Kropa

Kropa is squeezed into a gorge because that is where the water was: the stream drove the bellows and hammers of forges that made nails from local ore from the fourteenth century onwards, and by the nineteenth the village was supplying them across the empire. Nail making collapsed when machines took over, but the ironworking survived as decorative smithing, and the village still produces wrought iron. The name, first recorded in 1498, comes from an old word for a powerful spring. Water channels run along the street between the houses, and the Iron Forging Museum holds the record.

Highlights

• The stream and channels - the water that powered the bellows, still running through the village.
• The Iron Forging Museum - the nail-making record and the tools that made it.
• The wrought ironwork - decorative smithing still produced in the village.
• The gorge street - a single line of forge houses squeezed between rock walls.

When to go

April to October for the museum and workshops; winter hours are reduced. Summer weekends are busiest. The gorge is dark and cool even in August.

Good to know

The village is small and dark, hemmed in by the gorge, and there is little beyond the museum and the smithies. Museum hours are limited outside summer. Parking is tight on the narrow street.

Nearby

Radovljica is north, and Jamnik is west.

Key facts