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| Bled Castle overlooking Lake Bled, Slovenia |
The day started with a cappuccino in Venice, fresh off our Simplon Tunnel crossing, silk workshop tour and night in Piazza San Marco. Shehzadi, our Toyota Tundra, and Chetak, the Odyssean Journey Toyota Hilux, were ready to point east again.
Slovenia put Lake Bled, Ljubljana and Maribor in our path before Croatia returned us to Zagreb, a city already tied to an older road-trip memory. In 2019 Zagreb had been the launch point for our drive south to Smiljan and Nikola Tesla's childhood home; this time we were arriving from the opposite direction with the Silk Road still stretching east.
Venice to Zagreb — Post Summary
From Venice we drive east into Slovenia, pause at Lake Bled and Bohinjska Bela, walk through Ljubljana, return to Maribor's remarkable Old Vine, and continue into Croatia for a night in Zagreb. The route also crosses our own 2019 tracks, when Zagreb led us south to Nikola Tesla's birthplace at Smiljan.
| What's Covered | |
| 🚙 | Venice to Slovenia — A4, digital e-vignette, Valico di Sant'Andrea |
| 🌄 | Lake Bled — island church, pletna boats, Bled Castle, Bohinjska Bela |
| 🐉 | Ljubljana — Dragon Bridge, Plečnik, Old Town and the Ljubljanica |
| 🍇 | Maribor — the Old Vine, Drava River and our 2019 return memory |
| 🛂 | Slovenia to Croatia — Obrežje and temporary internal Schengen controls |
| 🌃 | Zagreb revisited — Tkalčićeva Street, 2019 Zagreb memories and the later Smiljan Tesla detour |
Venice slipped behind us as Shehzadi and Chetak pointed northeast on the A4 through Slovenia toward Zagreb, Croatia. The day's job looked simple: keep driving east, cross two national boundaries and avoid turning a motorway vignette into an expensive lesson. The trucks merely had to cooperate.
| From | Venice, Italy |
| To | Zagreb, Croatia |
| Crossings | Valico di Sant'Andrea (Italy–Slovenia), Obrežje (Slovenia–Croatia) |
| Roads | A4 (Italy), A2/E61 (Slovenia), A3/E70 (Croatia) |
| Slovenia Toll | Digital e-vignette for motorway use |
| Vehicles | Shehzadi (Toyota Tundra) and Chetak (Toyota Hilux, Odyssean Journey) |
| Key Stops | Lake Bled, Bohinjska Bela, Ljubljana, Maribor |
Route at a Glance
- Venice — A4 departure
- Valico di Sant'Andrea — Italy–Slovenia crossing
- Lake Bled and Bohinjska Bela — island church, castle and St. Margaret's Church
- Ljubljana — Dragon Bridge, Plečnik and Old Town
- Maribor — Old Vine and Drava River
- Obrežje — temporary internal Schengen controls
- Zagreb — Tkalčićeva Street and our 2019 road-trip tracks
Venice to Slovenia: A4, E-Vignette and Valico di Sant'Andrea
Leaving Venice still felt like ending a good conversation too early. We joined the A4 as canals gave way to fields, vineyards and small towns. Church bells kept time, the medieval version of push notifications, only harder to mute.
Near Gorizia we aimed for Valico di Sant'Andrea. Before using Slovenia's motorways, we had already bought the required digital e-vignette online and tied it to the vehicle registration. No sticker was involved. Road taxation had joined the cloud.
Digital E-Vignette and 21st-Century Tolls
The pass arrived electronically, sparing us coins, tollbooth negotiations and the traditional roadside ritual of discovering the correct currency three cars too late. At the crossing our passports received a brief glance and we rolled into Slovenia with no drama. Temporary checks existed on this part of Europe's internal borders, but our own passage was quick.
Lake Bled: Island Church, Bled Castle and Bohinjska Bela
Lake Bled appeared under the Julian Alps with an island church, a cliff-top castle and outrageously photogenic water. We parked Shehzadi under the pines and walked the promenade while swans drifted past with the entitlement of creatures that have never paid for parking.
