Detour #340: The Joys of the Julian Alps, Slovenia

In the heart of Slovenia’s popular tourist region, Detour discovers a mountain pass with neck-craning vertical views.

The mountain peaks of the Julian Alps tower over every driver who ventures across the Vršič Pass, a spectacular a gorge-like passage carved right through Slovenia’s rugged limestone heart. Known as the ‘Russian Road’ – after the First World War Russian prisoners who constructed it – the hairpin-filled trail route designed to connect the Soča and Sava valleys for military logistics. Now, it provides a stunningly scenic alternative to the more well-trodden fast road route between the two destinations, which crosses in and out of Italy.

My drive begins from the south east, in the bustling mountain town of Bovec – an adventure hub nestled in the forested hills, where activities range from white water rafting to aerial adventures such as paragliding. A few miles north, I take a sharp turn onto the 206, briefly turning back on myself before heading east alongside the Soca River, an icy glacial flow that turned a radiant turquoise blue in the sunshine. 

The open valley of small farms, wooden hayracks and stone cottages slowly tightens as hills covered in dense alpine forest envelope the road towards Trenta, where I turn north and begin a relentless ascent. The scenery quickly becomes wilder and more remote as the cliffs grow steeper and the road becomes more contorted, travelling through an arm-aching 26 hairpin bends to reach the summit. At the top, the road flattens and the world opens up to wildflower-filled alpine meadows, stretching out to mountain peaks on all sides. A sizeable car park at the 1,611m summit offers a pause from the journey, with a cluster of mountain huts that vend ice cream to cool off from the scorching heat.

I take the chance to explore this area for an hour or so, taking in some of the mountain air by joining a circular hiking path that leads to a variety of spectacular viewpoints. One of the main highlights is the Heathen Maiden (Ajdovska deklica) – a face-shaped rock formation cast in the northern face of Mount Prisojnik, where legend tells of a stone maiden who wept for the fate of her people and is now immortalised in the cliffs. Time permitting, it is possible to explore further for hours, taking on longer trails that spread far and wide from the parking area and offer stunning 360-degree views of this otherwise impossible to reach heartland.

Returning to the road, I continue my journey along the flat, passing through a mass of cars at the summit before beginning the descent. Quickly, the road begins to snarl up again into a sequence of 24 sharp hairpin bends, many of which still contain their original banked curves and cobble stones. As I quickly lose altitude, the cliffs become bigger, creating a far more enclosed section than the one on the drive up, with occasional pull-offs providing a chance to stop and enjoy the more open sections, with sweeping views toward Kranjska Gora, the deep green forest carpet below and the sharp mountains of Triglav National Park.

The relentless descent eventually drops into the Pišnica River valley, where a widening landscape dominated by lush pine forest and distant towering peaks concludes at a picturesque lakeside park just outside Kranjska Gora, looking back on the towering mountains through which I have just travelled. The full route runs roughly 24km from Kranjska Gora to Trenta and can be completed in under an hour without stops – but with views this good, why rush it?

Words & Photography Will Gray

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ROADBOOK

CLASS: Mountain PasS

NAME: Vršič Pass

ROUTE: Bovec to Kranjska Gora

COUNTRY: SLOVENIA

Distance: 15 Miles

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