No river valleys today! We went hiking on Velika Planina, a mountain plateau covered mostly in pastureland and cows. A complete change in scenery. And we didn’t even have to climb the hill to get up there – a cable car did the work for us. At 50 EUR for a family, the cable car ticket price seemed rather steep, and I was actually considering finding an alternative hike for today. 50 EUR just to be allowed to walk! But I’m glad we went with this option after all, because the scenery up there was quite unique.

The plateau with its gentle rolling hills made for easy walking. The sun was bright but we got a lot of wind, so for the first time in a week we were actually not hot at all.

Velika Planina has several old herder settlements with shingled huts.

Cows were mingling freely with the tourists and barely even curious about us.

One of the huts hosted a museum, which was closed today for some reason. Several had simple cafes or sold cheese and other milk products. Speaking of cheese, I found these Slovenian cottage cheese pastries that you can apparently buy in most bakeries and supermarkets. The cottage cheese filling reminds me of Estonian kohupiim. I’ve been having these as my packed lunch almost every day.

Speaking of pastries, I only noticed today that the word burek/börek (“filled filo dough pastry” in various places around the Balkans and the Middle East) is strikingly similar to pirog/pirukas (“filled pastry” in Estonian, Russian, Swedish etc). Do they have the same origin? Harden the B, soften the K, and you’re there. I went down a deep Internet rabbit hole to figure out whether that’s the case, and people on the internet have had some very passionate debates about the origins of both words, but I guess nobody really knows for sure. In any case, the Slovenian cottage cheese burek are delicious.

Back to the plateau and its huts! One of the buildings was a beautiful wooden chapel. The gateway of the chapel was decorated with two spruce trees, stripped of bark and branches all the way except for the very top. Eric had noticed a similar tree while driving, so it’s not just some tourist thing here on Velika Planina. I asked around, and a Slovenian colleague tells me they’re called mlaj and put up for celebrations – traditionally for May Day (like a version of the maypole I guess) but more recently also for birthdays and weddings.

For those with tired legs, there was a two-seat chairlift between the cable car station and the top of the hill. (There’s a ski resort here during winter.) We walked, though, and actually kept pace with the chairlift. Adrian might have voted for the chairlift, had it had more than two seats so that we could all have sat together.

Another day, another river valley! But this one was more memorable than yesterday’s, even looking back two weeks later. The path stayed closer to the river, unlike yesterday’s for example, which meandered further away and up the slopes, sometimes even following an asphalt roads. We had more views of the river, and it occasionally did interesting things.

Today’s walk had no particular destination or ending point. Walk as far as you want, then turn and walk back. (Or walk even further and take a bus or taxi back, but I didn’t want to spend time on figuring that out.) Instead of setting a goal in terms of kilometres, we decided to walk for two and a half hours, no matter how far that took us, and then head back.

All of these walks have been surrounded by stunning mountain views, but after 6 days of them, I’m almost getting used to them. I wonder what it feels like to live here. Do the locals even notice the spectacular mountains around them?

Adrian likes having a destination to aim for. Aimless wandering for half a day doesn’t suit him. So we made a game of collecting observations of interesting things. A bridge; a beetle with shimmering wings; a rockfall.

When we had reached our turning point, I noticed that the river was suddenly no longer a river, but a dry, white, rocky riverbed. We had walked downstream, and normally rivers grow in that direction, as new streams and brooks feed them. This one had just vanished.

W challenged ourselves on the way back to figure out where the river went. We located the spot where the last of the water disappeared, under piles of boulders and logs. We couldn’t figure out what was going on there, though. Clearly something that is important enough to protect. Is there an irrigation pump hidden there? Shouldn’t there be cables and pipes there, in that case? Also, this can’t have been the only cause, because when reaching this point, the river was already smaller than upstream where we first met it.

On our drive back to Kranjska Gora, we stopped at the highest point of Vršič Pass to take in more gorgeous views of the mountains surrounding us. When we passed this point on our morning drive out, it was so packed with cars – not just in the parking lots but also along both sides of the road – that it was barely passable. Two larger vehicles meeting literally could not pass each other. It surprised me that the chaos didn’t bother anyone enough to station a traffic warden here, given that it’s the only way from one side of the mountain ridge to the other. Now, late in the afternoon, the situation was better and we actually found a parking spot.

Another day, another river valley walk – from lake Jasna along the Pišnica river, to a small Russian chapel. Writing this two weeks later I realize the river valleys are beginning to blend together and I can’t remember any particular details from this hike, apart from the chapel itself. Oh, and the cows! There were free-roaming cows not just in pastures but also just climbing the rocky, forested slopes along the river, which I unfortunately didn’t catch on a photo. I’m used to seeing goats and sheep in hilly woods, but climbing cows were new to me.

