Olimje, a monastery pharmacy below Mt Rudnica

What’s in Olimje monastery?

The building was a castle of the Attems counts and now belongs to the municipality. It’s home to Minorite friars, the Friars Minor of St Francis. You enter over a drawbridge beneath a portal with a fresco of St Paul the Hermit and two lions. Beside it, the Church of the Assumption, with black and gold altars, is according to the friars one of the finest baroque works in the country.

On the ground floor of the south tower is the old monastery pharmacy, with frescoes, left by the Pauline fathers who lived here from 1663 to 1783. The tourist board presents it as the third-oldest pharmacy in Europe. For me it’s the most interesting part of the whole place.

Herbs, chocolate and beer

The Minorites carry on the Paulines’ tradition with a garden of over 200 medicinal plants in front of the monastery, and by the entrance they run a herbal remedies shop. In front of the building there’s a pond of goldfish that children enjoy.

Close by, Chocolaterie Olimje sells hand-made chocolate, and the Haler homestead runs one of Slovenia’s first home breweries, using water from beneath Mt Rudnica which, according to the tourist board, shares the properties of the neighbouring spa’s thermal water. A geological trail loops round the hamlet and explains the rocks of Kozjansko. Nearby, the Jelenov greben guesthouse has deer roaming freely over about 8 hectares, a small wellness area, Wellness Lara, and the Land of Fairy Tales and Imagination, home to characters from Slovenian and other fairy tales. Kozjansko apples, juice and monastery tea often turn up on local restaurant tables, according to the tourist board.

A hamlet below Mt Rudnica

Olimje is a hamlet of 295 people in Podčetrtek municipality, according to the SURS count for early 2026. The friars describe it sheltering below Mt Rudnica, inside Kozjansko Regional Park, and note that it was picked in 2009 and 2013 in the Entente Florale contest among Europe’s best-kept villages. An avenue of pear trees lines the approach, which the tourist board sees as proof that locals care about keeping old fruit varieties alive.

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

Olimje with Terme Olimia and Kozjansko

Olimje takes two or three hours, a little longer if you add the deer farm. I’d pair it with an afternoon at Terme Olimia or a walk through the Kozjansko orchards. If you’d like more monasteries, Žiče Charterhouse is in the same region of Savinjska.

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

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