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| Lake Bled Island & Church of the Assumption |
Out in the lake, Bled Island carries the Church of the Mother of God on the Lake, often called the Church of the Assumption. A masonry church was consecrated here in 1142; the building was rebuilt in Gothic form in the 15th century and later reshaped again in Baroque style. The island is reached by the traditional pletna boats, which are a far more civilized option than swimming with a camera.
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| Pletna boats on Lake Bled |
One local tradition says ringing the church's wishing bell helps a wish come true. We kept our ambitions practical: more roads like this and fewer tire-pressure surprises.
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| Bled Castle on its cliff above Lake Bled. |
Bled Castle watches from a cliff above the lake. Its written history reaches back to 1011, making it the oldest castle in Slovenia. The complex now holds museum displays and a wine cellar, but the view over the lake and Julian Alps remains the part that requires the least explanation.
Lunch by the Water
We stopped for trout, creamy potato soup and Bled cream cake. The cake is a disciplined stack of pastry, custard and cream that somehow makes ordering a second portion sound like field research. We accepted the burden.
Bohinjska Bela
A few kilometers from Bled, Bohinjska Bela brought the pace down another notch. Its white St. Margaret's Church stands beneath the wooded slopes with a history more complicated than its simple white walls suggest. The present nave was rebuilt in the mid-18th century and the church was consecrated in 1754; archaeological work beneath the floor found remains of earlier structures. Slovenia had managed to place layers of church history beside a village road without adding a gift shop the size of an airport.
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| Cerkev sv. Marjete (St. Margaret's Church), Bohinjska Bela, Slovenia |
The church and its graveyard sat quietly against the hills, a small stop after Bled's famous scenery. We lingered, then pointed the trucks back toward the A2 and the capital.
Ljubljana: Dragon Bridge, Plečnik and the Old Town
From Bled we followed the A2 to Ljubljana. The compact center gathers around the Ljubljanica River, with Prešeren Square, the pink Franciscan Church of the Annunciation and the Dragon Bridge all close enough to turn a city visit into a walk rather than a logistical campaign.
The Dragon Bridge opened in 1901. Its four large copper dragons are the obvious stars, but the bridge also belongs to the early generation of reinforced-concrete structures in the region. We heard a street violinist attack ABBA's “Dancing Queen” with enough sincerity to make the dragons look briefly concerned.
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| Prešeren Square and Dragon Bridge The Prešeren Monument, the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation and Ljubljana's four dragon guardians during our walk through the center. |
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Architecture, Art and Plečnik
Ljubljana's center carries the unmistakable hand of architect Jože Plečnik. Between the world wars he reshaped river embankments, bridges, markets and public spaces. His Ljubljana works now form part of a UNESCO World Heritage property. This is urban planning with opinions.
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| Ljubljana Old Town and the Ljubljanica Castle hill above the streets, then the river and sightseeing boats below. |
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We wandered through the Old Town, looked up toward Ljubljana Castle and watched street performers work the cobbled lanes. Cafés spilled into the squares, boats moved along the Ljubljanica and espresso appeared to be treated as a civic utility. Sensible place.
Maribor: The Old Vine and Sunset on the Drava
By late afternoon we headed northeast for Maribor, Slovenia's second-largest city. The road ran through forest and vineyard country before dropping us beside the Drava River. We had been here before, which changed the stop from sightseeing into recognition.
Maribor came with its own déjà vu. On our 2019 Central Europe road trip, we had driven up from Split and stopped here for the Old Vine before continuing toward Vienna. Seeing the same gnarled vine again on this much longer route made it feel less like a checklist stop and more like an old acquaintance that had sensibly stayed put while we complicated our lives.
The Old Vine, a Žametovka vine growing in Maribor's Lent district, is more than 400 years old and recognized by Guinness as the world's oldest grapevine still bearing fruit. We toured the Old Vine House, sampled local wine and stood beside a plant that had survived several political maps of Europe. The vine's strategy appears to be photosynthesis and patience. Hard to argue with the results.
