Where is Piran?

Hemmed in by Italy to the north and Croatia to the south, Slovenia has less than 47km of coastline. There are three main towns on this stretch of land overlooking the Adriatic, the pick of which is Piran, whose historic centre is squeezed into a lizard’s head-shaped peninsula.

A snatch of historic background

As first-time visitors to Piran, what immediately struck us was how it felt more Italian than the towns we’d passed through/stayed in during our travels around Slovenia. There’s a good reason for this. Initially under Byzantine rule, Piran was part of the Republic of Venice from the 13th century until 1797. After that it was part of the Austrian Empire, Napoleonic Empire, belonged to Trieste, and then was annexed to Yugoslavia. It’s been Slovenian since 1991, but it’s the Venetian period which has left the biggest impression.

So, what’s not to like about a town with picturesque Venetian architecture?

It’s time I put my opener into context. We’d just spent the previous couple of weeks travelling around Slovenia on foot, in a car, and by train. Apart from a stay in Ljubljana after we arrived in the country, all our bases were in rural accommodation in scenic, tranquil valleys. We were used to a countryside that was largely devoid of people, and Piran was rammed. It was full of bronzed people of all ages, lounging all along the concrete promenade which separates the pastel Venetian buildings from the sparkling Adriatic. Basically, finding ourselves in the midst of crowds of people after the serenity of the hinterland came as a culture shock. Had we arrived directly from Ljubljana it would have been a different story.

What’s Piran like?

It’s pretty, and compact, and a tad bewildering. The town’s sea-facing façade is undeniably pleasing on the eye – immaculate, slender townhouses with soft peach, pale lemon, and minty green colours stand shoulder to shoulder with grander edifices such as the Town Hall and the Venetian House. A row back, the scene is more shabby chic, the pastel façades weather weary but still attractive. Being sardined into a small peninsula means space is at a premium, resulting in a network of narrow alleys, some linked by arched tunnels. It’s small, but it’s also easy to lose your bearings once you venture away from the seafront.

What is there to do in Piran?

Piran is a place to kick back, following the lead of the visiting Italians who add volume to its bustling streets during the summer months. Early morning or late afternoon is best for a meandering stroll. There are no standout attractions, merely a few quite interesting ones.

The Punta Lighthouse is where the fires that gave the town its name (from the Greek pyr) were lit to guide ships into the port of Koper.

The Cathedral of St George has a belltower based on St Mark’s campanile in Venice. The weathervane atop it is used by locals for weather predictions. Pointing toward northern Italy is good, pointing toward Croatia isn’t.

A climb to the town’s old walls rewards with views across Piran to the Adriatic and Italy, and, if the weather is right, even as far as the Alps.

Tartini Square is Piran’s showpiece. Opening onto the pretty harbour, the marbled square is simply a nice place to hang out, drinking a beer at a pavement café, browsing the small artisan market, or picking up some souvenirs made with salt from Secovlje Salina Nature Park further along the coast.

Enjoy sunset. The show when the sun goes down is quite lovely. It might not be dramatic – no fiery streaks flashing across the sky – but the dreamy hues that turn sky and sea mauve (no filters used in the photo) compliment the colours of the Venetian buildings perfectly.

What and where to eat in Piran

Fish and shellfish are mostly the order of the day in the restaurants along the seafront, which come as a welcome change if you’ve spent several days with the hale, hearty, and meaty fare of the interior. Unsurprisingly, there’s a strong Italian influence in the cuisine, again no bad thing; although, a pizza we had during lunch at Pizzeria Batana overlooking the harbour was only so-so.

We wanted to try the characterful, hole-in-the-wall Fritolin pri Cantini where a plate of sardines came in at under €7 (great value in Piran, where prices were higher than other areas), but we had no chance. On a summer night, getting in anywhere wasn’t easy. Thankfully our hotel, Hotel Piran, served food as elegant as the surrounding architecture. An added attraction was its terrace beside the sea occupies the best spot in town. At around €20 for a not-very-big main course, it was pricey though.

Overall opinion

Once I got over the culture shock, I was able to appreciate Piran’s charms more. It is a pretty little town that feels more Italian than Slovenian, which makes for an interesting contrast to other parts of the country. As a place to end a trip which took us from the east to the west and from north to south, it was an aesthetically pleasing location to wind down before heading home. But I don’t think I’d want to spend more than a couple of days there. Maybe that’s just because I found other parts of Slovenia more interesting.

Interesting Piran snippet

In 2010, the people of Piran elected Peter Bossman as their mayor. The Ghana-born doctor was the first black mayor to be elected in an eastern European country.

The hotel’s foyer/bar area bustles with people; a mix of smartly dressed Slovenians enjoying lunch with a view, and guests in cycling/hiking gear. It’s livelier than most rural hotels we’ve stayed in, but this is the busiest weekend of the season.

Beside the Slap Rinka waterfall
We change into light walking clothes and head deep into a glacial valley renowned for its beauty in a country where scenic splendour comes as standard. It is completely enclosed by mountains – on two sides are conifer-clad slopes, behind us are high meadows, ahead tower the saw-toothed peaks of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps. There might be a road leading to Logarska Dolina now, but once the way in was via a gap in a needle rock. Our route ambles alongside pastures before the forest wraps itself around us and the valley sheds its immaculate, Alpine meadow clothing and morphs into something wilder and more carefree. Views are obscured until we emerge at a sheer wall of red-tinged rock where a 90m high anorexic waterfall cascades into a sage-coloured pool.

