The crowds that flock to Lake Bled like parched game to an African watering hole don’t bother Simon Koščak in the slightest. He watches them with perplexed detachment from his lofty vantage point, six miles away and more than 5,000ft up. This is Roblekov Dom — Slovenia’s prettiest and most totemic mountain hut.
Attend any folk festival in these parts, and it won’t be long before the strains of Na Roblek bom odšel (‘I’m going to Roblek’) fill the clear mountain air. Most Slovenes know it by heart. It’s a song about romantic love, of a young man whisking his lover to this forest-fringed eyrie high up in the Karawanks range. But more than that, it’s a paean to the mountain culture that underpins so much of Slovenian life.
The building itself — dark-wood exterior, gabled roof at least two sizes too big — is blessed with an imperious setting: a sun-splashed ridge on the southwest flanks of 6,759ft Mount Begunščica. It sleeps 30 and has a terrace that seats perhaps double that. As hut manager, Simon is here year-round. He gets some support at weekends, but mostly it’s just him and the incessant, all-consuming peace.
A chopper drops off supplies every 10 days. It lands out front on a makeshift grass helipad no bigger than an allotment plot. At other times, Simon might trek up the corkscrewing path from the valley with a backpack stuffed with all the ingredients — sausages, beans and sauerkraut — for jota, the traditional Slovenian stew that’s a staple of mountain menus.
When it’s quiet, he takes breakfast out on the terrace, feasting on views that stretch from the alluvial plains of Ljubljana to the south east, past the coach-tour frenzy of diminutive, forest-fringed Lake Bled and on to the snow-capped peaks of the Julian Alps beyond. He can go days without a guest.
Our arrival ends one such hiatus, thick cloud and intermittent drizzle keeping the early-season hikers at bay. Simon greets me and my trekking guide, Boštjan Mikuž, with a warm handshake and, mindful that it’s as near as damn it midday, a shot of bitter liquor made from the root of the great yellow gentian flower, which grows in the alpine pastures here.
During the busy season, Roblekov Dom mountain hut cooks 100 meals a day, some consisting of soup with beans, potatoes, cabbage and sausage.
Photograph by Francesco Lastrucci
Simon Koščak, manager of Roblekov Dom hut, greets guests with a shot of bitter liquor made from the root of the great yellow gentian flower, which grows in the alpine pastures.
Photograph by Francesco Lastrucci
Fifty-year-old Simon has oval features eroded into a craggy amiability. He exudes an air of unhurriedness that seems to permeate the entire cabin. At length, he cooks up some steaming jota and pulls up a chair at our table, uninvited yet entirely welcome. Through the window, the cloud begins to dissipate like a demisted windscreen and we see flashes of those fabled views. “When the sun comes out it can get busy,” says Simon, following my gaze. Cooking 100 meals a day is not unheard of. But when the weather draws in, so does the peace. “Then I’m alone,” he adds. “Alone with nature.”
When we come to pay, Simon waves away the money with a dismissive waft of the hand, shakes our hands again, then insists on escorting us down to the junction of the path a few hundred feet below lest we miss the turning for our onward route.
Just a couple of days into my week-long hike, one thing is already abundantly clear: hospitality is not something Slovenia’s nationally treasured network of mountain huts takes lightly.
The Alps of old
The cartographical resemblance of Slovenia to a chicken is something that, once pointed out, is impossible to ignore. The head thrusts eastwards into the rump of Hungary, the tail feathers rub up against Italy to the west, and the slender feet are cooled by the northernmost waters of the Adriatic.
Continuing the conceit, the Karawanks (the ‘w’ is pronounced as a ‘v’, before you worry) define the bird’s lower back. This east-west range traces the border with Austria for nearly 75 undulating miles — frequently sheer and austere on the northern neighbour’s side; sloping and carpeted with grass and wildflower meadows as it descends into Slovenia. These are the easternmost remnants of the Alps, the last hurrah of a mountainous 620-mile arc that stretches as far west as Nice.
Everything about Slovenia is painless for the traveller: from the efficiency and near-ubiquity of English to the compact scale. And that seems to extend to its topography, too. There are more than 450 mountains over 6,500ft yet none breach 10,000ft. All are linked by clearly defined, brightly waymarked trails. And crowds — particularly in this range — are as rare as a Slovene who doesn’t own a pair of hiking boots. For a hobby hiker blessed with reasonable fitness and perhaps some trekking poles for the occasional steep descent, it really doesn’t get much better.
Signposts mark the path through the Karawanks mountain range.
“The Karawanks are basically the French Alps of 40 years ago,” Boštjan tells me as we depart the riverside town of Tržič, a 30-minute drive north of Ljubljana, on the opening day of our trek. Tall, upbeat and unflappable, he’s preposterously overqualified for what lies ahead. A fully fledged mountain guide — one of only around 50 in the country — Boštjan organises ultra marathons as a sideline, and his idea of a relaxing break is a 40-hour climbathon on unsummited peaks in Patagonia.
