European Tour Sep 08

---

T K Breg - Brda Hills

The day started slightly overcast but bright, with the promise of sun later.
Breakfast was delivered to the downstairs kitchen at 8am. We are sharing the kitchen with a lovely lady called Saška, who is a chemist/pharmacist and director of a company manufacturing and exporting herbal products. She lives in Portoro, right down in the south west of Slovenia, on the Istrian peninsula.
She’s in the middle of a week’s holiday, with her black American Spaniel, Annabel, who is about 6 months old.
Her English is good and we had a long conversation on what she did, the state of Slovenia at present etc. It was really interesting, her family have two farms/small holding, where they have olive trees, which they harvest in Nov/Dec and they’ve won prizes for its quality.
We touched on our sense that the Slovenians valued their country far more than the Italians, the birdlife being one example. She agreed, and there is an environmental awareness throughout the country with regards to industrialisation etc.
Another startling fact is that there are only some 2 million people in the country and only some 500.000 are tax payers. Wages are a lot lower than in Italy or Austria and the pay differential is not as great, a throwback to the earlier Yugoslavian days. However, the people accept this and seem happy. The main problem though, especially around the coast and Portoro, is that property prices have rocketed with the influx of wealthier foreigners, an old story.
Back on happier ground, was that during the Balkan war, the Bears in Croatia, emigrated to the far south of Slovenia for safety! They’re not that daft. So there is a thriving population down there, so much so, that the Slovenes are able to allow young bears to be ‘exported’ to other parts of the Alps to help in other breeding programmes.
After a very stimulating 2 hours, we all decided it was probably time to leave and get on our way. Today we had decided to head back north to the Triglav Mountains and to go to Kranjska Gora via the Vršič Pass.
The journey, about 75km, started again through the Italian vineyards up into Slovenia just below Kobarid then to Boveč to the start of the Vršič Pass valley.
This follows the Soča river valley, which is this stunning aquamarine/green colour. The Soča Valley also was the scene of some of the worst fighting during WW1 with over a million killed in this valley over a period of some 29 months. Ernest Hemingway was a stretcher bearer here and based his novel ‘A farewell to arms’ on his experiences.
Because the views generally around Slovenia have been very special, you can become a bit blasé about such things. The pass and the Triglav are exceptional, but we think we prefer Logarska Dolina. It may not be quite as high, but here is more gentleness involved there, a more pastoral feel. In Triglav the mountains are awesome, rugged and generally devoid of vegetation. The road up the Vršič pass is special though. It rises to 1611m via dozens of hairpin bends; it seems to go on forever.
The descent the other side to Kranjska Gora is equally spectacular, with almost as many hairpin bends.
Kranjska Gora is very much a skier’s town, with many hotels and boarding houses, the ski slopes coming right down to the town. We had lunch here in the Hotel Kotnik, which is right in the middle of the town. All restaurants should base their service on this one. It was slick, efficient and the food well presented and to top it all, very tasty. The loos are different though, to get to them, you have to take a lift to the basement, which is all that is down there.
Fortified we set off back to Breg; again the fastest option was to return via Italy. It was a good run, but as mentioned earlier, the difference between the Italian side of the border and the Slovenian is quite marked. Italy had a ‘grey’ feel to it, the buildings were less cared for, and there was greater industrialisation and decay. Once back in Slovenia, the countryside becomes greener and more vibrant.
On route we passed through the Predal Pass, where there is an old castle and walls straddling the road, plus at one point there had been a major landslip, and they were in the throes of building a new bridge, with large cranes and heavy moving equipment, how they got the equipment up there makes the mind boggle.
This evening has been quiet; we bought some bits of food at one of the Mercantor (local supermarket) and have settled down to reading and ‘leisure’, which makes a very nice change.

---

Photos

Annabel
Yet another new friend for Bruno