In these past few weeks, we’ve all been shown just how much we’ve taken for granted, and how unbelievably sensitive our world is to things invisible to our eyes. Many of the intentions and designs we had made for our first year of this new decade have either vanished entirely or been put on hold indefinitely. Isolation and uncertainty seem to be our closest companions as we navigate this new reality in store for us. If you’re reading this, I hope it has found you healthy and in high spirits.
I went into 2020 assuming that I could just put my head down and bartend all spring and summer until I felt ready to book a one-way ticket to some distant destination. I found that’s not as easy to do when you find yourself unexpectedly unemployed. With this newfound time on my hands, I want to bring this site back to life. While I don’t want to ignore the unique circumstances we now share, I also don’t want this to be another one of the countless places you can expect to find the phrase “because of the coronavirus” on a regular basis. Rather, I’d like to contribute photos and stories from my most recent sojourn in Europe, ideally in a way that brings value or inspiration to whoever finds them.
Center of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Ljubljana, Slovenia | October 2019
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Within ten minutes of meeting an Aussie named Nathan at a hostel in Ljubljana, he and I had decided to team up and hike the Julian Alps for a few days. I had split the previous two weeks between three capitals - Vienna, Prague, Budapest - and was in need of a retreat to the mountains. But I also had five weeks of solo travel ahead of me and was happy to now have a hiking companion for the days ahead. It’s these kinds of chance meetings that are one of the most rewarding aspects of traveling alone. The realization that one small interaction can lead to experiences you hadn’t thought possible. Not that you can’t be spontaneous when traveling with companions, but you do have more freedom to pivot on a dime when there aren’t others’ opinions to consider.
Nathan and I at Lake Bohinj. Nathan is a commercial diver in Australia, and was spending two months backpacking Europe solo when we crossed paths in Ljubljana
Nathan and I caught a bus the following morning from Ljubljana (pronounced “Lee-YOO-Blee-YAH-na”, because j’s sound like y’s in the Balkans) to Lake Bohinj (“Bo-HEEN”, sometimes the j’s are silent though) in northwestern Slovenia - a place recommended to me by German students I had met at the hostel. I booked bunks for us in a hostel dorm above a restaurant called Pr Pristavc (“peer pruh-STOUTS”) in a small village called Polje (“PULL-Yeh”), just a couple kilometers outside of the lake. Pr Pristavc was exactly my type of place: a cozy old village tavern with dim lighting, stone floors, stout wooden furniture, and a wood-fired pizza oven. It also had a covered patio that offered views of surrounding farms set against a backdrop of mountains cloaked in fog. After checking in, we dropped our bags in our room, and hitchhiked to the lake, to wander the wooded paths and also to ask about the availability of the mountain huts in the region. Bohinj sits in the Julian Alps and within Triglav National Park, named for Mt Triglav (9,396 feet), the highest peak in Slovenia and all of what formerly was Yugoslavia. The lake is a popular retreat destination, offering everything from snow-shoeing and ice climbing to paragliding and horseback riding, depending on the season. After finding out that only two alpine huts were still open this late in the season, we chose one to hike to the next morning, hoping to access some of the region’s best hiking trails before colder weather arrived. The name of the alpine hut that we chose is Koĉa na Uskovnici (at 3,700 feet).
View from our hostel in Polje
Early the next morning, we took a bus from Polje to Bohinj, then set out shouldering our fully laden backpacks. Since we planned to stay the night at Uskovnici, we decided to carry everything with us, that way we had the flexibility to move further into the mountains if we wished, and didn’t have to leave items behind in Polje. Although, the extra weight made for a grueling hike up to the hut. From quiet, gently sloping village streets, our path wound steeply up into wooded hills and was almost completely blanketed in brown and orange leaves. Nothing tells you how much you’ve over-packed like taking all of it with you on a steep hike into the mountains. For balance, we picked up fallen branches along the way that would serve as walking sticks, which proved invaluable as the leaves on the trail made it easy for one to stumble and fall, especially when carrying a heavy and awkward load. We reached Koĉa Na Uskovnici at around noon. Situated on a picturesque alpine meadow and surrounded by quaint old farmhouses, the hut (more like two-story guesthouse) was full at the moment of locals who had arrived by car to enjoy a meal and/or afternoon hike. Nathan and I dropped our gear in the room we had reserved and switched to our day packs so we could hike further into the mountains without the extra weight. We chose Mt Viševnik, a 6,700 feet peak that would be challenging yet attainable for us from Uskovnici.
I’m not sure why taking this pic was necessary. We sweated through some layers on the way up to Uskovnici, and became overjoyed once we finally arrived and could ditch our annoying backpacks. What is for sure is that we reinforced only the very best stereotypes that Europeans have for Americans and Australians.
It was the perfect day for a hike - cool and clear, and we were joined by a surprising amount of visitors as we worked towards the summit. After clearing the treeline, the terrain in many places became unstable as well as steep - loose gravel that was much harder to grip. I’m thankful I had Nathan accompanying and challenging me to push on, because I likely wouldn’t have attempted the summit had I been hiking alone. The trail became even sketchier towards the end, leading us along several narrow ledges skirting sheer, exposed cliff faces that would have been suicidal if it weren’t for lengths of chain fixed to the walls for guidance. Nathan led onward fearlessly, and I remember him exclaiming in his thick Aussie accent on the fact that a misstep here would be quote: “instant death” (sorry, Mom).
Nathan leading us toward the summit. The drop-off to his right extends far beyond the bottom of this photograph.
The summit of Viševnik offered splendid views of Mt Triglav and surrounding peaks of the Julian Alps. For the final hour or so of the hike we had the trail all to ourselves, so we were surprised to find the summit crawling with visitors, most of whom had taken a much less demanding path to the top. We decided to take this other (albeit longer) route back down to Uskovnici, turning our hike from the hut into a circuit, granting us unique views from all directions on our descent. All in all, we had spent almost nine hours hiking, gaining five thousand feet in elevation by the time we returned to Uskovnici. We were thankful to find hot showers waiting for us at the hut, as well as a hearty meal. At this hour, the kitchen offered only barley soup with bread and sausage, which we happily devoured, and washed down with glasses of Laško, the Slovene equivalent to Budweiser. Perhaps just as rewarding as our views from the summit were our views from the back patio at Uskovnici long after sunset. For one of the best parts about being up in the Alps and away from civilization, are the clear nights when you can witness the stars as they were meant to be seen.
Our bodies were pretty wrecked when we woke up the next morning, and I felt a cold coming on. With rain and snow on the forecast, we decided to head back down from the mountains and part ways. Nathan was headed west to Venice, and I decided to return to Polje for a few days to fight off my cold before reuniting with two friends from home in Ljubljana the coming weekend. I was starting to feel like this trip was becoming less “solo” than I had originally planned. And I was OK with that.
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When you take that first look back after a long push upward, and see how far you’ve come
From the summit of Viševnik - 6,700 feet. Mt Triglav in the far left background
Golden hour views from Koca Na Uskovnici
Nathan at the very end of our hike, as we arrive back at Uskovnici
The simple, yet satisfying fare offered at the hut. We were their only guests, as our visit was during their slow season.
Lake Bohinj
