Cerkno, where the Alps meet the Mediterranean

The Divje babe flute

The tourist board calls the Cerkno area the cradle of world music, because in 1995 the cave of Divje babe, above the Idrijca valley, yielded a flute made by Neanderthals some 60,000 years ago. Today the cave is an archaeological park visited with a guide from April to October.

Franja Partisan Hospital and the museum

In the Pasice gorge at Dolenji Novaki stands the Franja Partisan Hospital, a clandestine Second World War hospital that holds the European Heritage Label. As of 17-10-2026, storm damage had forced it to close. In the centre of the village, the Cerkno Museum occupies the former courthouse, built just before the First World War, and tells the region’s story from the first records in the 13th century, a borderland between Venice, Gorizia and Carniola and later between Italy and Yugoslavia. Today Cerkno belongs, like neighbouring Idrija, to the Goriška region.

The laufarji carnival

At carnival time out comes the laufarija, 25 characters in limewood masks who put the Pust on trial and execute him in the main square. According to the museum, the laufarji call in the spring each year to bring a good harvest; how the trial works and when to see it is in the guide to the Cerkno carnival.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Cerkno before prices climb.

Trails, bikes and Bevk’s house

The country round Cerkno is all plateaus with viewpoints, deep valleys and forest, and the Cerkno Tourist Board covers it with waymarked paths, such as the old mule track climbing from Reka to Šebrelje, and with cycling routes, with e-bikes for hire locally. At Zakojca you can visit the house of the writer France Bevk, which shows how the author lived and worked, and in summer the Idrijca is good for a swim or a spot of fishing.

Skiing, spa and the Idrijca

The Cerkno ski resort counts, in the tourist board’s view, among the most popular in the country and has won several awards, with slopes for every level, a ski school and 5 km of cross-country trails beside it. Cerkno sits on the Idrija Fault, which supplies the thermal water for Hotel Cerkno, which the same source calls the only Slovenian spa in the Julian Alps. In summer the Idrijca, a tributary of the Soča and a Natura 2000 area, has clear pools, gravel beaches and marble trout, and nearby rises the Zaganjalka, an intermittent spring that gives its Slovenian name to every spring of its kind.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Cerkno and choose by the reviews.

Once your dates are set, check which hotels are still free in Cerkno before prices climb.