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| Maribor from the old center to the Drava Sunset streets, the Old Vine, and the Old Bridge across the river. |
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Sunset on the Drava
As the sun dropped, we walked the Drava River promenade. Musicians played nearby, couples wandered past and the old center softened into evening light. Emails, tire pressures and fuel receipts temporarily lost the argument.
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| Swans on the Drava River in Maribor. |
Shehzadi sat nearby wearing a layer of road dust like a badge of honor and seemed to sigh in satisfaction. Or maybe that was just the wind. Machinery is allowed some mystery.
Slovenia to Croatia: Temporary Schengen Controls at Obrežje
Twilight followed us southeast to Obrežje. Croatia had joined the Schengen Area in 2023, so this was an internal Schengen boundary rather than the old external frontier. Slovenia, however, had temporarily restored checks on its border with Croatia during our journey. Europe occasionally removes a border and then puts a desk back in it.
Our own crossing was quiet. A few trucks waited nearby, our passports got a solid glance, and an officer asked where we were headed. “Silk Road, all the way to Asia,” remained a perfectly accurate answer and a mildly unreasonable thing to say at dusk. We were waved through and joined Croatia's A3/E70 toward Zagreb.
Zagreb Revisited: Tkalčićeva Street and Our 2019 Tesla Detour
We reached Zagreb as the city lights came on. Our B&B hosts offered rakija before handing over the room keys, an efficient Croatian system for establishing goodwill. The center's Austro-Hungarian façades and cobbled streets felt familiar because this was not our first arrival in the capital.
Zagreb was already tied to our 2019 Central Europe drive. That time we had come in from Budapest, spent the day around St. Mark's Church, the Stone Gate and Zagreb Cathedral, then pointed the car south. The old trip had used Zagreb as a hinge between Central Europe and the Croatian coast. Six years later, we were back at the same hinge with two overland trucks and a considerably less modest destination.
The next stretch of that 2019 drive is the memory that sticks hardest. After Zagreb we left the A1 for the Lika highlands and stopped at Nikola Tesla's birthplace in Smiljan before continuing toward Split. At the memorial complex we visited the wooden parsonage where Tesla was born and the Serbian Orthodox church beside it, where his father served as a priest. Tesla's childhood ground sat among quiet Lika hills, which made the leap from that small village to alternating-current history feel wonderfully disproportionate.
So the 2025 arrival carried two routes at once. In memory, Zagreb pointed south toward Tesla's house and the Adriatic. Under Shehzadi's wheels, it now pointed east toward Bosnia, Serbia and a route that would eventually leave Europe behind. Geography has a dry sense of humor. It keeps reusing the same intersections until we finally notice.
Dinner in Tkalčićeva Street
We headed to Tkalčićeva Street for dinner and people-watching. Colorful façades lined the old street while restaurants competed by smell. We settled into ćevapi, flatbread, fresh cheese and roasted vegetables. After Venice, Bled, Ljubljana, Maribor and two border-control moments, sitting down had become a serious technical achievement.
Italy, Slovenia and Croatia in One Day
This leg mattered less for the number of countries than for the direction of travel. Venice was behind us; the Balkans were ahead, and Zagreb became the hinge between them. The useful surprise was personal: the 2025 Silk Road route had begun crossing our own 2019 tracks in Slovenia and Croatia, turning old road trips into reference points on a journey aimed far beyond Europe. Same cities, bigger map, much less sensible fuel bill.
Next Stop: Zagreb to Belgrade via Dubica and the Jasenovac Memorial
From Zagreb, we continue through Hrvatska Dubica into Bosnia and Herzegovina, pause at Kozarska Dubica and the Donja Gradina memorial site, cross back into Croatia near Jasenovac, then continue into Serbia and finish in Belgrade.
Until next time,
The Vagabond Couple & Shehzadi