Distracting our gaze from the waterfall is a wooden structure, defying gravity on the cliff-face beside the water. A steep, rickety staircase leads to the base of the hut where another, more ladder than staircase, disappears through the wooden floor. It’s not for the vertiginous, the bones in my legs liquefy on the final section. An elderly woman runs the hut, serving light meals and snacks to the valiant ones who make the climb. We order a couple of choc ices and grab a seat on the hut’s narrow balcony for grandstand views of the falls. As I lick at my lolly it occurs to me the woman running the place has to make this climb every day. Kudos to her and those who bring supplies.

Chinese brides an eclectic gathering
Once Saturday passes, life in the Hotel Plesnik returns to being more typical of rural hotel existence – tranquil and relaxed. But there are a couple of surreal departures from the norm. At one point I look out of the bedroom window to see a Chinese couple (her in full bridal gown, him sporting a silver tuxedo) skipping down the road beside the hotel. Given the setting, it’s a bizarre sight in itself. As it’s raining cats and dogs it is especially surreal. Apparently having pre-wedding photo shoots, especially in European locations, is hugely popular with the Chinese.

More confounding is when an eclectic group, who seem have been created from a range of international stereotypes, turn up in the hotel. As we sip post-walk beers in the bar we ponder what on earth connects two Lycra clad Italian men, who gesticulate flamboyantly and talk loudly as they stroke designer stubble jaws, with a brace of quietly spoken Japanese men wearing neat business suits, and a Russian man and women flashing too much gold and decked out in garish outfits that are no doubt expensive but which look cheap. The puzzle eats away at us until our nosiness gets too much. Nina, the hotel’s owner answers our questions about who they are; ski jump judges, scouting the area for potential jump sites.

Championing Nature
Over the following days we develop a feel for Logarska Dolina. Its inhabitants are fiercely protective of their environment, especially the younger ones who have taken over the custody of the valley. That doesn’t mean they are unfriendly where visitors are concerned, quite the opposite. They simply strive to ensure nature and traditional life in the valley is respected. We meet up with a local guide, Mojka, whose family own a farm. Our ‘walk’ starts with tea made from herbs picked on the farm, a generous slice of apple strudel and a basket of freshly baked rolls with jam centres, all courtesy of Mojka’s mum. The purpose of our meeting is to determine whether a guided walk with a theme of identifying wild herbs would fit in with the Slow Travel holiday we’re helping put together for Inntravel.

Mojka herself exudes that attractive Slovenian personality which manages to blend forthrightness with being charming and funny. As we amble across her family’s fields the conversation flows as freely as the water cascading past the farm’s old mill. She’s a pragmatic protector of the environment, one who knows nature and the symbiotic relationship between humans and the earth. She talks of the land, traditions, life in the valleys past and present – pointing out exquisitely carved beehives whilst recounting how a relation was always being thrown in jail because he was politically outspoken; picking at wild thyme as she tells us how the farm used to be much bigger but was split between family members during Communism to stop the state confiscating swathes of land. It is hugely insightful on many levels and adds context to our explorations.

Mountain men, pigs, and orange water
Hikes in Logarska Dolina aren’t just scenic jaunts, each comes with quirky little add ons; like an encounter with a trio of squealing, happy pigs at an empty dairy farm in the depths of neighbouring valley Robanov Kot which ends when one of them tries to eat Andy’s boot. At Grohot hut we get shouted at by a mountain man, who’s a mountain of a man, because we walk into his hut with dirty boots whilst clacking walking poles on his polished tiles. Behind the brashness he’s a cuddly bear, serving us steaming coffee in tin cups and warning us about the dangers of attempting a route we’d been told was an ‘easy stroll’. It doesn’t take us long to twig that because the locals are so used to yomping around these mountain slopes, every walk is ‘easy’ even when it isn’t.

Toward the end of a steep climb through the forest to the mountain hut at Klemenca Jama (which, incidentally, has a great selection of schnapps) we see our return route – two planks fixed to a cliff-face. At least there’s a steel wire to hold on to. Having some trepidation about tackling this, I ask the young female proprietor at the hut whether it’s a safe route to attempt. She waves away my concerns with a nonchalant “it’s easy.” Of course it is.

On the aptly-named Panoramic Road we find a spring spouting water which has turned the surrounding rocks orange. The water is supposed to possess healing qualities, so we drink some – it’s sweet and metallic and has a slight fizz; it’s actually very pleasant. Metallic and orange, it could well be the source of Irn Bru.

And so, in this fashion, time in Logarska Dolina breezes past far too rapidly. We’d had concerns about spending eight days in and around one small valley. However, Logarska Dolina cast its spell on us. It’s an exceptional and special place – an enchanted valley.

Somewhere beside the Sado Estuary a couple of days ago
I whittled down potential routes on Wikiloc, using experience of the ‘hit and miss’ UGC (user generated content) walking site to find a route through a network of dykes around the edge of the Sado Estuary. It’s a fascinating walk, beginning with sandy trails through cork oak forests and small vineyards in the intriguingly named Vale de Judeus, and along narrow lanes whose names reveal what the area was known for. On reaching the estuary, the path we’re following heads into the maze of earthy dykes which protect the basins. Some are salt pans, others are filled with neat rows of wooden squares, oyster beds. Most are inhabited by birds – cormorants, egrets, white heron, and spoonbills. Standing aloof, further into the estuary, are silhouetted flamingos. We know about the area because we researched it following the last time we walked here, a lengthy business as information is hidden away in obscure Portuguese websites. We do this whether walking for fun or creating routes for others. We like to know as much as possible about the places we walk. Wikiloc might show us a potential route, but it rarely reveals information about it.

