About this journey

Most na Soči station sits near the confluence of the Soča and Idrijca rivers, where the Bohinj Railway — the Bohinjska železniška proga — begins its climb into the eastern Julian Alps. Almost immediately, the line crosses the Idrijca River on a seven-arch bridge, the longest and largest structure along the entire railway, built when Austrian engineers were threading a strategic route through this Alpine corridor. Austrian authorities even constructed a fortification at the nearby settlement of Postaja to protect that bridge; after the First World War, the Italian army took over the structure for housing and weapons storage.

The line continues through the narrow Bača River valley toward Podbrdo, whose station once marked the border crossing between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the interwar period. A monument at Podbrdo commemorates workers who died building what lies just beyond: the Bohinj Tunnel, at 6,327 metres the longest railway tunnel in Slovenia, whose western portal opens at Podbrdo itself. Emerging on the eastern side of the tunnel, the line descends into the Sava Bohinjka Valley and arrives at Bohinjska Bistrica station, set in the Julian Alps southwest of the Triglav massif. The journey moves from a river crossing steeped in military history, through a remembered border, and into one of Slovenia's principal Alpine valleys.