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!

On our way back home, somewhat tired, somewhat sad to be leaving, but also glad to be home soon. The trip could maybe have been a day or two longer, but now we’re leaving on a high note.

Picnic and bathing at lake Pangodi. The weather was warm, the water not so much at first, but OK once I got in and started swimming.

Board game night, with Bang as the main focus. It’s one of the few games I’ve played that becomes much more interesting with more players, so we usually end up playing it when we’re meeting up with our friends in Estonia and have a big crowd.

Over the years they’ve added various extensions to the base game, and it’s becoming hard to keep up with all the additions. I kind of liked the base version better – with all the extras the game is more chaotic and less about planning and strategy. But he kids all prefer the over-the-top chaos version.

We visited my father and his wife, and made sushi together. I was mostly too busy talking to take any photos, so most of these are not mine. Ingrid photographed some of the sushi materials; Adrian photographed me from various angles.

The book I’m enjoying is Estonia’s most famous and well-known cookbook – the wonderful Raamat maitsvast ja tervislikust toidust (“The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food”) from 1955 which contains everything from very traditional Estonian recipes, to lots of Russian baked goods, to instructions for using all sorts of fish that I’ve never even heard of. It was strange and exotic already in the 1980s.

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!

We used to travel with colouring books and crates of Lego for the kids. Now it’s my hobbies that take up space in the car.

I brought my cardigan project with me. I did consider leaving it at home and just doing socks for 10 days, because they are much more portable. But the socks are mostly time-fillers, whereas I want to actually finish this cardigan.

I’ve found nothing that beats a good-quality wicker basket for storing knitting projects. It protects the knitting and doesn’t get damaged by knitting needles or scissors. Unlike a bag, everything is clearly visible and there are no nooks and corners that eat up small things like markers or pieces of scrap yarn.

Apparently Rally Estonia, part of the World Rally Championship, is happening in Tartu right now, and Ingrid wanted to see it. Adrian and I weren’t interested, so we went dog walking with a friend instead. Although we did watch some of the rally on TV, and it wasn’t entirely boring, but the half hour we saw was enough for me.