Welcome to Slovenia – a little different from the other Balkan countries
On my last night in Croatia, I stayed in a guest house in the wonderfully named town of “Lazi” run by a policeman and his wife. I told them I was going to head off very early in the morning, at around 0500, to walk a decent number of kilometres before the heat of the day became unpleasant. The policeman kindly offered to bring me a coffee at 0500 and have a cigarette with me to wish me on my way. He gave me his mobile number and told me that if I had any problems between there and the border, to call him and he would sort it out.
I set off into the cold grey light of very early morning my breath steaming up in front of me, and started towards the border. I had a few km along a nasty main road, before turning off onto a smaller road which snaked down in a series of hairpins to the town of Čabar which lay nestled in the gorge of the Čabranka river. I had been on the way for 2 hours, and stopped in to a café/bar for a cup of tea. My neighbour at the bar seemed to be rather too happy for this time of the morning. He told me that he was a clown, an anarchist, and an artist; but confided that it was difficult for free spirits such as himself to fit into society. I made supportive noises about square holes and round pegs etc. He demanded to buy me a drink – and was quite taken aback when I asked for a cup of tea. As we chatted away, it became apparent that he was quite drunk already at 0730 in the morning. He assured me, however, that he hadn’t actually drunk anything so far today, but was merely still suffering from the effects of the night before. I found it hard to tear myself away, he was an entertaining drinking companion, and the café-bar was warm and cosy. But after half an hour, I realised that my clown friend was repeating himself, and remembered all the kilometres I still had to walk today.
I walked down to the bridge across the Čabranka, and over to the other side where lay the smallest border crossing post I have seen so far on my travels. At the Croatian border post, the officers looked for my car, and were astonished when I said I didn’t have one, and mimed a walking motion with my fingers. They wished me luck and waved me on my way, but before I left I asked with a smile if I could have a stamp in my passport, “nema problema”, my passport was yanked back and the requested stamp provided in a flash. I walked over to the Slovene post, where there was a single female officer. I handed over my passport; She spent some minutes carefully checking it, and then handed it back without comment and indicated that I could be on my way. I offered her my most winsome smile, and asked if I could possibly have a Slovenian stamp in my passport to add to the collection.
“You are an EU citizen, you do not need a stamp”,
“Well, yes, I know that I don’t need one, but I can I maybe have one any way, to remind me of my time in Slovenia (more smiling)”
“………..No”
No apology offered, no bending of the rules countenanced, the stamp was for non-EU citizens, so it would be irregular to give one to an EU citizen. I was a little shocked, and realised that the country I was entering was very different from any that I had been to so far on the walk. I realised that in crossing this border I was leaving the Balkans behind me.
Southern Slovenia, Rolling hills and Polje
I passed onto a small road which ran up from the border post, up the Slovenian side of the Čabranka gorge. There were no junctions on the road for an hour or so of walking, and yet I was not passed by a single car – those border guards must have one of the easiest and most boring jobs in the world. I reached the lip of the gorge, and entered a very pleasant karst landscape of long rounded tree covered ridges and polje (large flat floored depressions, often internally draining) split into pasture and meadows. The villages were pretty and well built, the fields and farms kept in immaculate condition. It felt like there wasn’t a blade of grass out of place in the whole landscape, and really, I was minded more of a Germanic than a Slavic country. This impression was furthered when I got to the first town of any size in the early afternoon, and went to a restaurant for a shandy and a bite to eat. The waitress was cold and reserved, plonking the food down in front of me, and retreating without a word. I don’t expect everyone to want to be my friend, and take interest in my business, but this is what had been the case in every country on the walk up until this point (even in Croatia as soon as I left the tourist centres), and it came as a shock. The second shock came when I overheard the conversation at the next-door table to mine, when I realised that I didn’t understand a word. I had been in countries speaking a variant of the Serbo-Croat language for the last 3 months, and had grown accustomed to the typical sounds of the language, and picked up a small but serviceable vocabulary. Slovene has similarities to Serbo-Croat, but to the unaccustomed sounds like a totally different language.
