pub grub in Slovenia, then hold on for our next stop, which was a local micro brewery, also with a restaurant!
Reset Brewery..
There is nothing wrong with the two main Slovenian beers called Lasko and Union and you will be offered them at every single cafe here, but Slovenians are incredibly creative people so whenever you can sniff out a micro brewery, go visit and guess what, there is one in Brezice!
Reset has an out of town location, but Brezice is pretty small, so just put it in the satnav and within minutes you will be parked up outside the pub.
You can see the micro brewery bubbling away through big glass winows and the brewery has a friendly sports bar format inside with pub grub and a long bar..
There are several brews to try and you can choose a selection of smaller glasses on a wooden taster tray with the numbers written on so you can remember which beer was your favourite!
You can also do a tour too, but make sure you arrange this in advance!
Why we love Brezice..
So Brezice might not be the most beautiful town in Slovenia and when you drive in along the long recatangular American style blocks into the town centre you might be wondering what you have let yourself in for!
But the big pink tower will immediately reassure you this is a kooky place and everywhere you go expect unexpected frescoes on walls, doors on ceilings and generally something that you would not maybe expect to see in Slovenia..
Add in the very easy to navigate High st and all these secret places here you now know about make Brezice a real contender for your day out in the East!
The Confluence of the Krka and the Sava rivers..
The only minor disappointment or should we say frustration for this day was how poorly respected the very place where two of Slovenia's best known rivers meet has been done, or completely ignored!
We huffed and we puffed, but we could not find a path or spot where you could admire the smaller Krka river joining the Sava, but we are determined, so we worked out you have to drive over the bridge out of town and park in the motorway exit village of Catez ob Savi..
Then you have to cross the busy road and walk across the busy road bridge on the narrow pavement back to the middle of the river Sava where you finally get a great long distance view of the confluence, but risk having your wig blown off in the draft of the lorries and trucks that blast past just inches away from you!
Huge apologies if there is a little cafe, with a viewing deck closer to the confluence, but we didn't find it!
Mokrice Castle..
A final mention of another castle just over the other side of the river, direction Croatia, that has been turned into a hotel with a golf course, but is also the scene of the video for "Heart" a Pet Shop Boys classic from the 80's..
Other stuff to Do on the Way home..
So depending on how you planned your daytrip and how long you spent in Brezice and how much time is left in the day, you have plenty of options for the way home..
Just glance at our Secret Places Treasure Map to see the huge choice available..
We had left straight after breakfast, so had just one more location in mind with this being a hot summers day and within 20 mins we were swimming and boating in the stunning Krka river at Kostanjevice, Chestnut island to round off a most excellent and unexpected day out in the South East of Green Slovenia!
French Connection en Slovenie
