2016 Slovenia Diary: Day 2

I’m still playing catch up with this diary, so let me return to Lake Bled. Nearby, there’s a gorge carved by the river Radovna that, according to legend, and the Bled tourism website, is “the first touristically arranged gorge in Slovenia.” While it’s hard to imagine something like this being constructed on public land in The States, I can’t deny the wonder of a tromping through Vintgar Gorge on a pedestrian hike-way. I can attest that this particular gorge is indeed very nicely arranged, hewn as it is from only the finest limestone.

Vintgar Gorge completed, we made our way to Log Cezsoski, our home base for the next couple of weeks. Once we were settled in, we drove to Kranjska Gora, site of Slovenia’s most famous ski resort. After riding one of the lifts, we headed further upward on foot. The going was hot, sweaty, and somewhat humiliating, as pods of Slovenians, children in tow, swiftly and deftly navigated the steep, root-strewn trail, leaving us to ruminate on our lives as flat-landers. Finally, and with a gasp, we arrived at a small clearing astride a ridgeline, an area called Vitranc.

And that brings me to today. I’ll have more to share about today, because we packed a lot in, but I wanted to close as I began, with another gorge. After an hour’s drive from Log Cezsoski, we gorged ourselves near the town of Tolmin. On the gorge ranking scale, the Tolmin Gorges area is likely the crown jewel. Like Vintgar, it has very accessible paths that lead well into its engorged heart, although many of these are cut into the limestone walls themselves for that extra special wilderness-y feeling.

The notion of wilderness is perhaps too much to ask of Europe. People have been chiseling away at nature here for a long time. Here’s an example of just how old this place is: Twelve or so years before the Harry Potter books hit the shelves, there was a writer named Dante Alighieri. In the 14th century, he apparently visited the Tolmin Gorges area at the behest of a patriarch named Pagano della Torre, who introduced Dante to the area’s many caves and pizzerias. According to the internet, and some interpretive signs I translated from Slovene, Dante was inspired to write the Divine Comedy after exploring the caves with only the dim light of his iPhone.

Next up, more from Tolmin and Kobarid, site of some of the most appalling industrialized slaughter of World War I. But try and relax, man!