Tržič, the shoemakers' town below the Karawanks

The museum of forges and shoes

The museum is housed in the former Pollak dyehouse and tannery, in the old forging and crafts quarter, beside the water chutes that survive. Its shoemaking display, with more than 500 items, audiovisual material and interactive corners, is in the museum’s own words the richest collection of shoes and shoemaking in Slovenia. Another room explains how leather was tanned, and there are collections on cartwrights, blueprinting and textiles, plus a room on the Born family of barons, who left their mark on Jelendol.

Pollak Cottage holds the Slovenian Skiing Museum, because Tržič is one of the cradles of skiing in the country. It runs from prehistory and the Bloke skis that Valvasor described in the 17th century to Bojan Križaj, Mateja Svet and Žan Košir. Thirty-five athletes from Tržič have competed at the Olympic Games. Kurnik House, from the 18th century and with two black kitchens, shows how people lived in the town.

The Dovžan Gorge, 300 million years old

Some 3.2 km north-east of town, the Tržiška Bistrica river has cut the Dovžan Gorge into the heart of the Karawanks and laid bare the most complete sequence of late Palaeozoic rocks, between 300 and 260 million years old. A tropical sea covered the area then, and the walls are full of fossils, some of them first described here. It has been a protected natural monument for more than 25 years, and an educational trail runs through it. In its narrowest stretch, about 150 m long, the river tumbles between blocks of conglomerate in a series of cascades. For more geology, look at the Karawanken Geopark.

Ljubelj: the pass and the camp memorial

The Ljubelj pass at the head of the valley is marked by two stone obelisks, raised in 1728 by the Carniolan nobility to commemorate the emperor’s journey over it. The Tržič tourist board presents it as the oldest road pass in Europe; the Romans already used it to link Emona with Virunum. The old road is closed to cars except in September, when the international vintage race climbs it, and in winter there’s an extreme sledding run.

The present 1.8 km tunnel opened in 1964, and the prisoners of the Ljubelj camp were made to work on it. It was the only camp on Slovenian territory in the Second World War and one of the 49 subcamps of Mauthausen, and between 1943 and 1945 more than a thousand prisoners laboured there in appalling conditions. There’s a memorial and an exhibition about the camp, and the guide to the history of Slovenia gives the wider context.

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

Tržič bržole and festivals

The best-known dish is Tržič bržole, a lamb or goat stew. Legend has it that a merry group on Kofce mountain ran out of food, caught a sheep and cooked it with herbs and spices from the mountain. The municipality puts on more than a hundred events a year, from concerts, theatre and folklore to sporting events. Heading down towards Kranj, the Udin boršt forest, which Tržič shares with Naklo, has themed trails for a quiet morning.

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

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