Smarjeske Teplice

We left Bled, it was raining. The lake and the castle still looked beautiful even in the rain and mist of clouds. Such a fairy tale setting! The GPS did not have enough info on Slovenia so we navigated to closest large city Novo Mesto where we were about 10km in our next destination – Krka therme – Thermal waters, spa hotel Vittarium.

Without GPS, we have to a bit of backtracking, but finally found this spa. The company through which we booked spa, owns most hotels in that area (there are not too many). The most famous is castle hotel Otocec and hotel Vittarium, both 4*. Slovenia does not have yet 5* hotels. I chose Vittarium since it has mineral water pools on premises and we like to soak in waters.
We checked in and immediately felt out of place. The setting was beautiful however hotel caters to local residents who go to spa for a treatment period. I know this setup in Europe and former Soviet Union – it is called sanatorium. Not in the sense as sanatorium for mental patients :-)
but in Europe most government and insurance companies cover spa treatments as medical insurance. Therefore, you will see people, mostly older who went for about month treatment for mineral waters and medical treatment. Hotel even had a medical floor. The food was like cafeteria food and setup was depressing...

The people stared at us and we stared at them. They were friendly however and tried to communicate in Slovenian but of course we could not do much talking … We went to spa. But the pools were huge and spectacular, newly redone and we enjoyed soaking in the waters. There was even outdoor pool, you go from inside and swim outdoors and temp was 32C so it was terrific. A lots of different massage showers... Very enjoyable. The price included half board, but after lunch which I could not eat L , we did not want to eat dinner there. We drove to castle Otocec but did not see decent places to eat. The area is very rural. We finally found supermarket near hotel and bought our shopping there and ate good “picnic” in our room. In the evening, we used free wi-fi at the lobby areas where we also found some younger people with laptops. We went for a walk in the evening and then to bed determined to leave early as as possible. Next morning we went for buffet breakfast. Good find for us was buckwheat groats which we love from childhood. I am not sure who else likes it! After breakfast we were waiting for rain to stop but it continued. We checked our email in wi-fi area and left for 1hr trip to Zagreb.

What can I say? The area has great potential and natural mineral springs but not ready for Western Visitors yet.. That was one place on this trip we did not enjoy...