Slovenia a few months ago
After two weeks in Slovenia we have rucksacks packed with experiences, anecdotes, and reams of information picked up during our travels. We’ve spent eight days exploring and recording walking routes in and around one valley; driven from Ljubljana to the border with Austria; travelled from east to north and then to the Adriatic coast using four different trains; interviewed numerous locals including rural hotel owners, wine specialists, hikers, and a herbalist tour guide. When you’re a travel writer you tend to get access to a lot more information than you do as an average traveller. When you’re a travel writer creating new Slow Travel holidays that will bring visitors to an area, that access is even greater. It’s been an extra special and highly illuminating trip. Slovenia is a country that has enchanted us, one we will return to. We’ve collected so much information and experiences it’ll take us forever to complete the two Slow Travel guidebooks required for the holidays.

Peneda-Geres also a few months ago
It’s the third trip in a year to Peneda-Geres, Portugal’s only National Park. We’ve hiked from near its northern perimeter to beyond its southern one – creating an itinerant walking holiday where routes will take Inntravel customers from one end of the park to the other, staying in wildly contrasting accommodation in six different locations. Much of the base ingredients are the same as Slovenia above. However, itinerant holidays are more logistically difficult to put together than single centre discovery ones. Where transport will already be arranged to get Inntravel customers and/or their luggage seamlessly from A to B, no such network exists for us. We have to figure out how it will work for others. When we reach a hotel after 15km on the trail we can’t collapse into the bar, we have to arrange transport to get us back to where our car is parked at the start of the route, then drive back again – only then we can hit a local bar. It makes the mission more challenging, but it’s wonderfully satisfying when it all comes together and we see the finished product on a website or in a brochure.

Tenerife and the Canary Islands – for fourteen years
We started writing walking route directions for Tenerife after being confused time and time again by poor quality free routes from tourist offices. You get what you pay for, and if you pay nothing…
Neither were there any guides which suited our hiking preferences – featuring lots of in-depth local knowledge/quirks/ and food related information. So we decided to create our own. Fourteen years of specialising in writing about Tenerife and the Canary Islands, using knowledge gleaned from first hand experience, has been channelled into these walking routes and our other Tenerife guides. There are no shortcuts to compiling knowledge of the level we have for the Canary Islands. How we went about gaining it has formed a blueprint we apply to everywhere we visit.

Norway, a few months into the future
“It’s perverse not to.”
Is the realisation we arrive at when researching a holiday to Norway which will involve a raft of places we want to see and experiences we want to notch up. Inntravel have such a holiday in their stable, but it feels odd to book a ‘holiday’ with the company we help create holidays for. So we look at putting it together ourselves before reaching the conclusion above. Why on earth would we not use a company who we know create specialist Slow Travel holidays of the sort we’d book ourselves? We know the work that goes into them, we know we’ll see the very best there is and lots that others won’t. It would be crazy, and a lot of extra work, not to. So we book their holiday.

Back to the dinner table
The man who’d made the confession nods toward a little black book on the table beside the woman sitting opposite, it’s the bespoke guidebook Inntravel customers are sent when they book a holiday.
“Can I have a look at that?” The non-Inntravel customer asks. “We followed the wrong path a couple of times today, and there are a few things we saw that we didn’t know what they were…”

From rural Bohinjska to lively Ljubljana
Sitting on a wooden bench in the early morning sunshine at pretty little Bohinjska Bistrica train station – flower baskets hanging from wooden eaves frame pine-clad hills and the timber yard opposite – we’re old soldiers. The only other people waiting are a young couple who check and re-check a timetable which shows there are only two destinations from this station – Nova Gorica and Jesenice. The timetable doesn’t say from which platform either departs and there are no screens listing train arrivals and departures. We smile knowingly at each other. That was us two days previously. After already having caught the Nova Gorica train to Slovenia’s version of Tuscany, we now know a) a red-capped station master will appear whenever a train trundles into the station and b) any train travelling to the left is going to Nova Gorica and any heading right is on its way to Jesenice via Slovenia’s longest railway tunnel. It’s simple… once you know the drill.

And that’s our mission, to get to know the drill. As is often the case we’re guinea pigs, on point to make sure the way ahead is metaphorically clear for the Slow Travellers who will follow; erasing potential obstacles by gaining knowledge of them from first hand experience. In this case it’s for one of Inntravel’s latest Slovenian holidays – a cultural rail journey which takes in some of the country’s most diverse scenery as it winds from the rural hinterlands to the sparkling Adriatic.
Those who book the holiday will complete the journey in three stages over the course of a week. We’re doing it in a day.

A departure time of 09.05 gave us plenty enough leeway to eat breakfast and finish ablutions before ambling from the hotel to platform, five minutes away. The train arrives on time. It doesn’t hang around long, just enough for us to lug our luggage on (platforms are at ground level) and take to our seats, whichever seats we want; there aren’t many people sharing the train with us.

