What to do and see in Trzic, Upper Carniola Region: The Best Sights & Landmarks

Restless explorers can discover not only the attractions above ground, which can be seen in all their splendour from the surrounding hills and the Born path leading to Mt Preval with the renowned Born tunnels. Secrets are also hidden underground. One of them is an abandoned mercury mine. Part of the mine is available for guided visits.

Everything began with the dragon. It made its lair deep into the longest Slovenian mountain, Mt Košuta. When it grew into a large beast, it split the mountain in half. An avalanche came rumbling down, burying the settlement under the mountain. To save themselves the residents rushed into the valley. After a while they ran out of breath and stopped. The mountain stream flowed into the river at exactly that spot. They liked it. They rolled up their sleeves, built houses and founded the town that is now known as Tržič. This was a long time ago. So long ago that in 1492, exactly two months after Columbus discovered America, Tržič was not just a village, but already a square. Every few centuries the town of Tržič was renovated, as it was burned down to the ground by fire. This is why it is the only town with a two centuries old fire protection and the then mandatory use of metal doors and shutters, which was a European peculiarity. Tržič had also its own castle on top of the hill, which sadly burned in one of those fires. This happened when it was owned by the world-renowned Austrian Field Marshal Josef Radetzky, famous today for the eponymous march composed by Strauss. Radetzky replaced the burned-down castle with today's mansion. He was held in high regard by the people of Tržič due to his generosity. Since there was a lot of traffic in this area already in Ancient Roman times, the people of Tržič reinvented themselves to become very enterprising ironworkers, wheelwrights, textile workers, tanners and above all shoemakers. The rich collection in the Museum of Tržič and the famous event "Šuštarska nedelja" are evidence of this glorious crafting history. Today, Tržič is a pleasant old town, protected as a cultural monument. This is a place worth stopping at and listening to its countless stories. By the way, what happened to the dragon that took credit for Tržič? It was buried by the same avalanche that it caused. Lucky for the visitors of Tržič, otherwise it would still scare them today.

The birth house of the poet Vojteh Kurnik belongs among the most precious testimonies of the past living conditions in Tržič. The house fascinates with its more than three-hundred-years-old history. With its brick ground floor, wooden first floor, a cup-shaped roof, a black kitchen and drying openings on the roof it combines rustic and urban architecture of the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century. It presents the living environment of a past period, and one of the rooms displays the life and work of the poet. You can visit the Kurnik house by prior arrangement in Tržič Museum.

Ruins and a monument to the memory of the brave, the suffering and those who lost their lives in the war lie in the immediate vicinity of the first adrenaline park in Slovenia. The subsidiary of the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp, the prisoners of which dug a tunnel under Ljubelj, stood here during WWII. This also serves as the memorial of the clandestine and unselfish help given by the people of Tržič to the prisoners by smuggling food, mail and parcels from relatives. At the place where the Ljubelj concentration camp once stood there is a memorial park with the remains of camp huts, other buildings and the crematorium. On the right-hand side of the road stands the "J'accuse" monument which was designed and made as a reminder of wartime events by Boris Kobe and Jože Bertoncelj and was unveiled in 1954. In the cellar of the nearby guesthouse there is a room of remembrance with a permanent exhibition about the Ljubelj concentration camp.

The more than 500-year-old village linden tree in the middle of Žiganja Vas is a natural value of national significance. In the immediate vicinity of the Church of St. Ulrich in Žiganja Vas there grows an old village linden tree, whose circumference in 2010 was measured at 730 cm. Local residents estimate the age of the linden as over 500 years.