It was a dull cloudy morning so there was no swimming on the cards. Lisa and I checked out the sculpture garden on the site after getting our passports checked – a Slovenian requirement.

The site has an annual art event where artists come and create art pieces. some stay here.

After getting organised we drove off for the day – up the mountain to the Sabotin Peace Park. The road was very steep and narrow between houses at some points but leveled out at the top through trees for several kilometers. The road had been built during WW1.

Trenches remain from WW1 in the battle between the Austrian Hungarians and the Italians from 1915 to 1917. The views were fantastic. However the conditions the soldiers would have had to deal with would have been horrendous.

There were lots of artifacts around.

There was also a pub at the top that had a large amount of missiles, guns and photographs.

The rat tree was my favourite.

We had a beer at the pub – as we had to do and then walked through the trenches.

We had lunch in the van and then went down the hill to the medieval village of Smartno from before the 1300s perched on a cliff.

On the way we found a celebration of Slovenian independence in 1991 with a timeline of Slovenian history and photos.

We had a nice wander around Smartno

The paintings on the inside of the chapel were very impressive.

The black clouds were gathering and it was starting to shower as we got back to the van.

The last quick stop was to see the Austrian-Hungarian military cemetery. We initially went through the normal cemetery and found that a railway had now cut off the route to the military cemetery. We could only see it through the trees.

We did however get a good view of the world’s longest stone arch railroad bridge.

We then returned to the campsite to have a rest before the big event of the day – the 7 course degustation dinner with wine. We had a snooze and got glammed up to walk the short distance to the campsite restaurant.

The restaurant is on a patio under a vine roof. Luckily half of it was glass covered as it was raining quite heavily.

This is the before version when we were neat and civilized about to have the first drink of sparkling rose berbera.

Here is the menu.

Each of the 7 courses was a visual masterpiece – with many components that went together to give amazing flavours. Here’s a selection of the dishes.

The waiter was quite a drama queen and was delighted when he found out we were from Sydney and Newcastle, Australia. He had been working there as a sommelier in York Street. He knew someone on the Slovenian Olympic team and ended up being responsible for looking after the first 2 gold medals won by Slovenia ever – while wildly getting drunk and taking some substances. It sounded like he was looked after by the police to get him home at 4am when he was in a rather shabby state. Luckily he still had the medals and said Sydneysiders were so trustworthy and friendly that he thought it was the best place in the world. He then gave us special attention after that and gave us all extra wine. Sean was very happy as we were onto his favourite – a robust berbera red.

We were impressed by the artistic plates and the innovative but simple cutlery stands.

We worked our way through it all and we were a bit wobbly making our way back to our vans. it was a very special and enjoyable experience- but not something to do often.

We all slept soundly that night.