From Bohinjska, the corrugated carriage trundles north for forty minutes, passing rivers, mountains (this is Julian Alps territory), and Lake Bled before arriving at Jesenice on the border with Austria.

From Jesenice to Ljubljana
Which train we catch to get to Slovenia’s capital is up to us. We’ve already spent a few days in Ljubljana so the plan is to use a flexible couple of hours in Jesenice… until we see Jesenice. The setting is scenic, but the town fits the image of what Communist Eastern Bloc towns looked like in my head before I’d ever set eyes on an Eastern Bloc town. It’s a lanky, grey, industrial affair spread out along a valley. It feels like a town whose appearance was once designed to advertise to its Austrian neighbours ‘look how successfully industrious we are.’

Jesenice train station is sizeable but, again, there are no information screens on any platform. Neither are there any lifts. We carry our cases down stairs, along an underground passage and up more stairs to reach the main station where there’s a ticket/information office (window). Two backpackers in front ask the question for me.
“Which is the platform for the Ljubljana train?”
The official behind the scratched perspex window looks at something out of sight up to his left.
“Platform 4,” then he shrugs and adds. “Maybe.”
Platform 4 was the platform we arrived on. Of course it is. It turns out the next Ljubljana train is in a few minutes. We change plans and decide that a couple of hours back in Ljubljana is a far more appealing option than spending any surplus time in Jesenice.

Jesenice to Ljubljana
I have to check we haven’t strolled into the first class carriage. Our six-person compartment is airy (there’s only us two), spotless, and a mood-chilling turquoise colour. We haven’t. It’s just this train is immaculately Austrian. It feels like old school train travel as we quietly and smoothly head south in our cosy cocoon; the rugged Julian Alp landscapes softening into mellow meadows. It’s an effortlessly enjoyable 1hr and 15minutes before we pull into familiar surroundings, Ljubljana train station.

Ljubljana does have info screens, and platform numbers, and ticket booths where staff know exactly which platform trains arrive into and depart from. It also has lifts big enough for cyclists to ride into without dismounting. There are even luggage elevators; conveyor belts which transport your bags up to the platforms. A small plaque beside the main platform commemorates a visit by James Joyce. Whether that’s to the city or just the station I’m not sure.

There are regular trains south toward Italy and Slovenia’s coast, but we’ve got a pre-arranged taxi to take us on our final leg. So a couple of hours in Ljubljana it is, or at least a couple of hours in the train station as we don’t fancy dragging our cases around the city centre.

Like the old city itself, the station is lively and youthful. A cafe/bar adjoining the main building doubles as a club after dark. Even during the day it doesn’t lose the music bar vibe, and the sounds are good… if your partying years were the 80s and 90s. I haven’t heard Tanita Tikaram’s Twist in My Sobriety for years. It’s an easy place to singalong-away two hours with a sandwich and a couple of beers. On one side are the platforms, on the other is the bus station; both offer a constantly changing people panorama for us to gawp at, a factor which puts time into fast forward mode.

Ljubljana to Piran
This is the longest leg of our journey at 1hr and 34mins. Our train terminates at Trieste but we’ll be leaving it at Divaca. It’s an Italian train and looks it. In fact it doesn’t look quite like any other train I’ve been on; as though a conventional Italian carriage snuck into sidings where a Swiss panoramic carriage was snoozing and mated with it. Carriages are modern, funky coloured, have huge windows and enough cycle-storing space to accommodate Team Sky (Team INEOS now). There are more passengers than on the other trains we’ve travelled, but still sufficient seats for everyone.
We’re the only people who get off at Divaca where our Goopti taxi is already waiting to transport us the final forty minutes or so to the Venetian-esque coastal town of Piran.

We started our journey at a civilised hour in a rural valley surrounded by mountains in the north of Slovenia. By the time the setting sun has filled the sky with soft mauve strokes (four locations, three contrasting trains at a combined cost of less than €20pp, and one taxi ride later) we’re refreshed, relaxed and happily tucking into seafood a few metres from the Adriatic on Slovenia’s southern border. Odd though it may sound, travelling the length of the country in one day wasn’t tiring and didn’t feel in the slightest bit rushed.

When train travel is as effortless and easy it was in Slovenia, it is my second favourite mode of getting around. Walking being number one.

Delivering training sessions about some of the destinations we’ve visited over the year prompts us to reflect on our experiences in a specific location; something which doesn’t always happen immediately after a trip as there’s nearly always somewhere else exciting to visit steaming toward us.

For a similar reason, I enjoy indulging myself with a round-up of the best, and worst, travel experiences from our year.

Biggest WOW of the year
No need to mull over this one, the herdsmen’s village of Velika Planina on a high plateau in Slovenia was the biggest travel surprise of the year. The photos we’d looked at beforehand didn’t prepare us for just how wowed we were when we actually saw it for ourselves. This is an exceptionally beautiful place. As well as being the biggest surprise, strolling around the village and eating buckwheat mush and sour milk outside a herdsmen’s hut was the most enjoyable travel experience of 2019.

Most beautiful destination
For years our nephew Liam has been raving about Zermatt in Switzerland. Finally we found out why. With the world covered by a thick snowy duvet, exploring Zermatt and surrounding countryside was like stepping into Christmas card scenes. Waking up to widescreen views of the Matterhorn each morning made sleepy eyes ping open with untypical enthusiasm. Greatest revelation was just how much fun following walking routes in thick snow can be.

