Country Info | Towns and Places in Slovenija | Towns and Places in Slovenia | Idrija - Points of Interest

Idrija -- Points of Interest

One can do all the following in the order listed.

The Church of the Holy Trinity, on the spot where, according to tradition, mercury was first discovered by a tub-maker.

Right below are the Town hall (1898) and the first non-classical secondary school (realka, 1901) in Slovenia.

The Gewerken castle (Town Museum), housing also the memorial rooms of the writer France Bevk and the politician Dr. Ales Bebler (among other things, a letter from Mr. Dulles is there). There is a permanent exhibition of about a hundred works of art donated by Mrs. Mazza, a native of Idrija and owner of an art gallery in Rome, Italy.

The old town square is dominated by the Old Wheat Magazine, now housing a public library, gallery and furniture salon, next to Slovenia's first theatre house, the Forester's Administration building, and the former presbytery.

Anthony's shaft (1500) is the second oldest preserved mine entrance in Europe (you enter the level tunnel through a house and a chapel).

Kamst, on the other side of the town, is now open to the public.

A tranquil walk above the Idrijca river, along the Rake (an open water canal for driving the Kamst, nowadays after 400 years still supplying water for an electrical power plant) built in 1596, brings one to the dam feeding the Rake, and then to Divje jezero (Wild Lake), a siphon-driven (86 meters deep) little lake half enclosed by 200 meters high vertical cliffs.

Bela, about 8 km upstream of Idrija, is a jewel of almost unspoiled nature, a bathing and picnicking place at the confluence of the Idrijca and Bela rivers.

Still upstream, in both Bela and Idrijca valleys, an old, winding Italian military road brings you to Klavze (Slovene pyramids).

From the Bela Klavze you can proceed to Vojsko, the highest-lying village in Slovenia. From the Vojsko Plain, you can descend into a remote valley with the WWII Slovenija printing office (with equipment smuggled from Milan, Italy, during the war), which printed Partizanski dnevnik (Partisan Daily), the only newspaper published by Resistance movements in Europe. (The place was chosen by my grand-grand father.)

A Lace-makers' Festival is held in Idrija on the last weekend of August. The main event in the festival is a competition usually entered by a couple of hundred women (no age limit), and even a few men.

In the Nebesa (Heavens) restaurant, or in the Pri Skafarju (At the Tub-maker's) inn you can taste the traditional miners' food, zlikrofi (potato balls with marjoram and other spices, wrapped in thin dough, and cooked). Beware: I've never seen zlikrofi prepared properly anywhere else in Slovenia.

The Town Museum is open 8:00-18:00 (weekends and holidays 9:00-18:00); phone: +386 65 71 135. Visits to the mine as well as other points of interest can be arranged through the Museum.

From various sources; with thanks to Darko Viler.

R. Krivec