By contrast, we’re hiking a little over 35 miles in five days and eating sufficient amounts of strudel to immobilise an Alpine ibex. But, like many Slovenes, Boštjan is palpably eager to show off his country.
The drama begins almost immediately. Close to two-thirds of Slovenia is forested — much of this unbroken swaths of pine, spruce, oak and beech. But the treeline only extends to around 5,200ft, above which a geological smorgasbord emerges. At times, we find ourselves on sunlit, richly grassed plateaus specked with white daffodils and purple crocuses. Ten minutes later, we might be picking through an angular and forbidding landscape, with gnarled fingers of limestone thrusting into the sky and pockets of unmelted ice clustered around their knuckles.
My first scree crossing lends a frisson of excitement to day two. As we approach from a distance, the narrow path is little more than a pencil squiggle bisecting the vast, steely grey bowl of loose stone. As I step gingerly across, Boštjan suddenly gestures for me to stop. A small cube of rock bounces down the slope ahead and takes a dozen or so other scraps of scree with it on a clattering journey to the base of the 45-degree slope. We look up to see a brace of short-horned chamois scuttling away on the ridge line like pranking adolescents.
Painted on rocks and trees along our route are trail markers (a white dot in a red circle). This is the ‘Knafelc blaze’, named for the Slovene cartographer and mountaineer who devised it a century ago. It’s simple, conspicuous and of huge symbolic value to Slovenes, who’ve fought and died in these peaks over the centuries and clung to their mountain identity when the country was subsumed into Yugoslavia for much of the 20th century.
Mountain guide Boštjan Mikuž grew up in Slovenia and now leads tours trekking through the Karawanks range.
As we hike, Boštjan reminisces about his family’s experience living under Marshal Tito and the handbrake of communism. Profits from his father’s business were capped; ‘Western’ luxuries could only be purchased by stealing over the border to Italy. Twenty years into Slovenia’s EU membership, it all feels a very long time ago.
The point is emphasised by our fellow guests at our first mountain hut: Planinski dom na Zelenici, 5,039ft up in a clearing beneath Mount Begunščica. Stepping into one of Slovenia’s best-equipped cabins, we find the corridors of the dorms lined with combat fatigues. American accents are heard. Italian, too. A NATO training exercise, it transpires — or at least the downtime following one.
The local Laško beers are lined up and a rowdy but good-natured evening ensues. Early the following morning, I wake to find the entire unit has dispersed without trace. Only the faint echo of Bon Jovi hanging in the mountain air suggests they were ever here. It’s a frat party, special forces style.
The reclaimed peace gives me a chance to chat to hut manager Petra Malavašič. She’s got a big smile and an eyebrow stud and, she tells me, has worked here for three years. The demands of the summer season — 14 hours a day for four months — are compensated for by the setting and the free time that follows. Holding a spiralling finger to her temple and smiling, she says: “It helps to be a little crazy.”
A turbulent history
Certain qualities are evident in all the mountain huts we visit over the five days. They’re invariably snug and welcoming. Crocs are provided to stop you traipsing bits of hillside through the fastidiously cleaned corridors. And the strip-your-own-beds and muck-in etiquette is scrupulously adhered to.
Yet each has its own distinct identity, one that stems from a combination of the personality of the manager, or managers, and the setting. The following evening, having puffed our way through a short but challenging 4.5-mile section, we find a winning blend of the two. Gathering cloud swallows the sun as we climb almost to the summit of Mount Stol, the 7,336ft high point of the Karawanks. Suddenly, a mini blizzard is whipping across our faces, flakes of ice merging with the delicate white flowers sprinkled over the high mountain slopes.
There, on an exposed outcrop just down from the peak, is the faintest of outlines. The wind brings with it the smell of wood smoke. Fighting to stay on our feet, we push on towards it, prise ourselves through the door and step into the snug serenity of Prešernova koča na Stolu. Warming the cabin’s single communal room, with its partitioned tables and checkered tile floor, is a huge, wood-fed heater encased in lime-green ceramic tiles engraved with viticultural scenes. The centrepiece of Slovene houses in a pre-central-heating age, these ovens would occupy a corner in each room to evenly spread the warmth. “Both my grandmothers had one,” says Bostjan affectionately.
Hut managers Jožko and Kata Šumanovac, a retired couple, welcome us warmly. We sit with our backs to the tiles as a beaming Kata serves us restorative coffees and apple strudel. From a little bed beneath my feet emerges the couple’s Pekingese and Maltese mix, Poopie, who fusses around the newcomers as Kata fondly chides her. Her name, we’re reassured to learn, was given rather than earned.
Built in 1909, the hut was named for the de facto national poet France Prešeren, who wrote the lyrics to Slovenia’s fervently internationalist national anthem. It was razed to the ground by partisans in the Second World War, preventing the Germans from capitalising on its elevated, and thus strategic, position, then rebuilt in the 1960s and enlarged in the 1980s. This eventful history is catalogued in a series of framed pictures, over which I linger before retiring to my bunk and sleeping the heavy sleep of the hiker as the icy wind rattles the dorm windows. Save for Jakob, a studious Swiss on a trans-Alpine, multi-stage hike from Vienna to Nice, we’re the only guests.