The destination which disappointed
Last year Venice exceeded expectations, this year Florence failed to live up to them. The Florence north of the Arno didn’t charm for a variety of reasons – too many tour groups and grabby restaurants. A measure of a place is how long you want to spend there; our forays into the tourist hot spot across Ponte Vecchio were short-lived. It was simply too frantic. Thankfully, the south side of the Arno was a tranquil and charming contrast. Our experience of Florence was of a Jekyll and Hyde city.

Favourite city
Ljubljana isn’t the prettiest city we’ve visited but the feel-good factor was off the scale. We wandered with permanent smiles fixed to our faces. It’s a city with a big town feel so getting to know it doesn’t take much time. It’s a destination for anyone who enjoys good food, smooth wines, craft ales, and live music; a place to eat, drink, and be merry. After a day there, and some beer and wine, we declared it a place we could happily live.

Best hotel stay
Another category where there have been lots of contenders – Hotel Plesnik in Slovenia’s Logar Valley for its dream location; Hotel Agua Geres in Geres, Portugal, for being ultra comfortable and having excellent food after a tough day’s walking; Quinta Roja in Garachico, Tenerife, because it’s a favourite of ours; Oltrarno Splendid in Florence because it was actually splendid and as cool as Vincent Vega. Best though was Hotel La Laguna Gran in La Laguna, also Tenerife, as its lounge is a compelling blend of colonial and contemporary decor, it has a fabulous Michelin star restaurant, and the bar is of the sort which puts an arm around your shoulders and says “come on in, we’d love your company.”

Top nosh
There were so many excellent meals wolfed throughout the year, ranging from Michelin standard to quality street food, it would be unfair to single one out, so I’ve written a separate piece listing our favourite dishes of the year.

Send it back
The Etrop Grange near Manchester nearly came top as a) their already limited menu had even fewer options by the time we ate at 7.30pm and b) the chef managed to make fish and chips dull to the point I wasn’t tempted to pick at leftover chips (a really bad sign). But biggest culinary disappointment was at Mar e Sol in Sesimbra where the pez espada preto (scabbard fish) we’d told my mum would be meaty and tasty was mushy and bland, the worst pez espada we’ve eaten to date. Not that my mum cared, she was just happy to be sitting in the sun overlooking a gorgeous beach on a warm October day.

Exhilarating walking route of 2019
For having just the right level of challenging walking, boasting contrasting stop-us-in-our-tracks scenery, possessing an eclectic mix of ingredients (a mountain lake, sanctuary in a ravine, stone slab bridges), and just being loads of fun (a rare occasion of being able to walk with our friend and colleague from InnTravel, James) a route from Roucas to Peneda in Peneda-Geres National Park in Portugal ticked all the boxes which make for an exceptional hike. A difficult choice as all the routes we walked in Peneda-Geres were winners.

Most enjoyable transport
A cruise up the Douro River on a sizzling May day proved a scenic overdose as well as being a blast. The hills lining the river were hypnotic – their natural rolling curves artistically enhanced by the addition of narrow terraces of vines whilst the atmosphere on board ship was bizarrely booze cruise, but one mainly full of septuagenarian Portuguese. Why the nationality of partying pensioners made the experience more enjoyable rather than less so, I don’t know. But it did. It was an eclectically experience and the Douro lived up to the promise we’d seen in old films in a Port cellar in Porto.

Most emotional experience
The winter sun sparkling on blades of frosted grass; long, kilted shadows on a crisp forest path; a silhouetted lone piper playing a haunting lament; a roaring fire warming numbed legs; my nephew and his new bride wearing Cheshire cat-sized beams as they dodged a downpour of heart-shaped confetti. Scotland, you tug at my heart like no other destination.

I suspect it happened when I was electrocuted.

The problem with some old paths is when a new one is created they are forgotten, abandoned in favour of shiny new playthings just like Toy Story’s Buzz and Woody. You can’t always tell this when you set off along one, following Boris Johnson signposts which promise much but leave you in the excrement when you turn a corner to discover it was a promise which lasted only as far as the eye could see. Ours, on a high Alpine meadow north of Ljubljana, just gave up the ghost; the overgrown way ahead completely reclaimed by nature. We could have retraced our tracks for a couple of kilometres but a dirt track on the hillside above us was closer.

The only obstacle, apart from a huffy puffy climb up a slope, between us and the forest track was an electric fence… whose ease of crossing I misjudged. Which is when I was electrocuted – a sharp, hammer blow to my elbow transporting us to the fantastical land of Velika Planina; a herdsmen’s village in a shallow caldera 1500m above sea level.

Forget jaw-dropping, breathtaking, mind-blowing, awesome or any such word. All are too feeble to describe first contact with Velika Planina. The feeling of standing on a ridge looking down on this scattering of wooden herdsmen’s homes is one of a sense of discovery; explorers chancing across a lost civilisation rather than hikers walking to an unusual village which most Slovenians know about, even if most other Europeans don’t. A surrounding frame of granite peaks and forested hilltops doesn’t have enough pulling power to draw the gaze away from one of the most extraordinary landscapes we’ve set eyes upon.

