Ilirska Bistrica, gateway to Mount Snežnik and the bears of Notranjska

What Ilirska Bistrica is

Ilirska Bistrica has 4,291 people and heads a municipality of 13,130 covering 479.9 km², the second largest in Slovenia. To the east rises Mount Snežnik, at 1,796 m the highest peak in Notranjska, and to the north-west begin the Brkini hills, which run on towards Hrpelje-Kozina. In the centre stands the church of St George, from 1752, with baroque altars, Stations of the Cross by Tone Kralj and a marble Virgin by France Gorše.

Kindler Park and Guranji kraj

Next to the centre, Viljem Kindler planted a park with 110 species, 45 conifers and 65 broadleaves, including exotic ones the locals did not believe would survive Bistrica’s climate. It has paths and bridges over a pond, where white and pink locust trees flower in summer. Through its north-western part flow the Bistrica and Sušec rivers, which in the first half of the 1800s drove the sawmills and mills of Guranji kraj, the oldest part of town.

Prem Castle and the Kette and Cankar year

A few kilometres away, Prem Castle is first recorded in 1213, when it belonged to the Lords of Duino. It passed through the Walsees, Emperor Frederick III and the Porcia family, suffered in the First World War and was restored between 1970 and 2008. Today it hosts the «Stone Remembers» exhibition, with objects around 3,000 years old from the Trnovo hillfort. Prem’s old school, open from 1826 to 1977, holds a classroom from socialist Yugoslavia and an exhibition on Dragotin Kette, the poet born here in 1876. 2026 is the Kette and Cankar year, for the 150th anniversary of their births.

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Mašun bears and the škoromati

In the Mašun forests you can watch brown bears from an enclosed hide, with a guide, from 1 May to 31 August from 5pm. The hide is a five-minute drive and a short uphill walk from the Mašun guesthouse, the watching is done in silence and you leave before nightfall. It costs €240 for a group of up to three people or a family. At carnival the škoromati come out, figures from Brkini and the Podgrad valley that the tourist office regards as the oldest living carnival tradition in this part of Europe.

Getting to Ilirska Bistrica

By car, leave the coast motorway at Postojna and continue south through Pivka towards the Croatian border at Jelšane. The tourist office opens Monday to Friday from 9am to 12pm and 1pm to 4pm. Everything else nearby features in the regional guide to Notranjska.

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