Lake Bled, a famous tourist destination in Slovenia, marks the end of the Karawanks range trek.
Photograph by Francesco Lastrucci
Dawn summit
If you don’t like the weather in the Slovenian mountains, to bastardise Mark Twain, just wait a while. So it proves as we wake to a dazzling sunrise clawing its way up through the peaks to the east and flooding the plain far below with a soft light. The clarity is extraordinary: with my naked eye, I can pick out the burgundy roof and white tower of the island church on Lake Bled.
A steep, craggy path takes us the last few hundred feet to Stol’s summit, where a smooth limestone slab is marked with ‘Oe’ (Austria) on one side of a slender line and ‘RS’ (Republic of Slovenia) on the other. Already here is a lone hiker. I’m momentarily puzzled. It’s not yet 6am and the closest other accommodation is multiple miles away. Anticipating this spectacular dawn, it transpires, he hauled himself out of bed before 3am and hiked up from the valley floor. Shortly, he’ll retrace his steps, he tells us, before heading into the office. I think you call that work-life balance.
The 10-mile stretch that follows proves the best of the hike. A light breeze takes the edge off the 27C temperature; the steep undulations of the previous days level off and we’re left with just a triumphal ridge path through pastures grazed by alpine sheep and thick-haired horses that regard us with commendable indifference. Below us to one side, the entirety of Slovenia seems laid out for inspection. To the other, the southern lowlands of Austria, through which the Drava river meanders eastward to converge with the Danube.
A smattering of hikers begins to materialise, then a chap labouring under the weight of a mountain bike clasped to his shoulder. He gives us a sheepish smile. “You’re not actually allowed to bike on these trails,” Boštjan whispers, when the man is out of earshot — although we both agree that his efforts probably deserve at least one good downhill run.
Our last mountain night is spent at Koča na Golici, a hut that sits in such splendid detachment on a spur beneath Golica, a 6,017ft peak, that we watch it draw nearer over the course of at least six miles. It’s certainly no anticlimax to reach it. Hut manager Janez Zore — long blonde hair, wispy beard, capable manner — is playing Slovenian rock music and cooking up aromatic dishes of zelje s klobaso in ocvirki, a sausage and cabbage concoction enlivened with chunks of crispy pork fat.
We’re too late for the scented white narcissus flowers that carpet the steep slopes above the cabin; Janez shows us pictures of the hail storm that had laid waste to one of Slovenia’s most spectacular natural sights the week before. But not for the fieriest sunset of the trip, which draws us out on to the slender wooden balcony. We stand in silent admiration watching the sky’s purples and burnt oranges coalesce around the distinctive three-pronged silhouette of Mount Triglav, Slovenia’s flag-decorating national symbol.
The final day brings a significant drop in both elevation and mood. Ribno Alpine Resort — which we reach via a wooded descent accompanied by a snowmelt-fed waterfall, and a taxi transfer from the peak-rimmed town of Koroška Bela — is the perfect spot for post-hike recovery. There’s a natural pool; glamping treehouses with 40C hot tubs bubbling away on their balconies; and soothing, wood-framed suites. But leaving the resort and strolling around nearby Lake Bled is an oddly depressing affair. While the lake itself is still a marvel — half a square mile of satin-smooth emerald, ruffled only by the flat-bottomed pletna row boats that have plied the waters for at least 400 years — I quickly tire of the crowds.
I find myself casting wistful glances at the horizon and the immense, inscrutable contours of Mount Stol and its attendant peaks. Squinting through the mid-morning haze, I fancy I can make out Simon Koščak, sitting on his sunlit terrace outside Roblekov Dom, a coffee in one hand and a bemused smile playing across those genial features.
How to do itOutventureX offers a five-night, hut-to-hut, self-guided hiking tour from £555 per person (minimum two people), with airport transfers, map, GPX files of the route and half-board accommodation in mountain huts. Excludes flights.
How to get there and around:
British Airways and EasyJet fly direct to Ljubljana from London airports. Average flight time: 2h10m.
Flixbus offers wifi-equipped, eco-friendly coach connections between major cities in Slovenia, and the country also has a cheap, efficient bus network that links all the major towns and cities.
When to go:
April to September is the best time for hiking, with wildflowers in May and higher elevations offering relief from temperatures that in low-lying areas can exceed 30C in peak summer. Note that between October and May many huts are open at weekends only.
Where to stay:
Mountain hut prices vary depending on elevation, facilities and whether you stay in a private room or dormitory, but are typically around €50 (£42) per person per night, half-board.
Glamping Mountain Fairy Tale, Tržič. Two-person cabins with hot-tub from €117 (£100), B&B.
Ribno Alpine Resort, Lake Bled. Doubles from €118 (£101), B&B.
More info
slovenia.info
slovenia-outdoor.com
Rough Guide to Slovenia. £16.99
This story was created with the support of the Slovenian Tourist Board and Slovenia Outdoor.
Published in the November 2024 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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Publish date : 2024-10-25 17:00:00
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