Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sights
CHURCH
Church of St John the Baptist
(Cerkev Sv Janeza Krstnika; Ribčev Laz; 10am-noon & 4-7pm summer, by appoint-
ment other times)
This church, on the northern side of the Sava Bohinjka River across the
stone bridge, is what every medieval church should be: small, on a reflecting body of wa-
ter, and full of exquisite frescoes. The nave is Romanesque, but the Gothic presbytery
dates from about 1440. Many walls and ceilings are covered with 15th- and 16th-century
frescoes.
As you face the arch from the nave, look for the frescoes on either side gorily depicting
the beheading of the church's patron saint. On the opposite side of the arch, to the left, is
Abel making his offering to God and, to the right, Cain with his inferior one. Upon the
shoulder of history's first murderer sits a white devil - a rare symbol. Behind you on the
lower walls of the presbytery are rows of angels, some with vampire-like teeth; look for
the three men above them singing. They have goitres, once a common affliction in moun-
tainous regions due to the lack of iodine in the diet. The carved wooden head of St John
the Baptist on the side altar to the right dates from 1380.
Alpine Dairy Museum
(Planšarski Muzej;
www.bohinj.si
; Stara Fužina 181; adult/child €3/2; 11am-7pm
Tue-Sun Jul & Aug, 10am-noon & 4-6pm Tue-Sun early Jan-Jun, Sep-late Oct)
This mu-
seum in Stara Fužina, 1.5km north of Ribčev Laz, has a small collection related to Alpine
dairy farming. The four rooms of the museum - once a cheese dairy itself - contain a
mock-up of a mid-19th-century herder's cottage, fascinating old photographs, cheese
presses, wooden butter moulds, copper vats, enormous snowshoes and sledges, and won-
derful hand-carved crooks.
Until the late 1950s, large quantities of cheese were still being made on 28 highland
pastures, but a modern dairy in nearby Srednja Vas does it all now.
MUSEUM
Oplen House
(Oplenova Hiša;
www.bohinj.si
;
Studor 16; adult/child €3/2; 11am-7pm Tue-Sun Jul
& Aug, 10am-noon & 4-6pm Tue-Sun early Jan-Jun, Sep-late Oct)
While you're in Stara
Fužina, walk over to the village of Studor, 2km to the east. Oplen House is a typical old
peasant's cottage with a chimney-less 'black kitchen' that has been turned into a museum
focusing on the domestic life of peasants in the Bohinj area.
MUSEUM
