SLOVENIAN SPLENDOURS
Walking (slowly) is the way to enjoy this little-known country’s majestic peaks and valleys
HOW refreshing it is that Theresa May enjoys walking holidays in the Alps. It makes a change from some recent younger prime ministers who, perhaps driven by demanding wives and grasping children, favoured glitzier locations.
My wife and I have left our four (grownup) offspring behind to go walking in the hills of Slovenia, birthplace of America’s new First Lady, from the capital Ljubljana to Trieste in Italy. We are with another couple in a similar situation. I’m a slow walker (family motto: On Slow) and I tend to be left behind on n uphill stretches.
On one occasion, after my wife e and friends have disappearedd over the horizon, I rest on a bench in a village when a nice e man indicates with a twisting of f his left hand and a thumbs up on his right that I might be in need of a drink.
How right he is. He takes me to a cellar at his house where he has rows of stainless steel vats. He pours a glass of white winee for me and one for himself, , shortly followed by a second one for each of us, and proudly hands me a bottle of his best.
Then he shows me his allot- ment, with its huge tomatoes and melons, and I help him dig some radishes. I am presented with a bottle of fortified red wine for my efforts.
My wife reappears, asking whatt I am doing. Working, I explain — and being paid for it, too.
We resume our trek weighed down by my two bottles. In no time, I am left behind again, so I stop to help a man dig up some potatoes. He rewards me with a bag of them.
Our two other friends return and are astonished that one of the peasants working the soil is me.me We are soon on our way again, though this time I have the additional burden of a sack of spuds.
Mercifully, it starts to rain heavily and we all take refuge in a bus shelter where the bottle of white is consumed, reducing my baggage. Sadly, we don’t have a gas stove on which to cook the potatoes. Our itinerary has b been organised by On Foot Holidays, though it is highly flexible and we do our own thing.
A driver takes our luggage from o one night’s stay to the next. He will also transport anyone suffering from sore feet.
After a night in Ljubljana, we a are taken to Lake Bled for a fourmile walk around its circumference rewarded by cream cakes, a local delicacy.
Our driver gives us a rundown o on local politics. Slovenians are n not greatly exercised by the Balkan war, but slightly cheesed off by Croatia cutting them off from places further south.
We cover ten miles a day for f five days. The paths are marked with yellow arrows and lines and alternative routes can be arranged if the going becomes too steep.
There was a thought that we might lose weight in a week of rigorous exercise, but such are the tasty meats and cheeses, fruit and wine, that it works out quite differently.
We are given huge breakfasts, packed lunches and six-course dinners in restaurants that have cellars stocked with local wine.
Consistently eating too much at breakfast means my lunches begin to accumulate, so I am eating Tuesday’s smoked ham, dried sausage and tomatoes on Friday, and am still well stocked on the flight home.
THE TERRAIN is mostly grassy or shady woodland tracks. We stay in farmhouses and guest houses and stop for picnics by hilltop churches, learning about their colourful histories from Roman to Communist times.
Arriving in Trieste, we take a spectacular tram ride to the harbour and arrive in the main square, where there is a statue of the Irish author James Joyce.
There are hundreds of people watching a big screen. The compere spots me in my red trousers, turquoise shirt and yellow braces, and notes I do not belong to the suave, sophisticated Italian crowd.
He runs towards me with a microphone as my picture comes up on the screen. ‘Why you wear red trousers and yellow braces?’ he demands.
‘Because they were on the floor when I got out of bed this morning in the hills of Slovenia,’ I reply. Wild applause. What a magnificent welcome after such a long and pleasant walk.