Today we relocated from Bled to Kranjska Gora, stopping for walks along the way.

Our first stop was in Krma valley for a short but very scenic walk. Clouds were hanging all the way to the ground. This valley is the starting point for hiking to Mt Triglav, Slovenia’s highest peak. Which we’re not going to do – we’re just here to take in the views.

Here’s our car for this week: a cute little Fiat Panda. It’s small enough that if Ingrid had come with us on this trip, we couldn’t have fit all four of us and our baggage in the car. Right now one of the back seats is filled with half our luggage.

Compared to our fourteen-year-old Volvo at home, it’s modern but cheap in sometimes surprising ways. Electronic displays with lots of detailed information in the dashboard, and hybrid technology to save on fuel, and much less noise in the cabin compared to our Volvo. But no air conditioning vents in the back of the cabin? Speaking of AC, the Fiat has such a non-intuitive way of turning it on that we thought for the first few hours that the AC was broken. Called the car rental company, and they told us to press the ventilation knob. Who the heck comes up with a UI like that? Knobs are for turning!

Next we drove to Vrata valley, where we started by visiting Peričnik waterfall. This was a nice compensation after the puny waterfall at Mostnica yesterday, which especially Adrian found a disappointment. Peričnik delivered: plenty of water, impressive height, cool surroundings – and you could even walk behind the waterfall.

Walking behind the waterfall was a wet experience. The whole roof was dripping. It didn’t seem like spray from the waterfall, because we were well away from it – more like the rock above us was leaking. Or maybe it was just condensation, who knows.

After that we walked up the river to Vrata valley. If Eric and Adrian look knackered during our breaks, it’s because of the heat again!

We finished at a mountain hut in Vrata valley. After cooling down with some ice cream, and climbing to the top of a large boulder, we took a local bus back to Peričnik and our car, to finish our drive to Kranjska Gora.

Today day was very hot again.

We walked along Mostnica Gorge and Voje Valley today. We went up the river, saw a lot of cool water-eroded rocks on the way and a waterfall at the end, and then came back along the other side of the river.

The walk was quite varied, despite following the same river back and forth along the same gorge. The riverbed was sometimes flat and wide, and other times the river was so far down a deep, narrow, dark ravine that we couldn’t even see it.

Most of the time we walked through shady forest, but the last bit went through a beautiful, wide, meadowed valley that felt like walking across a saucepan. The views were fabulous, but the sun was beating down on us, there was no shade and no breeze. We just marched onwards to get out of the sun as fast as we could.

We took a lot of breaks to drink water and try to cool ourselves. There was a cafe of sorts at the very end, just before the waterfall, and we were hoping against hope that they might have ice cream, but they didn’t. (They had both electricity and a serviceable road, and no competition, so they could have made a killing there.)

The waterfall at the end of the path was rather underwhelming, barely more than a trickle at this time of the year. I imagine it would be more impressive during the spring snow melt. Had it been the only thing we saw during our walk, we would have been rather disappointed, but luckily we saw a lot more of the gorge and its weirdly-shaped stones on our way back.

Many years ago Eric and I went on a driving holiday in Scotland, and we saw a river there with a stretch of similarly eroded rocks, with rounded shapes and potholes and whirlpools. I wish I remembered its name. One of the reasons I like having this blog is so that I can go back to the past and find all the details again.

Our first full day of hiking in Slovenia. Today we climbed Viševnik, a 2000-metre peak. Which sounds like a lot, but you don’t start at sea level, of course.

The actual ascent was just over 700 metres. Which is still a lot, especially on a hot, sunny day! And the route up this mountain was steep and unrelenting. Up, up, up, constantly, with barely any breaks in the ascent, or even a zig-zag. The first half of the ascent was also quite boring – for a big chunk of the lower parts, we followed a dusty trail through through a monotonous spruce forest. I don’t even have any photos from that part.

Halfway up we were feeling quite knackered and demoralized, and not enjoying ourselves much at all. But then we came to a small plateau with actual views, and enough room to sit down and take a proper break, and got some calories into us, and found the energy to keep going. After that the actual ascent didn’t get any easier, but the landscape opened up and got more varied, so the effort felt less.

And occasionally we even got views of the peak we were heading for!

Adrian really struggled with the heat and was seriously thinking of turning back even when we had no more than 15 minutes left to the peak. But with plenty of encouragement, and relieved of his rucksack, he managed to keep going.

The higher we climbed, the more fabulous the views were.

And we made it! When we got to the top, all we wanted to do was sit down and drink lots of water and scarf down dried fruit for some fast calories.

Once we had revived ourselves, we took photos.

The way down required less huffing and puffing, but more attention and concentration to not lose our footing.