I paid up and headed out. In the meantime, a squall had blown up and it was raining heavily, but I wished to make it to Ljubljana the following day, and still had many km to walk to put me within striking distance, so I got out my waterproof and steeled myself for getting wet and cold. I made it to Ljubljana the following day, after another big day walking through the rain. Coming down from the low hills to the south of the city, you could see the city glistening in the low afternoon sunlight 10 km away across a huge flat floodplain (the biggest polje in Slovenia); behind the city, the dramatic jagged shark toothed peaks of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps were visible. My first view of the Alps, sent a shiver of anticipation down my spine – soon enough I would be in and amongst proper mountains again. Upon reaching Ljubljana I marvelled at the size of the country. Slovenia is thinner in a N-S direction, to be sure, but in two days I had walked more than half way across it!
Ljubljana, beautiful city, alienation from other travellers, travel fatigue, pleasant meetings
Ljubljana itself is an attractive, immaculate, petite city of around 500,000. I booked into one of the friendliest and best run hostels I have had the luck to visit, Hostel Vrbas (http://hostelvrba.com/), run by the irrepressible Aleks and Marija. They tempted their guests down to the common area with some free wine, and then got them chatting to one another with such practiced ease that it was a marvel to witness. I headed out for dinner with a group of backpackers from the hostel; it was a highly entertaining dinner and everyone wanted to head out afterwards, but I was shattered from a full day walking in the rain. I felt that if I pushed through the tiredness and went out drinking until the small hours, then I was sure to get sick so I made my excuses and returned to the Hostel. I felt alienated from the other backpackers in the hostel – most of them were visiting Ljubljana on a euro-tour, staying for 2-3 nights, and planned to see everything that Ljubljana and even Slovenia had to offer in that time. They had a tick-list of the top-sights of Slovenia, and were going to cram as many as they could into the short time available to them – making sure to get a selfie at each one. If this trip has changed my thinking in any way, it has slowed me right down. I am unable to contemplate such a rapid and frenetic visit to a country – I much prefer taking my time, seeing fewer things, but really enjoying each one. I have done this kind of rapid euro-trip before, but I don’t think I will be able to again after the walk.
Then again, perhaps a happy medium could be found between me and the other hostel guests. I was so laid back I was pretty much horizontal. Other than wander round the cafes and bars, doing a bit of diary writing here and there, I saw very few tourist attractions during my 3 days there, and in retrospect think that I should have got about more. Ljubljana is a fascinating city, and I hardly saw any of it. With much time available to me for introspection, I concluded that, after travelling for so long, constant change can sometimes become monotonous, and can temporarily dull the brightest of curiosities. In Ljubljana, my curiosity was dulled, and I felt gripped by an unpleasant listlessness. I promised myself that if I felt such a lack of curiosity and excitement when I got to Vienna and considered the route ahead, then I would call it a day and fly home. I think that you should generally aim to complete challenges that you have set yourself, but I could see no point continuing for 9 months or so walking if I no longer felt excited at the prospect – if I was doing it just for the sake of it. Happily, this momentary melancholic angst soon passed with the new challenges of the Julian Alps and Dolomites. It returned during my breakneck march across Austria, but was banished upon reaching Vienna, and I contemplated the prospect of winter conditions in the Carpathian Mountains.
Before leaving Ljubljana, I had a meeting with a Slovene who could explain the local culture, and why everything was so different here from every other country formerly in Yugoslavia. I met Špela for the first time in Sarajevo, when she interviewed me as part of field work she was conducting for a master’s degree. We stayed in touch after the interview, and I contacted her as I neared Ljubljana. We met at a craft beer pub, and she explained Slovene culture to me. She conceded that Slovenes could be reserved at first, and even to seem unfriendly, in comparison to other former Yugoslav nations, but that once a friendship was established, they relaxed quickly and would become much more communicative. She said that Slovenes generally work hard, and generally play by the rules more than their Balkan neighbours. This makes sense, as Slovenian towns and country-side are visibly much more prosperous and better run than the other countries of former Yugoslavia, with their GDP per capita double that of the next richest of these countries, Croatia.
