Awaken all your senses
Each room at the Oštarija Herbelier bears its own signature. You can relax according to your own tastes in 12 suites and rooms: Find a herb with the scent that will relax and soothe you. Among the pillows, choose the one that will help you sink into the most peaceful sleep.
Each morning, we treat our guests to a royal homemade breakfast. Remember to take advantage of the many benefits in the surrounding area: Contact us or give us a call.
The green thread of Oštarija Herbelier is made of native herbs. They are harvested on the edges of ancient forests, on local hills of green, on vast hayfields and grown in our own gardens. We surprise you with their selections in our cuisine, we use them in our pillows to help you relax and we use them to inspire you through special adventures.
We warmly welcome everyone: travelers, families, business guests, children, as well as pets. We are looking forward to your visit!
All experiences
Calendula salve
Heat 50 grams of coconut oil in a water bath and add 10 ml of almond oil and a handful of dried pot marigold (calendula) petals. Keep the mix at a moderate temperature for 30 minutes, then allow it to slightly cool down. Strain the mix to remove petals. Put the ointment in a glass jar and refrigerate it. This way, you can use it for up to six months. Use the salve for skin care, including baby skin care; it helps with burns, cuts, boils, both small and large wounds, with various skin infections, varicose veins and with fungal diseases of the legs.
Immune with a mother's soul
Garden thyme, known in Slovenia as “a mother's soul”, eases coughing and relieves smooth muscle spasms. Thyme tea helps fight water retention and helps with catarrh of the stomach. Drink it in case of respiratory infections, asthma, pneumonia, stomach and intestine diseases, in case of intestinal and kidney spasms. Thyme is an incredibly powerful and simple herb that is also used in detox. It gives a great boost to the immune system; it promotes formation of white blood cells while increasing resistance to any infectants.
Calm your body in the THYME suite (Slovenian for thyme: TIMIJAN).
Lavender for inner peace
Lavender is a mild sedative that helps relieve anxiety, stress exhaustion and sleep disorders, and also helps cure anxiety-based digestive disorders. In folk medicine, lavender stimulates appetite, regulates digestion, helps excrete bile acids, relieves abdominal cramps, helps eliminate bloating, relieves flatulence and helps fight water retention; it has calming effects that aid sleep, and at the same time, it helps prevent syncope. Scented lavender baths help treat circulatory system diseases and alleviate menopausal symptoms. Essential oil is an ingredient in anti-rheumatic ointments and also in salves that help relieve diseases with itching skin; it is also used in oral hygiene products. In phytomedicine, lavender is a common ingredient in teas that induce sedation, and its extracts are used in sedatives and in medication used to relieve bile acids and boost immunity. In terms of topical use, lavender is used for treatment of minor wounds, burns and superficial sunburn. Lavender bags will scent a room, disinfect laundry and repel insects.
Rest your head on the scented pillow in the LAVENDER room (Slovenian for lavender: SIVKA).
Lavender has been a part of everyday life since the ancient times
With its heady scent, lavender began its home invasion already in the ancient times. The Romans used it as a fragrance in their baths, believing that it had great skin repair properties. Its name is probably derived from the Latin verb "lavare", meaning "to wash." Through Roman baths, lavender soon made its way into all other home spaces. Later on, when its beneficial healing properties got discovered, lavender also found its place in the kitchen. For home use, in addition to pleasantly scenting the rooms, lavender is also popular because of one extremely useful characteristic - it is a natural repellent that helps get rid of annoying moths.
Lavender for better sleep
Lavender perfume has been known since the 15th century.
Its essential oil is an ingredient in anti-rheumatic ointments and also in salves that help relieve diseases with itching skin; it is also used in oral hygiene products. In phytomedicine, lavender is a common ingredient in teas that induce sedation, and its extracts are used in sedatives and in medication used to relieve bile acids and boost immunity. In terms of topical use, lavender is used as an ingredient in salves for treatment of minor wounds, burns and superficial sunburn. Lavender bags will scent a room, disinfect laundry and repel moths, mosquitoes, flies and other insects – they are useful all around!
The miraculous lemon balm
It was known already to the Ancient Arab doctors that lemon balm heals and strengthens the heart, tempers the heartbeat and relieves anxiety. It also invigorates, helps fight depression, despondency, and stress headaches. It is also beneficial because it helps prevent memory loss. Use it for digestive disorders caused by anxiety and depression.
Find your inner peace in LEMON BALM room (Slovenian for lemon balm: MELISA).
Monk’s Cress in cuisine
Monk’s Cress is not merely a colorful decoration to be found in the garden or in various containers; it is also used in cuisine. If you finely chop its stems, leaves or flowers, you can use them to flavor grilled meats, potatoes, fish and vegetables. Prepare a herb vinegar: Add a cup of chopped Monk’s Cress flowers or two cups of Monk’s Cress leaves to wine vinegar and let it rest. Later on, add chopped chives, a sprig of rosemary and a dash of crushed black pepper to the mix.