With roofs constructed from neat rows of šinkles – pine shingles – which slope down almost to the grassy meadow, the huts manage to appear both ancient and contemporary. The sort of ambitious project you’d find Kevin McCloud enthusing poetically about on Grand Designs. They are works of architectural art, even their H-shaped tin chimneys gasping aromatic, smokey breaths look carefully designed to compliment the surrounding countryside. Circling each herdsmen’s hut is a wooden fence, a corral created to keep animals out rather than in. Needy cows wander freely around Velika Planina in search of someone to hug them. I kid you not.

A few days earlier Mojca, a guide with a well-deep knowledge of herbs and traditions, had scoffed whilst telling us about the practice of cow-hugging in Velika Planina. Every now and then a bovine ambles closer and flashes her long eye-lashes, trying to nestle against us for a hug. Who knows if the cows were always this tactile or it’s as a result of selfie-taking city dwellers from Ljubljana, but Velika Planina’s cows like to be hugged.

Although a cable car on its eastern edge connects the remote mountain village with the realm of humans, there aren’t many other people wandering around the road-less settlement; grassy indents connect the huts. It takes far more effort to reach the plateau from the west, which is where we arrived from. Subsequently we encounter few people as we descend into its centre. If you can call a water pump a village centre.

It’s lunchtime and there’s a local speciality we have to try. Notice I say ‘have’ rather than want. A couple of the huts serve food; select and simple offerings. Fani’s has a menu which not only shows what these offerings are, it lists them in English – sir (cheese), flancati (described as a cake-like doughnut although it looks nothing like a doughnut), žganci z ocvirki (buckwheat mush with crackling), kislo mleko (sour milk).

The owners are two Hobbit-sized women wearing thin, flowery housecoats over thick jumpers and scratchy-looking skirts. They might even have wellie boots on their feet, but that could be a trick of my mind as their garb reminds me of crofters’ wives in Scotland in the 1960s.

Neither speak English, only barked Slovenian. This is where the photos come in handy. We point at the flancati (there are none) and then the buckwheat mush and sour milk. I’m in (ironic) luck with that one. One of the woman barks another word at us which we do understand and which Andy latches on to as though it’s a life-ring – štruklji (strudel).

We settle on a wooden bench with a table made from a slab of sun-bleached wood whose surface is as deeply etched as Fani’s weather-beaten face. A few other walkers enter the paddock after us – a sextet of Americans with a Slovenian guide who is the spitting image of Ethan Hawke, and who subsequently translates for the rest of us, and a couple of young Germans who behave like rabbits caught in the headlights when Fani and sister bark and cackle at them.

Thanks to Ethan, we find out the buckwheat mush and sour milk will be served before the strudel. Fani places two bowls in front of us. One, the buckwheat, could be mince with crackling sprinkled on top. The other looks exactly like what it is, the sour milk covered by a thick, oatmeal-coloured skin. I watch Ethan show the Americans how to eat it as he informs them it’s like buttermilk – HA! The sour milk is spooned into the dry mush and mixed to make it all even more of a mush. It doesn’t taste bad, it doesn’t really taste of anything. But it fills me rapidly, the dense mixture dropping lead weight style to the depths of my stomach. Andy tries a couple of spoonfuls but insists, unconvincingly, she’s saving herself for the apple strudel. I valiantly try to work my way through the mush, but it’s too heavy. Halfway down the bowl I concede defeat. Fani looks at the half eaten mixture and barks at me again.

“She says if you don’t finish it you won’t get the apple strudel,” Ethan translates and laughs.
We laugh as well.
“No, she’s serious,” Ethan laughs again.
This time we don’t join him. Andy looks at me accusingly. She’s missing out on apple strudel and, apparently, it’s all my fault.

We settle the bill and make our way to the village’s tiny wooden church, passing a family hugging cows.

The Chapel of Mary of the Snow perches on a small hill above Velika Planina, a viewing platform from which to survey this phenomenal village. One of us calms her rumbling belly by snacking on a coffee cereal bar and we sit in silence, eyes constantly sweeping across a scene we still can’t believe is real, as time ebbs too quickly away.

Far too soon we have to continue on our journey; to leave this wondrous village high in the mountains.

Reluctantly we drag ourselves from our wooden bench throne. We have a walking route to complete and there’s still half of this other-worldly plateau to explore before we must return to our own dimension.

Slovenia’s capital is also a small city. The jewel at its centre, the Old Town, bijou enough to be easily explored in a day… if all you did was walk without stopping. But therein lies the rub, it’s impossible not to hit the pause button at regular intervals. One day isn’t nearly enough to sate the appetite. There is much to do, see, eat, and drink. It is a delightfully distracting place, still not exasperated and overrun by other people like me – tourists. The local personality dominates, so there’s no real need to go ‘off the beaten track’ in a city which feels like it’s bubbling away happily well below the overtourism radar. There’s really no need to go on a tour of Communist architecture (basically ugly, 1970/80s inner city housing estate type buildings) as I saw suggested by one article. That’s just travel perversity when there’s amenably attractive historic streets in which to spend precious time.

Ljubljanica – the river trip
The Ljubljanica River runs through the heart of the Old Town, subsequently the focus is often on the water which dissects it, and also the bridges, each with a distinctive personality, which connect the two halves. We hop on a tourist barge at Butchers’ Bridge (€10pp for an hour’s cruise). There are only a handful of other passengers, all of whom sit in the hot sunshine on the small deck. After pounding pavements all day long, we take refuge in the shade of the interior. With huge glass-less windows, the views are much the same anyway.