The reason for the differing work ethic between the south Slavic nations is due to the empires that each area found themselves incorporated in from the middle ages until the development of the nation state in the 19th and 20th centuries. Slovenia was integrated into the Habsburg empire in the 14th Century, and later was a province of the Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918 – 700 years of Germanic rule. Croatia on the other hand, during the same time-period, was first in personal union with Hungary, and then a province of the Hungarian Half of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Hungarian ruling elite proved to be much more self-interested, corrupt rulers than the Austrians. They resisted all efforts at economic and land reform, and continued a near absolute feudal system of serfdom until long after it had been abolished in the Austrian half of the empire. This severely discouraged the growth of a middle class, and the development of an advanced money-based capitalist society. The Slavic lands lying to the east of Croatia (e.g. modern-day Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria), during the same period, were incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans left welcome legacies of wonderful Islamic fountains (Česma), hospitality, and Turkish coffee. However, the ruling elites of the Ottoman empire were similarly resistant to economic and land reform; again, retarding the development of advanced capitalist society, and leaving a legacy of political corruption which unfortunately remains to this present day. Thus, the southern Slavic countries ranging from Slovenia in the West to Bulgaria in the East, may well have been more linguistically, culturally, and religiously homogeneous in the early middle ages. But, they were pushed and pulled apart by more powerful neighbours which left them with the dramatic differences in culture and development which remain to this day.
A welcome visitor
I left Ljubljana and walked a rapid 25 km along a flat floodplain to the small town of Kranj to meet my dad, who was coming to join me for a week’s walking in the Julian Alps of north east Slovenia. I had been walking solo for 6 months – very rarely even seeing fellow walkers – so I was looking forward immensely to the prospect of walking in company, and was only slightly worried that spending so much time alone would have made me so weird and idiosyncratic in habit, that it might make it difficult for another human to spend significant amounts of time me. Luckily this was not the case (either that, or I was so weird to begin with that my dad didn’t notice any difference, haha).
We spent the evening in Kranj, preparing our equipment and supplies, and looking over our route options for the coming days. I had planned a route for the next day which seemed to me to be reasonable in distance, but I hadn’t been walking in large mountains for many months, and I failed to take proper account of the substantial ascent and descent involved (1600 m ↗, 500 m ↘). This meant it ended up being a monster day – we set off at 0900, and started climbing a long, forested E-W running ridge which we traversed for the rest of the day. The trees were mixed broadleaved and coniferous, and I quizzed my dad for tree recognition tips. At one time he contemplated becoming a forester and consequently knows more about trees than anyone else I know. I didn’t know before how to differentiate spruce from fir trees, for example, or rowan from ash (1). This might not seem like big deal in the grand scheme of things – but I spend most of my days walking through forests, and it is always satisfying to know what you are looking at.
As the afternoon wore on, my consultations of the map told me that despite many hours of walking, we still had a long way to go. I became increasingly apologetic at my over-ambitious route planning; my dad was very good natured about it, but we were both relieved when the refuge is finally sighted around 2030. We had been in the forest on low hills for most of the day, but a final ascent to the refuge took us to a bare mountain top – giving us clear views in every direction. We could see all the way back to Kranj, the Central Slovenian plain, and the dramatic points of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps at least 50 km away. To our north and west, the view was dominated by the central Julian alps and especially the intimidating bulk of Triglav – Slovenia’s highest mountain (2867 m), and our target for later in the week. Everything was bathed in the golden hues of the setting sun; it was a good reward for a tough slog of a day and whetted the appetite more.
I thought that my route plans for the coming days were much gentler than the first, but the roughness of the path, sizeable ascent and descent and hot weather conspired to make every day much tougher than it looked on paper. In the end we walked for 5 more days, with every day more than 10 hours of walking and more than 1000 m of ascent and/or descent, I was ready to dial back the difficulty, but my dad took it all in his stride, with nary a grumble. The weather held good, with most days a little on the warm side of comfortable, but with ample shade available in the forests which enveloped the paths for all the walking below 1800 m or so. We swam twice in the heavenly lake Bohinj, surrounded on three sides by precipitous mountains, clear as crystal, and as warm as bath water. In the highlight and highpoint of the trip we successfully made it to the top of Triglav on our penultimate days walking, despite my dad’s uncertainty until the very day as to whether his knee would stand up to the screes, and the extreme ascent and descent necessary – we set off from our high refuge at 0700, put our heads down, and climbed, and scrambled, and climbed, and rested, and climbed some more and summited 0900. The view from the top was breathtaking – you could see practically the whole of Slovenia, and across to the Italian and Austrian borders – and it was the crowning moment to a great weeks walking.
