The Balkans – Day 5, Thursday – Logarska Dolina, Slovenia

DSC01557Sometimes, Rick Steves’ guidebooks are not clear. I quote, for example, his saying that one of the smaller valleys in this area is “more gentle and accessible with better and more level roads.” Ha! Either we missed a turn, or Rick was smoking something. But I get ahead of myself.

After we got ready and had breakfast at our hotel, we jumped in the car. Logarska Dolina is the major valley in this region, but there are two smaller valleys here as well. One, we explored yesterday on the end of our drive on the Panoramic Road. The other was the morning’s destination, and Rick boldly proclaimed it as easy to deal with, which was good after the logging road we seemed to be using yesterday.

DSC01551The road up into the valley started off a bit intimidating. It was paved, but was certainly only one car wide, with no turnoffs. We got through that well, and the road widened out. Well and good. After a little distance with great views, the pavement ended. Odd, but still okay. Then the road took a major hairpin turn and narrowed. Then it had another hairpin turn. Soon, we were driving way up over fields and other drop-offs, with no guard rails, no sight lines, and very few places to pull off. The views were spectacular, but the driving was white-knuckle in many places. We kept driving up and up and up, hairpin curve after hairpin curve, until we came to a grouping of three farms and a dead end. Drat – we’d have to drive down that same road. Happily, Meredith asked me how the brakes were, which reminded me that in the standard-shift vehicle we had, I could leave it in first gear and not use the brakes much. We made it down safely, but I was very glad not to have to do that drive again.

After the Fun Drive (and the views were amazing, I have to say), we drove over to the major valley, Logarska Dolina, with its major roads, biking trails, walking trails, some hotels, and some restaurants. I was pleased to pay seven euros to get in if it meant I could drive normally in the park.

DSC01561Meredith wanted to start with the major waterfall in the park, Rinka waterfall. You can drive almost to the waterfall, about five miles into the park. You need to walk the rest of the way along a decent, if somewhat rocky, trail that takes about fifteen minutes to get to the falls. They are worth it. The falls do not have a heavy volume of water, but that makes it more interesting. They are very high at three hundred feet, and the water breaks up some as it falls in waves and is blown around by the wind. The short of it is that the falls move left and right as the wind gusts, and it is fascinating to watch. You can hike right up to the edge of the falls, and there is an observation platform with a small store. Meredith and I took advantage of both by having the world’s most scenic ice cream stop – falls on one side and towering cliffs all around.

The cliffs in the park are amazing. They are almost all grey, with very steep sides. They are around 6500 feet tall, and they seem to loom over you if you get close enough to the bases of the mountains.

DSC01568When we got back to the car, Meredith wanted to drive halfway down the valley to a tourist information station, and then walk the hiking trail back to the parking lot of the falls, which would be roughly a two-mile walk, which would take about an hour each way.

Three small issues. One – the tourist information station was closed. Two – the stopping spot was more than halfway to the entrance. Three – the walk took us two full hours, one way. But I get ahead of myself.

The start of the trail was very peaceful – it seemed deep in the woods, even though the road was never far away. In the full two hours and twenty minutes we spent on the trail in the park, both before and after supper, we never saw another soul on the trail. My theory, which Mer likes, is that bikers use the road and the serious hikers hike on the alpine trails. At any rate, we had the place to ourselves.

DSC01563The trail was quite varied over the length of it. We had smooth, pine-needle soft footing, heavily rooted trail, gravel parts, and steep, rocky sections. It started out flat, but slowly rose for most of the trail, ending with some heavy-breathing sections of trail. It was not always perfectly marked – we had to guess at several points, and made one serious mistake that, if we had not corrected it, would have had us hiking up to a mountain hut. We caught that one after only a couple of minutes. Generally, the trail was engulfed in trees, but that made it very dramatic when they would open up and you would see the mountains looming over you. We crossed dry stream beds full of gravel, and we came up toward the falls in such a way that we could see them from a distance, which you can’t do if you take the road.

DSC01572By the end of the trail, we were both pretty tired – it had taken two hours over some rough terrain. By mutual consent, we took the road back toward our car, which was still a forty-five-minute walk. Our car was parked across the street from a farm/hotel/restaurant, so we grabbed supper there even though it was only 5:00. We got to eat at the most scenic table on the planet, and the food was farm fresh and pretty healthy.

DSC01562After supper, we checked out the waterfall behind the hotel, which was not a free-fall waterfall like the bigger one, but was still impressive and came down over the rock face in several channels. Mer wanted to walk a little more, so we walked another ten minutes down the walking trail, away from the falls. It was more of the same with lots of trees and some glimpses of mountains, but it was pretty and super quiet. We felt really isolated.

We drove out of the valley and toward the small village next to our hotel. We were going to grab some dessert, but before we did, we ran into Nina, our young museum guide from yesterday. We wanted to show her a picture of a rare flower we took. She was impressed, but informed us it wasn’t the flower we’d thought it was. Ah. Still, we talked with her for thirty or more minutes, about multiple topics, from where she goes to school to Slovenian politics to the breakup of Yugoslavia. She was warm and friendly, and we love talking with locals.

DSC01550-bWe missed all of the stores in the village closing, so we drove back to the smaller valley to see if we could find where we had missed the “easy” road. We could not, and rather than get stuck on that nail-biter road again, I turned around. We went back to our hotel, where we had dessert from their restaurant, on the deck, overlooking the mountains as the sun went down. It was a fine evening (and day).

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