The boat chugs along leisurely, giving a different perspective of the city. It’s not a textbook picturesque historic centre but it’s pretty enough. Neat, angular town houses, softened by the rows of weeping willows which front them, are pleasing to the eye. As we head downriver, passing riverside cafes, bars, and restaurants, we notch up bridges we’ve already walked over numerous times. Butchers’ Bridge is so named because it sits beside the old market. Weighing it down are padlocks and odd little sculptures which depict chunks of things you might find on a butcher’s slab. Just upriver is Dragon Bridge; dragons are a thing in Ljubljana thanks to Jason of Argonauts fame. He slayed one who lived in a nearby lake… so the story goes. The Triple Bridge is as it sounds, three separate spokes lined with stone balustrades, whilst the rather elegant Cobbler’s Bridge was once populated by shoemakers’ booths. The most surprising bridge lies on the outskirts of town, just beyond the long stepped bank on which locals lounge, reading books picked from mini wooden cabinets – a bookswap presumably. It’s not so much the bridge which surprises but what’s happening directly underneath where a dive of a bar is set into the bridge’s stanchions. In front of the bar a mob of youths in trackie bottoms and baggy t-shirts are… well… line dancing. Dancing in the street is another Ljubljana thing.

Eat, drink and be merry
There are destinations where we’ve walked and walked, trying to find an inviting cafe for a light snack or a drink in sigh-inducing surroundings. In Ljubljana there’s one every few steps; the big test here is in choosing which to frequent.

Snack central is to be found at the Odprta Kuhna (open kitchen) food market which takes place at Pogacarjev trg each Friday from mid March till the end of October. The square is full of little wooden stalls with jaunty green and white striped canopies. Smoky plumes rise from many, pausing in the air before wispy fingers laden with intoxicating aromas are despatched to ensnare passing (twitching) nostrils. The choice is overwhelming – from traditional Slovenian nosh to contemporary and world cuisine. Stalls tempt with falafel, suckling pig, Indian wraps, Belgian waffles… horse meat burgers. The square bustles and buzzes with enthusiastic foodies who, like us, are trying to decide which stall appeals most. We make three circuits, struggling to make a decision and wanting it all, before finally opting for a tasty, but not very adventurous, herby sausage in a roll (me) and a pot of spicy noodles which leaves Andy gasping for air while a sweat tsunami pours from her forehead into her eyes.
Next to Pogacarjev trg is Vodnikov trg where there’s a more conventional daily market which, on a hot September day, sells huge cups of refreshing, and soothing if you’ve eaten spicy noodles, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, and grapes.

The whole of the Old Town can feel like a delicious shrine to food and drink; too much to try in a couple of days, a week, a month, a year. It’s our sort of place. On the opposite side of the river from the market, bars and restaurants blend imperceptibly into one another, welcoming places offering craft beers, Slovenian wine, and homemade lemonades. The music is jazzy/bluesy/eighties-y and signs outside cool bars like Fany and Mary are witty – “unattended children will be given a free tequila and a puppy” (the no nonsense Slovenian sense of humour is also right up our street).

Green Ljubljana
The old quarter is mostly pedestrianised. Ljubljana is a bike-friendly city, but here it’s old-school urban bicycling, where cyclists are dressed no differently from the pedestrians they weave through, none of that Lycra and aliens’ head hats business. Both cyclists and pedestrians occupy the same spaces harmoniously, something which isn’t always the case. For some reason mainland Europe seems to manage this mixed marriage better than Britain. Maybe that’s partly to do with the pace of daily life. A slower pace from both sides means less potential for conflict.

We buy one bottle of water all the time we’re in Slovenia, refilling with sweet spring water from fountains in both towns and in rural areas. In Ljubljana, some of these fountains illustrate the sense of humour which seems to be part of the national character. In one instance we fill our bottle with water pouring from the mouth of a bronze kangaroo.

The green lung of the city is Tivoli Park, which almost stretches to the fringes of the historic quarter. Designed in 1813 it covers an area of five square kilometres and is made up of chestnut tree-lined avenues, ornamental gardens, lakes with water lilies, fountains, and funny little sculptures, including a hobo character striding grumpily across the grass, and a man on a bench staring at a Lilliputian version of himself sitting on the armrest.

Ljubljana after dark
On two nights we’re drawn to the restaurants along Stari trg – it’s a magnet of a restaurant quarter even though there are plenty of alternative and attractive dining areas, including alongside the river. And over two nights we’re turned away from our first choices; at the weekend it’s rammed with diners. But the restaurant scene is so varied in Ljubljana it doesn’t matter, there are so many good places to eat.

On our first night we dine at Marley and Me. The name is initially off-putting, sounding like a restaurant serving mediocre international fare in a purpose-built resort, but its menu convinces us to give it a try. Homemade chicken pate with truffle oil and onion marmalade followed by sea bass on asparagus cream, and gnocchi with sliced roast beef in truffle sauce confirms we made the right decision. The following night we get even luckier, with one table coming free at just the right time in swish but not overly expensive Valvas’or. Asparagus tempura gets the juices gushing, whilst risotto with sea bass, fennel and saffron sauce and a fish fillet with parsnip puree keep the buds in an ecstatic mood.

