Woke up this morning and discussed what we should do for our last day in Ljubljana. One option was to visit another small town (I’m sure it had a castle) about an hour away. Or we could retry our mountain visit. Some slight waffling (on my part), but we ended up deciding to retry the Velika Planina again. Good choice.
This time however, instead of trying to drive up, we chose to take the cable car. Had we known about the cable car yesterday, we might have done that rather than the drive, and been successful. But I think waiting the day was the right choice in any event (more on why later).
The cable car base station is a short drive up the road from Kamnik (which we also visited yesterday), about a forty minute drive (without narrow cliff face roads!) from our apt. We arrived at the base around 10am, for the ride up. The lady in the ticket office helpfully informed us that from the cable car station at the top, since the chair lift they used to have was getting replaced, we would need to walk to the Velika Planina area instead – “about a 30 minute easy hike”. No problem. We piled into the cable car (about 30 of us, it was fairly busy here) and it was a short 10 minute or so ride to the top.
From there, we followed the arrows to begin our “easy” hike. Well, I guess maybe easy is a relative term. Easy for seasoned German hikers. Easy for mountaineering people. Easy for mountain goats. It was far from “easy” for us tourists from Canada. While we did successfully make it, it took us about an hour, and the trail was rocky in parts, and grade extremely steep for much of the hike.
We switchbacked-it up the steeper slopes. And it was worth it. Aside from the extremely unique village at the top (which is occupied by real sheep and cow herders) the views of the surrounding mountains and into the valleys below were exceptional. At one of the domiciles there was a cafe (there were actually a couple set up as cafes) and we had a wonderful mountain lunch of soup with meat, a plate of fresh cheese and salami, some fresh bread, and an apple strudel to share for dessert (see pic below) while we sat at an open air log picnic table overlooking the settlement.
After a short walk around (mooing at the free-range cows ambling about) we headed back towards the cable car station. I mentioned earlier why today was probably a better day than yesterday to visit. In the online information about Velika Plenina it mentions that going in the morning is better than in the afternoon, as in the afternoon quite often the clouds roll in. Sure enough, as we were making the hike back a lot of the mountain vistas we saw as we were hiking up were now obscured by clouds. So we made the right choice (even if it wasn’t entirely our choosing!!).
For the hike back, rather than go down the extremely steep trails we climbed, we stuck to the gravel road, which is there mainly for the construction vehicles that are working on building the new chairlift. Not quite as scenic, and almost as steep in parts, but at least a different trail. Only had to dodge a few trucks too!
After our mountain visit, we returned to Ljubljana. Lisa wanted to take a little rest (and catch up on her reading) so I journeyed out on my own, for a visit to the large park – Tivoli park – just west of the main city core. It is a huge park, and I only saw part of it. Much like the hike on Velika Planina, some of the trails through the forest were quite steep, and I found myself sweating again (and without the high-mountain breezes to keep me cooler – hot in Ljubljana again today). It was my second mountain climb of the day.
One of the goals of the walk was to visit the memorial in the park for the defenders of Slovenia during the war for Slovenia in 1991 (when a few of the former Yugoslav states became independent). I made it to the memorial, but was quite disappointed in it. I had figured it would be place in a grand spot, with some large monument. But it turned out to be a couple sticks and plaque. Oh well, the walk through the park was (mostly) enjoyable anyway.
After the park, it was back to the apartment to pick up Lisa and head into the centre again for dinner. Our last dinner in Ljubljana.