So, it was with a heavy heart that I saw my dad on to the bus back to the airport. It turns out all my long months of solitude haven’t (yet) driven me insane, and that I still seem able to maintain semi lucid conversations for days on end – which is nice. Interpreting my feelings when my dad left, I felt lonely after 6 months on the road, and sad to see a companion leave. I feel very lucky to have a father who I get on well with, who shares my passion for walking, and whom I can share some of my hike with. I have a moderate yearning to stop walking, to return to a settled life, get a job, rent a flat, and to reintegrate into society; but the desire to keep going, to climb the next hill and to see what is over the top, is still higher. Hopefully by the time I get back to Istanbul, the itch to hike will have been well and truly scratched, and I will be ready stop.
Battlefields in the Sky, Kobarid/Caparetto
After seeing my dad onto the bus in Bohinj village, I walked around the northern shore of the lake, and up to the west on an old Austro-Hungarian WW1 supply road which snaked in many many hairpins straight up 1000 m from the lake shore to the high limestone plateau above. My path then continued west next to various remnants of the Austrian supply network, over a mountain pass at 1800 m, down into a hidden glacial bowl of Krn Lake, and finally up to the peak of Krn mountain itself up at 2,244 m. The hill side was littered with scraps of barbed wire and if you looked close you could see the remnants of the trenches which ran right across the top of Krn. It was the front line between Italy, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire during WW1, from 1915 until 1917, on a part of the front called the Izonso front (named after the Isonzo river, known as the Soča river in Slovenian), which was the scene of some of the most senseless slaughter, during a war notable for senseless slaughters (2). Here 300,000 Italians and 200,000 Austro-Hungarians lost their lives.
It is hard to imagine the fury of the battlefield today, especially as I saw it, bathed in mid-July sunshine. From the top of Krn one can see all the way down to the flat plains of north east Italy, and even catch a glimpse of the Adriatic sea 65 km distant. The upper Soča river is now a tourist magnet, its clear aquamarine waters attracting white water rafters and bathers from all over the world. I hiked down the 2000 km from the summit of Krn to the river valley, and across to the town of Kobarid, which is better known internationally by its Italian name of Caporetto, due to the Battle of Caporetto (or 12th Battle of the Isonzo), one of the most spectacular victories and the most ignominious defeats of the First World War, when a combined Austro-Hungarian/German force routed the Italian army, advancing 100km in one fell swoop and taking over 265,000 Italian prisoners. The chaotic scenes of the Italian defeat are novelised in “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemmingway.
After waiting out a tough rain storm in Kobarid – now a tourist town full of happy thrill seekers mostly unaware of the carnage meted out here exactly 100 years ago – I hiked up and along a long straight limestone ridge called Stol, which begins in Kobarid, ascends rapidly from the town and then continues straight as an arrow for the Italian border, 15 km thence, rising to 1,673 m. It was the Italian second line of defence during WWI, and the remnants of precipitous military roads, trench systems, and cable car systems, clearly visible to those looking for them. I stayed at a bivouac hut just on the Slovenian side of the border, with a fascinating fellow long-distance Italian walker called Sergio, who had a dramatically different philosophy to necessary equipment to me. He believed that to be safe, every possible occurrence in the mountains must be anticipated, and the appropriate equipment carried for it. I on the other hand, believe you should take the bare minimum to hike and be safe, and that the extra mobility that a light pack gives you helps to keep you safe (3). Sergio’s pack was around 30 kgs, mine was close to 10. We each thought the other was recklessly endangering their lives, and spent a lively good-natured evening trying to convince one another of the others folly. The following day we hiked together to the Italian border, the first border I had crossed between two Schengen area countries, and marked by a simple white stone post. Following the path of the marauding Austro-Hungarian soldiers as they swept down onto the north east Italian plains, I left the lands of the Slavs behind, and looked forward eagerly to my first taste of proper Italian cooking.