By the time we were done with the descent and just walking back to the car, even Adrian was full of cheer, almost skipping along, and talking about how the whole thing wasn’t so bad after all, and how cool it is to climb a peak, and how he could totally do this again.

How selective our memories can be! The best parts we’ll remember for a long time, and the worst parts melt into a vague sense of “it was a bit of an adventure”. The same happened with our last day in Mercantour, when we got caught in hail and thunder. When we were living through it, the last half-hour of it felt pretty horrible, with me carrying Adrian in my arms, curling up around him to protect him from the hail. But six years later it feels like it wasn’t so bad at all.

Photo-heavy post coming up!

We’re in Slovenia for 10 days of walking and sightseeing. Today wasn’t even going to count for real because I expected us to be tired and groggy after a day of flying. But after some rest, we thought we could do something better with our evening than just sitting in a hotel room, so we went out for a short walk.

Ingrid isn’t interested in walking and has – despite only being 15 – wonky knees that bother her especially when she walks for a long time, so she elected to stay at home and enjoy a parent-free house and take care of Nysse instead.

Flying really is no fun these days. We got up at 4 to get to the airport. All sources – including Arlanda’s website, and the airline’s – said we should be there three hours before the flight leaves, because bla bla, and when we did that, the baggage drop counter wasn’t even staffed yet. For the first hour we – and dozens of other travellers – just stood there, waiting. Two hours before departure time, someone turned up. Apparently a missed hour of sleep for dozens of people is worth absolutely nothing to the airline. The availability of breakfast at Arlanda was also seriously disappointing. On the other hand, lunch at Warsaw airport was among the nicer parts of the experience.

For our evening walk we went to Vintgar Gorge just outside of Ljubljana. Getting there was an adventure in and of itself, with roadworks blocking off several access routes, and half of the official parking lots closed down, and Google not aware of some of the roadworks. We spent a silly amount of time zig-zagging down narrow gravel village roads, but we got there in the end.

The gorge itself was amazing, and even more beautiful than I had expected. Rapids and waterfalls, sheer cliffs, lush greenery. The photos speak for themselves.

We had a 20-minute walk from the parking lot to the entrance, and the weather was hot. The ice cream kiosk near the entrance was a welcome sight.



Adrian made sure I would also be in these photos and memories.








The pathways through the gorge were narrow, so it was a one-way tour. It was another half-hour’s walk back from the end of the gorge to the car. We were tired again by now, but then we got views like this!

The annual trip to Estonia isn’t complete without an outing to Otepää adventure park. 11 years after our first visit (when I was pregnant with Adrian and not allowed to do any of the fun stuff so Ingrid was the only climber) and it’s still fun.

Both kids are now tall and agile enough to manage all the ordinary tracks. There used to be special track labelled the “path of suffering” but I saw it has been removed. I guess not enough people cared for all the suffering. None of us three had ever tried it; the initial rope climb straight up was more than enough to deter us.

The highlight of the last, fifth track is the rather spectacular “Tarzan leap”, where you hold on to a thick rope and swing from a platform about 10 metres above ground, to catch yourself in a net 20 metres away. (With a safety harness of course.) Scary but exhilarating.



After the climbing tracks you’re treated to two zipline rides back and forth across a wide meadowed valley.

We went canoeing on Ahja river with our Estonian friends.

Vesipapp arranged the tour for us and were very helpful. We met them at Kiidjärve, where we got our canoes and oars and life jackets – and instructions.

Also plastic jugs for scooping out water from the canoes, but my boat mate and I soon had our division of labour down so well (left side of the boat for her, right side for me, and swapping halfway through the trip) that there was very rarely a need to switch oars from one side to the other. Our canoe barely got a tiny trickle of water at the bottom – nothing you could scoop up. But the teams with more… ehum… athletic paddling styles got rather wetter.

We started at Kiidjärve and had a bit of lazy paddling down the river to begin with. Then a long dammed lake, which was easier to navigate but required more paddling. At the end of the lake at Taevaskoja a representative from Vesipapp helped us carry the canoes over the dam and get them in the river again. From there on it was easy but exciting going: a gentle river, but with constant bends, underwater rocks, logs both under and over the water, low-hanging trees, etc. And beautiful views!

Note to future me: the 12 km trip from Kiidjärve to Porgandi, which was supposed to take 3 hours, took us 4, even though we only had a short break in the middle at the dam. The shorter, 9 km route to Otteni would probably have been enough.

Credit goes to Ingrid for the photos with me in them. It took some manoeuvring to hand over the camera from one canoe to another without risking dropping it!

I stayed at my camping spot for a few extra hours, sitting on a nice hill of sunny rocks with a pleasant view, and reading. Then I had to go home because I had only packed dinner and breakfast but no lunch.