Describing a town, landscape, or experience as “torn from the pages of a fairytale” is one of the stalest clichés around. But what if it’s actually true? Meet Croatia and Slovenia…

At SA Expeditions, we try our damnedest to avoid “magical” clichés in favor of honest and realistic reporting about the places we travel to. But what happens if a destination is, literally, torn from the pages of a fairytale? With their abundant castles, lakes, and forests – not to mention long and proud traditions of folktales – both Croatia and Slovenia certainly fit this bill.

Read on to find out how to ensure your European adventure is straight out of a fairytale.

Dubrovnik and the curse of Lokrum

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The Jesuit Stairs are one of the most symbolic examples Baroque architecture in Dubrovnik.

With its towering stone walls, quaint red-tiled roofs, and dramatic cliffside location, the Croatian port of Dubrovnik is one of the most enchanting cities you will ever visit. Its many charms were showcased to a global audience by Game of Thrones. The Red Keep (the fictional seat of power of the Seven Kingdoms), for example, is actually Fort Lovrijenac in Dubrovnik. And Cersei Lannister’s walk of atonement features the city’s Jesuit Staircase prominently.

But Dubrovnik’s association with fantasy predates Game of Thrones by more than a thousand years. According to the legend of the Lokrum Curse:

When a great fire engulfed Dubrovnik in the year 1023, residents begged Saint Benedict to spare the city. If he did, they vowed to build a monastery in his name. Benedict kept his side of the bargain (by extinguishing the fire instantly) and the citizens kept theirs by building a Benedictine monastery on the island of Lokrum.

The monks lived there for almost seven centuries until – in the wake of the devastating earthquake of 1667 – the leaders of Dubrovnik decided to sell the island of Lokrum to raise funds. When the pope ratified the decision, the monks had no alternative but to vacate the island – but they would leave behind a curse. The night before their expulsion, the monks walked around the island’s perimeter three times carrying upside-down candles. When morning came they were exhausted, but their efforts would soon bear fruit.

Within weeks the three noblemen who’d championed the monks’ eviction died untimely deaths: “One was killed by his servant, the other drowned, and the third jumped into his death from Lovrijenac fortress.” In the centuries since, all of the island’s owners have been affected by the curse: one went bankrupt, another ended up committing suicide alongside his mistress (read about the Mayerling Affair here), and Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was executed – as recorded by Edouard Manet in a series of famous paintings.

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Lokrum Island seen from atop a hill in Dubrovnik.

Today, the island makes for a green and pleasant day trip from Dubrovnik. The Benedictine monastery remains intact (GoT fans should check out the replica of the Iron Throne), and there’s also an idyllic botanical garden. Be careful though: legend has it that the curse will be lifted only once all the wax that fell from the monks’ candles has been removed.

Lake Bled and the myth of the sunken bell

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Lake Bled is one of the most enchanting places in Europe!

A tiny blue-green lake surrounded by forested peaks, with a medieval castle on its shores and a picture-postcard church perched atop an island, Slovenia’s Lake Bled is straight out of a Disney movie. Many travelers say Lake Bled is the most beautiful place they’ve ever been. But it’s also the backdrop for a real-life myth…

Once upon a time a young widow, whose husband had been killed by robbers and thrown into the lake, lived in the clifftop castle on the shores of Lake Bled. To mourn his loss, she gathered all the gold and silver she could find, and had a bell cast for the chapel on the island. A terrible storm struck while the bell was being taken to the island, however, and the entire boat load sank to the bottom of the lake. Inconsolable, the widow sold her earthly possessions and put the proceeds towards building a new chapel. She then fled to Rome, where she lived out her days as a nun.

After her death, the pope had a new bell made in her memory – and this one was successfully installed at the chapel. He duly declared that any believer who rings the bell three times will have their wish come true. It’s also said that sometimes, on a dark and stormy night, you can hear the sunken bell chiming from the gloomy depths.

These days, you can test the truth of this story by taking the boat to St Mary’s Church and ringing the bell for yourself. The island can be visited year-round (unless the lake freezes over or the weather is particularly atrocious), but the myth really comes alive at Christmas, when a team of divers symbolically raises the bell from the bottom of the lake.

Ljubljana, the City of Dragons

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Four wicked dragon statues stand at the four corners of Dragon Bridge.

Dragons are ubiquitous in Ljubljana, Slovenia’s captivating capital. They appear on the city’s coat of arms, in the logos of many Slovenian products, and are even embossed on drain covers.

Arguably, Ljubljana’s most famous dragons are the winged beasts that occupy the four corners of Dragon Bridge. Built from reinforced concrete between 1900 and 1901 by a team of Austrian engineers and architects (Ljubljana was, at the time, part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire), the bridge is considered one of the finest examples of the Vienna Secession style in the world.

The city’s association with dragons dates back to ancient times, and specifically the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece. As the story goes…

After Jason’s father, the King of Iolcos, was deposed by his half-brother, the new king was keen to keep his pesky nephew far from the seat of power. So he set Jason the seemingly impossible task of retrieving the golden fleece from Colchis, where (you guessed it) a dragon watched over it.

But Jason and his followers, the Argonauts, had other ideas. Together with their faithful ship the Argo, they navigated every obstacle that came their way: at one point they even dismantled the Argo and carried it over land. It was during this jaunt, at a marsh near present-day Ljubljana, that Jason is said to have slayed a dragon that had terrorized the area for centuries. Jason did eventually return home with the golden fleece, and, released from the curse of the dragon, Ljubljana developed into a thriving city.

And so it was that a settlement that once lived in fear of a dragon came to embrace dragons as a symbol of its protection. The Dragon Bridge is one of the highlights of any trip to this delightfully underrated gem, and we can also highly recommend checking out the Ljubljana Castle and the Chapel of St George – a man famed for slaying dragons!

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