Things to Do In and Around Kobarid, Slovenia, Kobarid, Slovenia

Ernest Hemingway described Kobarid as “a little white town with a campanile in a valley”. The small village is now home to the Kobarid Museum, the Italian Mausoleum, and several surrounding area hikes including those mentioned below as well as the long Walk of Peace journey and the short Great Kozjak Waterfall hike.

When visiting Kobarid, be sure to stay at Hisa Franko and enjoy a six-course meal cooked by the number one female chef in the world in 2017, Ana Roš.

Hisa Franko was once a roadside inn, a village mill, a countryside estate, and a hospital in World War I where it is rumored Ernest Hemingway was treated for injuries during the war after his ambulance was hit by a mortar shell. Now it operates as a hotel and restaurant, though Ana and Valtar like to call it their home.

Valtar handles their wine and cheese cellar while Ana handles the kitchen. We stayed the evening and were treated to a tour of their wine and cheese cellar where Valtar talked about the cheese he makes, the wines he selects and the time they together spend pairing the wine with the restaurant menu. We tasted a sparkling wine with cheese lollipops which were spectacular!

Ana uses many local ingredients for the dishes served at her restaurant including vegetables and herbs from her garden and trout from her fish ponds. We enjoyed a lovely meal while visiting which included an amuse-bouche, amazing bread (cooked with fermented apple peels rather than yeast for rising) with tarragon salted butter, a divine salad drizzled with pumpkin oil and top with pork cracklings, goat cheese ravioli with corn and hazelnuts, trout with beets and watercress, potato polenta topped with octopus cooked in lamb fat, tender venison garnished with spruce and wild mushrooms, rhubarb with knotweed, and another amuse-bouche at the end. Decadent! ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).