In Slovenia, the Adriatic and the Julian Alps are only a morning’s drive apart. That makes it one of the few places where an incentive program can start on a sailing boat and finish on a mountain terrace, with very little time lost on the road.
Picture a team of managers landing in Ljubljana on a warm evening in late May. By the time dinner is served, they are sitting by the sea in Portorož. Over the next few days they will sail along the coast, walk through an underground canyon, bottle their own wine in a castle and stand at 1,535 metres above Lake Bohinj. The longest drive of the whole program takes about two hours.
Slovenia is about half the size of Switzerland, which is exactly why it works so well for incentive groups. The sea and the high mountains sit close together, with forest covering almost 60 percent of the land in between, so a group spends its days in beautiful places rather than on the road. Here is the route we like to take, one altitude at a time.
0 m: The salt pans and Piran
The first morning starts at the Sečovlje salt pans, where salt has been made by hand for more than 700 years and the salt makers still rake the crystals with wooden tools. Lepa Vida, an open-air spa right in the middle of the salt fields, is where the group begins the day with yoga.
In the afternoon the group sets sail from Piran, a small medieval town of red roofs at the tip of a narrow peninsula. Seen from the sea, the whole town fits into one photograph, with St George’s Church and its bell tower on the hill above the houses. In the evening the group walks up to the same church for a private concert, which nobody knows about until they step inside.
400 m: The Karst, above and below ground
A little over an hour inland, the road climbs onto the Karst, a limestone plateau of stone villages and vineyards. The Lipizzaner comes from here, and the stud farm at Lipica, founded in 1580 for the Habsburg court, is today the largest Lipizzaner stud in the world. Guests watch the riding school perform and then follow a guide into Velbanca, the oldest stable on the estate, where the best stallions are kept. Most guests had always assumed these white horses came from Vienna.
A short drive away, the Karst shows what it hides underground. In the Škocjan Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986, the Reka River has carved a canyon up to 146 metres high. The path crosses it on a narrow bridge 47 metres above the water, and for a few minutes even the loudest group goes completely quiet.
475 m: Bled
Bled is about two hours from the Karst by motorway, and the first view of it explains every postcard: a church on a small island in a green lake, with a castle on the cliff above. In the castle’s wine cellar, guests fill their own bottle from an oak barrel and close it with wax, and each one goes home with a certificate bearing the castle’s seal. It beats a fridge magnet by some distance.
Afterwards the group can split up. Those who want to row or cycle around the lake can do so, while the others cross to the island in a pletna, a wooden boat rowed by an oarsman standing at the stern. At the top of the 99 steps, the island church has a wishing bell, and local legend says that whoever rings it will see their wish come true. In the evening, the castle’s lower terrace welcomes the group with fanfares, as the count and countess walk down the stairs and greet everyone in the local dialect.
1,535 m: Vogel
Just over half an hour further on, Lake Bohinj lies inside Triglav National Park, quieter than Bled and so clear that you can see the stones on the bottom. The Vogel cable car lifts the group to 1,535 metres in a few minutes, to a restaurant terrace with the lake below and Triglav across the valley. This is where the jackets come out.
For the adventurous there is a faster way down. Tandem paragliders take off a little higher up the mountain and land near the lake 20 to 30 minutes later, with the whole Bohinj valley beneath their feet. Everyone else takes the cable car down and gets the better photographs.
Short distances, easy logistics
Transfer times by bus
- Ljubljana Airport to Bled: 45 min
- Ljubljana Airport to the coast: 2 hours
- Portorož to Lipica: 1 hour 15 min
- Lipica to Bled: 2 hours
- Bled to Lake Bohinj: 35 min
- Vogel cable car to 1,535 m: a few minutes
None of this needs a domestic flight. Groups fly into Ljubljana Airport, and every stop on the route is within easy reach by bus. Incentive programs usually last two to four days, and with distances this short, that is enough time to enjoy both the sea and the mountains without rushing. We like the route best in spring and early autumn.
Slovenia is a small country, but between the salt pans and the top of Vogel it gives a group more than 1,500 metres of change without anyone spending the day in transit. If you would like your guests to see both ends of it, let’s plan the route together.
