Skiing Slovenia (Ooh, heaven is a place on earth)

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Europe is blanketed with snow and I have been having more adventures. So sit back and enjoy the ride because, as London transport services have been saying a lot recently, this might take a while.

We went skiing in Slovenia because a) it was cheap b) it was easy to get to and c) I like the name of its capital city Ljubjlana. So Kate caught a train from Austria, I caught an EasyJet flight from London Stansted, and by 9pm on Thursday we were both at our hotel in Podkoren, near Kransjka Gora, overawed by a metre of snow and giant icicles outside our front door.

We hired skis the next morning and tried learning how to use them on a baby track before deciding we needed a goal. Italy seemed like a good one, and so we set off from Kransjka Gora, heading into the sun.

It was definitely different from skiing in Australia. There was no gravel to avoid, no 20kg backpacks to haul up slopes and no stability on our ultra-light nordic skis designed for skating along the flat tracks. And there were enough people wearing lycra that we briefly wondered if Slovenia was still in the 1980s - a theory backed up by the number of times we heard the song "Ooh, heaven is a place on earth" on local radio stations.

We stopped in a deer hide for morning tea, before pressing on for our international border. Along the way, we were overtaken by Slovenia's nording skiing team. I also had a fall that dislodged part of my brain, which explains a small travel stuff-up I made on Sunday.

Once in Italy - a mere two hours of skiing for us pros - we said "bongiorno" to a man clearing snow from his car, and were just a little disappointed when he said "hello" back. But in the distance, another man was taking a group dog-sledding, so we traipsed through shin-deep powder, sat down to watch them and ate lunch while dreaming of Italian bakeries.

Alas, the day went downhill - but not literally - from there. The track back to Podkoren wriggled pointlessly up and down. After an hour or so of being overtaken, Kate declared, "Jacqui, I don't get this sport.

"Nobody is smiling. They're just like, ooh, I'm a skiier, I'm really cool."

She had a point about their faces - and about the "back and forth loopy shit" - but I still managed to turn the conversation into an argument about the pointlessness of any outdoor pursuit. So, by the time we got back to the village, we were in definite need of a beer, and stopped in at the sleepy Hotel Vitranc. (Kate managed to liven things up, though, by asking a guy, "Ah, excuse me, do you have chips? Hot chips? You know, like French fries?" When he apologised and said no, she continued, "Do you have pretzels then?" His broken reply was "Um, we don't work here".)

But day two started much better... with chocolate waffles! We fetched a pack full of supplies and headed up into the national park, past the giant ski jumps at Planica, through forest and stunning mountain scenery. There was less lycra aggro; some people even skiied at our pace. And we saw dogs pulling skiiers (gotta get me one of those...), caves with icicles instead of stalactites, and Kate began using adjectives like "amazing", "pretty" and "fun".

When we got to Tamar, the hut at the top of the valley, we discovered a problem. Kate has become a hermit. So we pressed on through silent forest, off the track now, but following the marks left by an earlier skiier to the base of the mountains. I picked a spot I thought was OK, and we discovered another problem. Wolves.

Actually, I have no idea if there are wolves in Slovenia. But Kate saw dog tracks. So throughout lunch she proceded to look around nervously, first for wolves, then for avalanches. She even kept a ski pole by her for "protection". At which point, I secretly became terrified, so I suggested we eat dessert back down by the hut.

Then, two ice climbers began descending the side of a sheer mountain and we decided that really, we were being a little bit soft, and it was probably safe to eat the rest of our sandwiches.

Lunch was digested with a delightful downhill run through powder and pines, which popped us back out at the hut. We explored an igloo, then kept on our downhill course all the way to Podkoren. But alas, Kate had forgotten to mention that, in five ski trips, she had never been shown how to stop. Just before the base of the run, I heard a scream, and turned around to see Kate do several flips and cartwheels before lying motionless and face-down in the snow. A little kid stared at her, open-mouthed.

Happily, Kate was alive. Sadly, her knee was not. "Nothing that a beer won't fix", she claimed, but even a mulled wine in addition to the beer didn't heal it that night. Although that might have been because we skiied three kilometres in the dark to get to a bar; or our tipsy ski tour around the icy back lanes of Kransjka Gora; or the bumpy ride I gave her in a shopping trolley. Or, it could have just been screwed.

