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After presenting Andorra as a summer destination, Slovenia is also worth the introduction. Of course you’ve heard about all the great winter activities in Slovenia. From cross-country to downhill skiing, ice-skating, tobogganing and natural hot springs, winter resorting in Slovenia is a shoe-in for a great time.

What I love about  Slovenia in summer is the taste of “real” rural life one can get. I mean, I can stay on a farm, experience real farm living, help with farm chores and, get this, eat real farm-fresh foods. This sort of Slovenia farm vacation is getting more and more popular these days. It’s nice to know where your food comes from, anyway.

To put it eloquently, a summer mountain vacation in the Slovene Alps renders an organic biosphere of freshness and great outdoors. When I go to in the mountains, I generally stay for a few nights near Kranjska Gora. Kranjska Gora is where I can get my trekking and horseback riding skills on. Once I’ve done my daily farm chores, I head out with buddies (and family) to experience this infinite outdoor country. The Kranjska Gora area in the Slovene Alps is known for not only it’s natural snow, but has visitors going wild over it’s organic cheeses, veggies, fruits and free-range meats. After a long hike, it’s nice to eat foods that are unprocessed and mountain crisp. You don’t even want to get me started on the wines.

If farm work doesn’t fit in your idea of real vacation, Bohinjska Bistrica is a great place to have some family summer fun in the Slovene Alps. Bohinjska Bistrica is a real kayak and canoeing Mecca and it gets visitors by the truck loads. But, don’t worry, I don’t think it’s ever felt too crowded or over-packed. The winter resorts turn into summer retreats for most of the tourists who come to the area anyway. The best package deals, though, will be found online, from what I have gathered.

Once when I stayed and worked as a farm hand near Bohinjska Bistrica here in the Slovene (Julian) Alps, I got to draw milk from my first cow. You can do the same, though the taste will be quite a bit sourer than from the carton. (Is pasteurized such a bad thing anyway? I don’t really think so.) Plus, you can help make your own butter, which you can take home, and see how other products are made, packaged and sold. It’s really neat to learn where all that “packaged” food comes from.

If you’re a hiking fool like me, then you’ll want to at least once trek up Mount Triglav in the Triglav National Park, also part of the Slovene Alps. If you don’t like mountain hiking, then the Sava, Kolpa or Soca Rivers are all close enough to take a kayak, canoe or raft down. Often, Lake Bled has some great swimming areas. To tell you the truth, I just can’t get over the fantastic fishing, either from a boat or off the bank here. I could spend a thousand endless summers in this area in general, and in Slovenia particularly. Staying in one of the Slovene Alps resorts is a great way to have comfy living standards on your vacation.

To enjoy the countryside and all the organic goodness that comes from the earth without doing any farm work, it is possible to take a mountain vacation staying on the periphery of the farm. There are some great small towns to drive through, where markets and food stands wait with cheeses, wines, veggies, fruits and everything between. You can buy directly from the farmers themselves. It’s a great system, almost like a fair trade expo.

What I like the best about Slovenia is, yes the outdoors, yes the food and heck, if you’ve never seen a sheep traffic jam, it’s worth everything to experience this in Slovenia! The Kranjska Gora and Bohinjska Bistrica are two of many of my favorite Alps places. It’s wise to pre-book a farm or resort stay ahead of time, as it can get busy. It is, as I said, getting more popular as people wish to escape the cities that hold us in the rest of the year.