Conclusion
Slovenia is a minuscule country – 12 times smaller in area than the United Kingdom, 27 times smaller than metropolitan France – And yet into this tiny country is fitted a huge amount and diversity of beauty – natural, architectural and human. The Slovenes are immensely proud of their little country, and it is not difficult to see why. The landscape varies from rolling karst hills and meadows in the south; to flat central farmland; to high and formidable alpine peaks, and pristine glittering lakes in the north and west; and even a little sliver of the Adriatic coast in the south west with historic walled ports, soft sandy beaches, and warm clear seas. The built environment and infrastructure is aesthetically pleasing, well looked after, and spotless; with equal care applied to preserving the myriad historic buildings on one hand, and to designing and creating attractive new ones on the other. The people polite and helpful, if sometimes reserved at first. They might not be as effusive, and confidently welcoming as their fellow former Yugoslav Nations, but because you might have to work for their friendship a little harder, it means the rewards are that much sweeter when it comes.
A small favour – I am using my walk to raise money for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). These blog posts take a very long time for me to write, if you enjoy reading them and wish to support the author, you can donate to MSF via my fundraising page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/wanderingpaddy
Addenda:
(1) A spruce tree (Genus Picea) has stiff squarish needles with a sharp tip. You can roll them between your fingers. A fir tree (Genus Abies) also has needles, but they are softer, with a rounded tip, and a flat profile, which makes them difficult to roll between the fingers. Fir needles also frequently have lines on their underside. Spruce needles grow from a little woody “peg”, when the needles fall off, the peg stays behind – giving spruce twigs and branches a characteristic rough surface covered in the pegs. Fir lacks these pegs, and consequently the bark is smooth. Both Rowan (Genus Sorbus) and Ash (Genus Fraxinus) have superficially very similar compound leaves – however on a rowan tree the leaflets are sharply serrated, and the leaves sprout alternately from a twig or branch. Ash leaves sprout in pairs from the twig, and the leaflets have smooth edges. Ash seeds form in clusters of winged “keys”, which break off in a strong wind and spin to the ground. Rowan produces berries.
(2) The Italians had a large numerical and industrial superiority over the Austro-Hungarians, whose multi-ethnic sprawling empire – already straining under the pressure of nationalism, political and economic decrepitude before the war broke out – gradually began to burst along its national seams as the war progressed. Unfortunately, the Italians, aware of their numerical superiority, became fatally overconfident of a swift victory. Their supreme commander general Cadorna, was wedded to a belief in a broad frontal attack by infantry onto the barbed wire and machine guns of the enemy, despite its repeated costly failure. At the beginning of the conflict, the Austrians – realising their inferiority of men and materiel, withdrew from the immediate borders with Italy to defensible ridges and high points with excellent fields of fire. These they placed impenetrable fields of barbed wire around, and burrowed underground to make impregnable strong points. From 1915 until 1917 The Italian general ordered his men onto the enemy guns, time and time again, each time losing 10,000s of thousands with negligible territorial gain, keeping his plan almost identical despite the horrifically high casualty figures. By 1917 on the Isonzo Front, The Italians had launched 11 major offensives, and lost 300,000 men killed, to the Austro-Hungarian 200,000, with no significant gain in territory. The Italian army was weakened and demoralised by the constant senseless attacks, with the 11th battle pushing them to breaking point. Against this weakened army the Austro-Hungarians, with German reinforcements, launched one of the most successful offensives of the First World War, in the 12th battle of the Isonzo (also known as the battle of Caparetto), when they attacked the Italian using novel infiltration tactics, innovative use of artillery, and the cover of some nasty weather to hide their movements. This attack was across the Upper Isonzo (now called the Soča) river valley right beneath Mount Krn where I had my vantage point. The Italian defences collapsed, and the combined army of the central powers was able to advance over 100km and take 265,000 Italian prisoners(!!). The Italian soldiers were so fed up senseless attacks and of the brutal discipline of their callous superiors that many laid down their arms and gave up without a fight.