So Sunday was lonely, though beautiful, and the best conditions I've ever been in. It had snowed overnight and I was the third person on the track. I skiied for a couple of hours along parts of the loop we had missed the day before, before reluctantly letting go of my daydream about being a blonde Norwegian ski genius, and heading back to meet Kate and ski, with our gear, back to Kransjka Gora to catch a bus to the airport.

Because, you see, I had read that our plane left at 7pm.

We were halfway to Ljubjlana (a grey and snow-swept place it seemed) when Kate began to wonder why the flight back would take four hours, given it had taken just two hours on the way out. Even I couldn't distort logic into a plausible-sounding explanation. We arrived at the airport at 4pm and I dug out my reservations. Oops. The plane didn't leave until 9pm.

Kate was understandably peeved, so we played kids card games, drank bilberry liqueur, read, built a saucy snowlady, and regretted missing out on tobogganing before finally checking in at 6.55. On the other side of the departure gates, we had a couple more drinks - which was just as well, because it turned out we had a long night ahead.

Go get yourself a coffee before this bit.

Actually, don't worry - let me try to compress 18 hours of travelling into two minutes of reading.

We took off from Ljubjlana in heavy snow. I mused that it would be nice if it was snowing in London. Fool. It was snowing - so much snow that halfway through our descent the pilot announced that he had just been told Stansted was closed. Luton was not accepting diversions. He was running low on fuel. We were going to land at Gatwick.

No problem, I thought, we'll just catch the train in from there to the hotel I had booked in London in anticipation of a late arrival. But we got to the train station, and the loudspeaker was announcing that all services to central London were suspended. But one last train came in, so we rushed to get aboard. Silly, silly, silly.

The trip, which normally takes 45 minutes, took three-and-a-half hours due to "frozen points" and a backlog of trains. If they had just lined all the carriages up and opened the doors, we could have walked all the way to London in less time. It was 2.45am when we got to Victoria. The Tube had closed. The bus network was completely out of service for the first time in living memory. The queue for taxis was at least 100 people long, but no taxis were a-coming.

We asked a member of station staff if there was a waiting room. He replied: "No, but there's a nice warm train on platform 16, and I can assure you it isn't going anywhere for at least six hours."

We found ourselves a place in a carriage where a group of people were chatting happily. They had met, on the stranded train, three hours earlier. A man (undoubtedly alcoholic) who called himself Lord Byron, was regaling them with story about how he had once set his coat on fire while playing piano at the Ritz. By the end of the night, they were all Facebook friends.

I tried to doze until 6am, when a man brought emergency water and announced the Victoria Tube Line had just opened. After some very helpful advice from London Underground staff on how to get home with only two lines operating, we caught it to Euston, walked to Euston Square, caught a shuttle train to Baker St, and the Met Line out to Uxbridge where there was a foot of snow on the ground and the birds were flying in circles in search of a snow-free place to land.

And then, I went to work.

PS Kate has some great photos so I'll put a link up when she has uploaded them.

A few quotes...

• Kate, having lunch in the snow below the Julian Alps, on the calorie-burning effect of cross-country skiing: "The longer we sit here, the more chocolate we can eat!"

• "Because of adverse weather conditions..." London transport, all week.

• "I can't believe how easy that was" - Kate skiing, half a second before falling over while stationary.

• EasyJet pilot: "If I could control the weather, I wouldn't be flying for EasyJet; I'd have a much better job than that."

• Woman on the stranded train at Victoria: "Will we be receiving any humanitarian aid?"

• Tube driver reading a London Underground statement to his passengers: "Passengers are advised to use alternative modes of transport including trains - yeah, good luck with that".

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Photos

Tiger stripes
Icicles outside our hotel room at Kranjska Gora. Sadly, someone later knocked them down.

Snow scene
A hut passed while skiing to Italy.

Kate in a tree
A deer hide. For hunters, not deer.

Lycra alert
Fancy pants cross-country skiiers.

Alps scene
Day two, near Planica in Triglav National Park.

Off-piste
Skiing up the valley, beyond the groomed trails.

Podkoren
A lot of shovelling left to do.

Big job ahead
Our neighbour's tractor in Podkoren.

Cold feet?
A snowman takes formin Uxbridge, near my home.

Dreaming of better days
A sunflower delivery in Windsor Street, Uxbridge.

Comments

[Andrew]

Another beautifully written and highly amusing offering. BTW, Ljubjlana isn't all that bad.

[Kates Mum]

Girls own adventures
Thanks for keeping me informed of Kates adventures. Its hard to keep her focused on mainstream activities. Public transport seems the same all over the world. Glad you had fun.