The Juliana Trail, 270 km round the Julian Alps without a summit

What the Juliana Trail is like

It keeps to the edge of Triglav National Park, following the Sava and Soča valleys, low mountain passes, farmland, hamlets and the odd town. The tourist board calls it family-friendly because most of it is flat, although the stages add up to around 10,000 m of ascent and the same again in descent. Beyond the main loop there are four approach stages from Goriška Brda and three more towards Breginjski kot, which add 42 km.

Waymarking is good. You can follow it on the official app, on the interactive map on the Julian Alps website or with the printed guide sold at the information centres in Bovec, Kobarid and Tolmin. In 2020 the trail was a finalist in the British Guild of Travel Writers’ awards for European tourism projects.

Which stages are toughest?

The longest go past 20 km, such as Mojstrana to Jesenice or Kobarid to Bovec. The biggest climb is Podbrdo to Grahovo ob Bači, with 1,009 m of ascent and the steep bit straight out of the village. Bled to Pokljuka gains 900 m up to the plateau, and Log pod Mangartom to Tarvisio, in Italy, opens with 500 m of unbroken climbing to the Predel Pass. They’re all in the table.

The Soča Valley tourist board says you should be fit enough to walk 5 to 6 hours or 15 to 25 km a day. A single stage isn’t hard; several in a row will test your legs.

What you pass on the way

This is the real pull. The route goes past the Zelenci reserve, the 52 m Peričnik waterfall and Lake Jasna in the Upper Sava Valley. It passes through Radovljica, which keeps Slovenia’s last remaining defensive moat, and its museum devoted to bees. It enters Bled, whose castle appears in written sources as early as 1011, and Bohinj, with the Savica waterfall. On the far side, in the Soča Valley, come the Great Soča Gorge, the Juliana botanical garden in Trenta with some 600 species, Kluže fortress above the Koritnica gorge, the Kobarid Museum, the Kozjak waterfall and the Tolmin Gorges. If you add the extra stages, it closes through Goriška Brda.

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Where to eat on the trail

Every valley has its dish. In Rateče, rateški krapi, potato parcels filled with curd cheese. In Radovljica, honey. In Bled, the cream cake. In Bohinj, Mohant cheese, which carries a protected designation of origin. In Kobarid, štruklji that each cook signs with a fingerprint. And in the Soča Valley, Tolminc and Bovec cheeses.

My suggested plan

With a week, I’d walk the northern half, Kranjska Gora to Bohinj via Bled, or the western half, Bovec to Tolmin via Kobarid. With two weeks, the full loop is realistic if you’re used to walking every day. Either way I’d sleep in villages with transport, so a wet day means skipping a stage rather than slogging through it. I compare the other long routes in hiking in Slovenia, and the wider area in the Julian Alps guide.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Bled on GetYourGuide.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Bled for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.