Tour of Slovenia with a dog

When my husband tasted a Slovenian white wine, suggested: “Why don’t we go to Slovenia?” And we did.

Five days for a vacation without kids. But with a dog where to go? The answer was “Slovenia“. A destination far from mass tourism and often, wrongly, unknown, but is waiting to be discovered.

Helpful links

Planning a tour in Slovenia was quite simple but intense, because we decided to go only a couple of weeks before. As always, a great help came from the Lonely Planet guide dedicated to this country, from some travel forums and from the official website of Slovenian tourism. From the latter, I expected a lot of practical informations about locations and attractions, and it’s a good site where become aware of the national beauties.

We had some difficulties to find accommodations: there are many hotels and apartments that don’t accept dogs in Slovenia, so the choice was limited. Nevertheless, the solutions we found were acceptable.

We opted for villages close to fields and green areas in wich we could walk with Atena after a day spent between cars and city visits.

Our tour of Slovenia

The most difficult thing was to decide which attractions exclude… With only five days available it was inevitable to leave out something.

Slovenia is very small, its surface area is less than Lombardy and from the capital Ljubljana you can reach any place by car in about 2 hours. However, we wanted to avoid rushed visits, forced marches and endless car crossings.

We decided to go through the main towns and leave out the Alps, the caves and the spas. In fact, the size of our dog made impossible for us to visit the last two options.

What did I know about Slovenia?

Nothing! Before I had started planning my trip to Slovenia, I knew absolutely nothing about this country. Like many people, I had seen the stand at EXPO 2015, but nothing more.

So planning this tour was a real opportunity to learn new things.

For those of you, like me, unaware of the history of this place, let me tell you that this is the first country that became independent from Yugoslavia. In 1991, after the Ten Day War, Slovenia broke away from the Yugoslav Federation. Thanks to its location, far from the bloodiest theaters of Balkans war, it managed to remain unscathed during the conflicts and since 2004 has become part of the European Union.

If you are wondering, yes, the Euro is in use since 2007.

Slovenia is a very greeny land: its surface is covered for 60% by pristin forest and you can see it traveling by car!

As we imagined, wine production is very important: if you love wine tasting and visiting wine cellars, this is the place for you!

In Slovenia with your dog?

In Slovenia dogs are generally allowed in open-air places.

We decided to bring with us Atena, our Spanish galgo, a levrier of about 20 kg and 63 cm in height at the withers.

We found very few indications about tourism with dogs in Slovenia. So the only thing we could have done was hoping that everything would be okay.

No dogs in Slovenian museums: if you plan to visit a lot of collections, you will have to leave your pet at home. On the contrary, you can bring your dog to any open place, from castles to parks.

Dogs are not even allowed in Slovenian spas and caves. The Postojna Cave, one of the main attractions of Slovenia, has a guarded kennel at the entrance.

We took our dog in all restaurants with no restrictions – although on at least one occasion the restaurateur wasn’t very pleased.

As always, the dog must be on a leash and bags and muzzles must be on hand. We had a canine passport and vaccination booklet, but it was never required.

We left Slovenia in August on a sunny late summer day.