It was the highest and the most real mountain among my EVS hiking. :-) We (Ani, Janis, Andrea, Matjaž and me) chose a perfect day for Storžič, the day of the golden season of the year.

There are some of my memories about our Storžič experience: early waking up, a few wrong ways up, magical sticks, great views since the beginning, Andrea’s jokes, unreal clouds passing next to us, beautiful Edelweiss white Alpine flowers, falling stones, wild birds above us, the time of relaxation on the peak of Storžič, fog, a bit of climbing, a fall, being drunk from just one good shnops in a very expensive mountain hut, pain in knees on the way down, dark forest, 8 hours of hiking, a lot of sweat and dust on us, great Italian lasagna in the late evening and pain in all muscles for the next few days.

P.S. If I could turn back time I would do this hike again! :D

Ana Furlan and Nejc Jemec invited me to join them in doing Sunday afternoon hike. The way was not hard but very different from all my hikes in Slovenia for the present moment. Mountains there are rocky and look like real Alps (indeed :). On the way we found a few bushes of borovnica (blueberry) which I adore and never tried before Slovenia, we saw little Bambi (a deer), Alpine cows, sheeps and horses. Also we made a little stop next to the lake Jezersko and almost hit by a car a really big deer, luckily for it and for us, it runs fast, so “No animals were harmed”.

Thank you, Ana and Nejc, invite me more! :)

Cres is a wonderfully beautiful place, I’m convinced once again that Croatian sea coast is one of the best in Europe. Matjaž, Janis, Dasha (my 20 year old new friend from Russia, whom I invited to spend 1 week in Slovenia after our 3 days staying in Italy :) and me spend a night on the beach close to Lubenice. We needed to hick down the hill to come to this deserted beach, there we met a hippie from Germany – Illias, who decided to live his life with as little money as possible.

Sunset, starry sky, bonfire, guitar, songs and an empty beach in a cozy bay with little caves… that was a cool night. But next morning a lot of tourists came by boat there, so for us it was a sign to leave this nice place. We had to hike the hill: 1 hour up in the middle of the day, I didn’t have a lot of hopes that we would survive but by my surprise we did it! :-)

Recommandations:

• try not to follow signs which lead to the local mountain hut (a place to eat), otherwise you could miss a nice top of the hill;
• pay attention to many bunkers in that area, which were built for defensive reasons and have never been used;
• if you find an anthill and you have a running nose – put your hand on the anthill for a few seconds and then smell your hand, it might cure you;
• use the spray against “klop” (tick)… the season of ticks has been started. :-)

On the way back we were soaked to the skin but the forest during the storm is a thing you must experience – to feel a little fairy-tell in this world.

We started at the point about 1000 m. To reach that place we needed to pass through Železniki – famous by quite closed people, this small town looked isolated indeed. Ratitovec was a pretty vertical hill in my opinion. When we climbed the top we almost couldn’t see anything – we were inside of the cloud. :)

Most of the pictures were taken by Matjaž Vouk.

Although in the winter time the hill doesn’t look so impressive as in November, there is a chance to fall in love with hiking even much more… especially on the way back. :) You just have to relax and enjoy each time you fall down… in the snow! I think all of us had emotions which we used to have in our childhood. I even had a feeling that I was in the Russian fairy tale – “Морозко”.

The motto of the trip was “Just a little bit more”, that was an answer to us when we were curious how long we should walk yet. But actually the honest answer could have been “Just more”.

Snowy views were great, especially in the darkness when we came back home… landscapes were full of light because of the snow and the moon. One of the best moments of the trip was having a dinner in one Slovenian traditional place on the top of Križna Gora and laying on the peč (heating device) after it. I really felt sLovenia in that moment.

For this trip Matjaž invited his friend – Katerina from Macedonia, now she is studding in Ljubljana. So I met first Macedonian person in my life and discovered that I should travel to Ohrid one day. Also now I know, that there is a woman in Macedonia who reads a book by the most famous Russian movie “Москва слезам не верит”. :)