The Big Trip

After some genealogy breakthroughs during the Covid shutdown regarding our family in Slovenia I set a goal of one day traveling there to get a better sense of what our family left and what they left behind. In March of 2024 I was able to make this trip a reality not only for myself, but for my kids, brother, parents and husband.

Our Slovenia trip started with an overnight flight through Paris then to Ljubljana for our party of 10.  We arrived to pick up our van (a manual 9 passenger James lovingly drove) and headed to a lovely B&B in Tačen.  Dvor Tačen was our home base for the first few days with lovely hosts, spacious rooms and a delicious cafe.  

First up was a food tour in downtown Ljubljana.  We hit 6 restaurants, with plenty of stops along the way for art and architecture.  First up was a restaurant with a turnip/barley stew and the infamous pumpkin seed oil.  We then headed down the street to the for Carniolan Sausage.  This was the kids’ favorite Slovenian of the trip!  Next was a more traditional meat/cheese board (with more wine of course!) And then a lovely seafood stop with a small fried white fish we ate like fries and grilled sardines.  We wrapped up the evening on top the Ljubljana skyscraper (all 7 floors!) With Gibanica layer cake.  The food tour upon landing was a working strategy for our Paris trip the year before and while we may have had a kid fall asleep during the meat/cheese course, it was a good way to help us get some good walking and sunshine in to counteract the jet lag, get a brief overview of Llubljana and try a lot of little dishes along the way.

After a full night’s sleep, we then headed back into Ljubljana.  We picked up Ljubljana cards at the airport that were bus passes and museum entry passes combined. It was pretty rainy and overcast, so first up was a fun stop with the kids at the Museum of Illusions on the recommendation of a Bozeman friend!  So much fun!  Then we headed up to Ljubljana castle, which felt like a must do.  

However, our most exciting stop of the day was scheduled for the afternoon when we met with our cousins in the house where my great, great, great grandfather, Gaspar Setina was born in!  The family were gracious hosts with the younger generation generously serving as interpreters for the older generations as we shared photos, stories, family trees and FOOD!  The family had prepared a Slovenian feast for us complete with potica, cured meats, creme cake, and more! 

The next day was when we hit the big three tourist attractions of Slovenia.  They are touristy and popular for a reason and I couldn’t imagine coming to Slovenia and not seeing them.  First up was the Postonja Caves.  After a 15 minute, fast and narrow train ride we then took about a 45 minute meander through a large, gorgeous cave system and then a return train ride.  We even saw the infamous olms or cave salamanders.  Next up was Predjama Castle.  This was a very fun castle to explore up and down through the castle and the cave it was built into.

Finally we headed to Lake Bled.  The weather wasn’t the greatest but we took an expertly rowed Plecnca boat to the island where we took a coffee and potica stop before heading back.  Our last stop of the day was the Bled castle, another interesting castle to explore.  Though it can be overwhelming and confusing, it’s so good for the kids to see artifacts and change from over 2000 years.  We closed out the day with a visit to the gostilina near our hotel for some home cooked deliciousness.

The next day was our second day with a tour guide to explore some more rural areas of Slovenia where my dad’s paternal grandmother came from.  Our first stop was at a Honey place and while it was the wrong time of year to see the bees or harvesting, they did an excellent job explaining the process of honey harvesting and shared tastes of their many delicious products.  Then our guide took us to a museum of telecommunications housed in (what else) the local castle/mansion.  The kids connected calls on a switch board, sent messages by morse code and saw plenty of Nokia phones from their parents’ younger years on display.  

Next up we headed to Nova Oselica/Savodenj.  Our guide arranged a stop for us to visit the local church on the hill where our great, great, great, great grandfather, Anton Zajc (Seitz) carved the alters and where my dad’s grandmother was baptized.  Afterward, she helped us translate with the family who owns the property where our family came from, including the carved cellar entry way.  They graciously welcomed us in liquers, cookies and stories and research of our extended family.  Their middle school son had recently done a report on our family members and they gave us a copy of it.  It was a beautiful visit, and a beautiful property and gave us a sense of the rural area Grandma Pozun left.

Next up we headed to Domzale, the area where my dad’s maternal grandfather came from.  We  stopped in at the Straw Hat Museum,  Roman the guide was a fantastic host who walked us through the straw hat making process, which may or may not connect to a series of photos I have of the Majdics of that area harvesting hay. We then found a park and mansion that at one point was owned by our extended family and a monument to Peter Majdic.  I dug a little deeper into that with a post here.

We wrapped up with a short visit to the Kamnik medieval town for Burek and coffee and a meat vending machine!  

The next day we headed back into Ljubljana for some last minute snacks and delicacies and for the kids to do some shopping.  We wrapped up with a gorgeous sunny day at the meat market where a series of school tour groups enjoyed people watching Uncle Matt’s mohawk and Catherine got her mini-Potica!

Our last days were in the rural village of Čanje.  The house had a gorgeous view, made delicious wine and had plenty of neighborhood animals to come say hi.  The next day we headed out exploring where we found the Kobal Winery with a patient, gracious wine maker and  thanks to some wonderful genealogy work by genealogy-slovenia and some assistance from our fabulous AirBNB host, we met up with more family on their farm who only vaguely knew they had family in the US.  Finding a rental a short walk from our family was a beautiful experience.  They came up to the house and walked us down to their property where we met more cousins and explored my great grandfather’s homestead.  They make their own wines, sausages and in general very delicious food that we enjoyed, along with lovely company!  

I still have a ton of genealogy related information, photos and more to uncover as well as deeper stories to tell about the Zajc family of Savodenj who were famous carvers and all their art we discovered, more work to do to learn about the Majdics, some mystery photos of a butcher who lived near the Fire School in the 50s/60s and more.