SLOVENIA


WE’RE HIKING A LITTLE OVER 35 MILES IN FIVE DAYS AND EATING, IT’LL TURN OUT, SUFFICIENT AMOUNTS OF STRUDEL TO IMMOBI LISE AN ALPINE IBEX


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


Clockwise from top left: The path leading down to the Koča na Golici mountain hut, sitting on a spur below Mount Golici; a pine tree, typical vegetation on the lower slopes of the Karawanks range; the exterior of Roblekov Dom hut, which sits at an altitude of over 3,000ft; mountain guide Boštjan Mikuž getting ready to descend to the village of Planina pod Golico at the foot of Mount Golici


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.


“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


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