After dark, Ljubljana’s streets are as likely to bring on a bout of wide-eyed wonder as they are during the day, especially during the summer season when there’s a programme of free street entertainment. We pause first in a wide square where a jazz band plays to a sizeable audience, and then again in a postage stamp-sized square where a trio of girls sing haunting, traditional melodies to a more intimate crowd. The sound of music coming from elsewhere draws us up narrow alleys and along cobbled streets to seek out the sources. It’s an anarchic, unplanned route which invariably leads to something which puts smiles on our faces; the best being when we encounter people dancing the tango in colonnades bathed with red light. The ‘Roxanne’ colour scheme adds an air of voyeurism to watching dancers skilfully perform highly sensual tango moves. It’s not a performance by professional dancers, it’s simply more people dancing in the street. As we watch people making love with their clothes on there’s a sense of being extras in an Eastern European art house movie.

And therein lies the great charm of Ljubljana. It’s a good looking, historic city but there are prettier cities with grander architecture and more crowd-pulling monuments. However, Ljubljana exudes the most euphoric vibe of any city we’ve visited. It’s a joyful place to spend time in, especially if you’re into good food, fine wine and great music. The feelgood factor is way off the chart.

If Ljubljana was a movie it would be one directed by Cameron Crowe.

I didn’t care for two reasons. One was the forecast for most of the time we were due to be in Slovenia had been for dull and wet days, and there had been a couple of those. But mostly we’d enjoyed warm and sunny weather. We were coming to the end of our trip and I had a memory stick full of images I was more than happy with. We got lucky with the weather. If that luck had run out, so be it. And anyway, everyone who’s set foot in Slovenia has photos of Lake Bled, what is there to add? As Veronika, a travel hungry Slovenian, had said to us at one point. “Everyone who comes to Slovenia goes to Lake Bled and Ljubljana. When I travel I don’t want to go to the same places everybody else goes to.”

I take her point, but we still really wanted to go to Lake Bled whatever the weather was doing. We might prefer to explore off the beaten track places, but we also want to see the travel ‘classics’ for ourselves. From the multitudinous photos we’d seen of it, Lake Bled looked like a destination that deserved to be visited. However, as well as dreich weather we expected kitsch, and we expected crowds of other tourists.

This is what we found.

Firstly, somebody forgot to tell M. Nature she was supposed to be crying her eyes out. She must have exhausted her supply of water the previous day when it had monsooned it down relentlessly. Not only was it dry, there were patches of blue… big patches of blue. Mr Lucky walked by our sides yet again.

The bus dropped us at the eastern end of the lake, the part which looks most resorty. Even there it wasn’t quite as bustling with tourists as I’d expected. There were a couple of excursion groups (boo, hiss) but overall it was generally quite low key.

As we were basically there just to take a gander at the Slovenian show-piece, we didn’t have time to visit Medieval Bled Castle. Perched on a rocky outcrop above the eastern end of the lake it’s a sight worth visiting Lake Bled for in itself, even though the island at the opposite end tends to be the darling of photographers. Neither did we have time to jump in a flat-bottomed Pletna boat, a variation of which has been transporting travellers since the sixteenth century. What we did have time for was a circumnavigation of Lake Bled. At just over 6km it was something we could notch up in the morning we had available and, anyway, walking is our preferred way of getting a feel for a place.

The town at the eastern end of the lake isn’t very big, it didn’t take long to break free of what urbanisation exists. Very quickly the natural and historic scenery takes over, and what glorious scenery it is. Bled Castle sits nobly on its perch; the bushy forest, just taking on some coppery autumn hues in early September, sweeps down to the water’s edge; the mirror surface of the olive water hypnotises; and the serrated peaks of the Julian Alps add the most dramatic backdrop to what is already a fairy tale landscape.

We were nowhere near the most photographed feature, the island, and yet it was abundantly clear reports of Lake Bled’s beauty had not been exaggerated.

With every step the already sparse crowds thinned out more till there were only a handful of other strollers, no different than what you’d find on any averagely pretty lake. The overall vibe matched the relaxed pace of our fellow strollers – a family struggling with the oars of a rowing boat, a bather taking selfies in the water, a small group SUP-ing their way across the surface, mute swans basking on the shoreline.

By the time we reached a wooden walkway skirting the treeline at Lake Bled’s western end the surroundings felt decidedly rural; a spot where people enjoy a selection of outdoor activities – rowing, canoeing, swimming. Walking the southern edge of the lake to get to the spot where you can bag that essential Bled Island shot – the most stunning frame is looking east – is the long way around, something which presumably means fewer people on the path. Even then, our shorter return route was hardly what you’d call crowded.

Lake Bled wasn’t anything like as kitsch or as crowded as we’d expected. It does look just as good as even the most stylised of images promise. Maybe, just maybe, there was the feeling of being already familiar with it because at the very mention of Slovenia, it’s an image of Lake Bled which invariably pops up in the mind. But that’s a minor quibble. I’m glad we got to see it for ourselves… and on a nice day despite what I said earlier.

I mentioned at the start there were two reasons I wasn’t going to beat myself up about it if the weather wasn’t good. The second reason was we had already seen other exceptionally beautiful parts of Slovenia before we arrived at Lake Bled. One in particular we hadn’t known about before this trip; we certainly hadn’t seen Instagram images of it before. It had blown us away; a quite special and completely unexpected part of Europe. And we got to enjoy it on a gorgeous sunny day.

But where and what it was is for another day.