Book your vacation in the Monk’s Cress Room (Slovenian for Monk’s Cress: KAPUCINKA).
The soothing nettles
Nettles will not sting if you use gloves to press their leaves or if you steam or cook them. You can use nettles for a body detox, to fight allergies, anemia and fatigue, to improve liver and hormone functions; nursing mothers can use them to produce milk, women can use them to soothe premenstrual syndrome; they can be used to give radiance to skin, to improve digestion, to fight inflammation and tooth decay and to boost endocrine system, including thyroid, spleen, and pancreas functions.
Primrose vs. Insomnia
Make fresh tea at bedtime. Pour two deciliters of water over 10 primrose flowers, 5 lavender flowers, 3 hop cones, 2 flowers of St. John's wort and 1 chunk of valerian root. Wait for 7 minutes, then drink it slowly.
Get some sleep in the PRIMROSE suite (Slovenian for primrose: TROBENTICA).
Rosehip tea
Rosehip tea eliminates springtime and/or autumn fatigue, flaccidity and pallor. Drinking rosehip tea with added linden flowers is recommended for colds. Such tea should be regularly ingested in wintertime. Due to the structure of rose hips, the tea should be boiled for 5-10 minutes (let it boil). As mentioned above, the vitamin C in the tea can last up to several hours. One can drink 2-3 cups a day; however, caution is advised as too much of rosehip tea could have a bad effect on the spinal cord and heart.
Let yourselves rest in the ROSEHIP suite (Slovenian for rosehip: ŠIPEK).
Rosehip or wild rose
The pink rosehip flowers can be admired throughout Slovenia in early summer, with fruits ripening in September and October. One of the oldest medicinal and ornamental plants is mentioned in millennias-old texts, and both traditional and modern medicine recognize wild rose fruits for their healing effects.
The fruit helps boost your immune system. Due to its high content of Vitamin C, it helps prevent flus and colds, it helps prevent bleeding gums, reduce inflammation of joints and improve their mobility. The fruit is beneficial for pregnant women with anemia and it helps nursing mothers eliminate fatigue.
Collect rosehips in the fall. Cut them, peel the seeds and thoroughly rinse off the whitish hairs. Then, dry them. Such fruits have a pleasant aromatic fruit aroma and a sour, slightly tart taste.
A useful rosehip recipe
"Sweet rosehip spirit"
Soak the harvested and cleaned rosehip fruits (about half a kilo) in cold water for a few hours. Then drain them, dry them and cut them into small pieces. When finished, place them into bottles, sprinkle with sugar (300 g of white sugar) and pour spirit over them (3 L). When the bottles are full, close them tightly and place them somewhere warm - in direct sunlight, which will help dissolve the sugar in a few days. Over the next few consecutive days (a week or two) stir each bottle daily to make it easier for the sugar to dissolve. After one or two weeks (whichever you prefer), the spirit is ready.
Rosehip and its many faces
Rosehip is, in fact, a wild rose. It is one of the oldest ornamental plants. Due to it being a useful herb with medicinal effects, rosehip is used both by traditional and modern medicine. It should be a must to have in your tea collection; when it gets too cold, rosehip boosts our body’s immune system and also helps prevent and treat seasonal illnesses, which are so common due to temperature changes in March and April as well as during wintertime.
How do you call it at home? Slovenian language uses numerous different names for select diverse herbs, which indicates their widespread use – across different lands and across different periods and generations. Rosehip is no exception; the folk names for rosehip most often indicate its usefulness or appearance. To translate just a few: hag's tooth, wild rose, little hen, stepmother, dog rose, itchy shrub, wolf’s tooth, toothy.
Which one do you like best? Our favourite is: "Do you want a cuppa of hag’s teeth?"
Rosemary salt
Rosemary salt helps with low blood pressure. Prepare it by grinding dried sprigs of the herb and mixing the ground rosemary with salt which prevents oxidation and absorbs the aroma. You can use this salt to season potatoes, mushrooms and other dishes. After eating, the fatigue will be noticeably relieved.
Violet syrup
You can use fragrant violets to make compresses, infusions, syrups and tinctures. You can even put them into cookie dough - violets are also used to make candy and jam. Prepare the syrup by heating 100 grams of dried flowers, 500 grams of sugar and 300 grams of water in a pot. When the mixture boils, remove from heat and leave it to cool. Ingest a tablespoon of syrup twice or thrice a day after meals.
Yarrow sunscreen oil
To prepare this oil, you will need 200 ml of olive oil and 100 g of fresh yarrow leaves. Use a water bath to cook the mix for about 2 hours, taking care for it not to boil: the oil should not get overheated. Wait for it to cool, then strain the mix. Caution: Yarrow sunscreen oil provides only mild protection from the sun.
Relax in the YARROW room (Slovenian for yarrow: RMAN).