STRIKING SLOVENIA
History pairs with beauty in this crossroads country
“Look out, Dad!” We were listening intently to the audio version of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms,” and the rental car almost swerved off the road when Frederic Henry got hit by a trench mortar shell. I tried to reconcile the scenery outside the car window with what Hemingway describes in his classic novel, published 90 years ago. The “picturesque front,” his narrator called this area of present-day Slovenia, where intense fighting occurred between the Italians and Austro-Hungarian forces during World War I.
Never mind that my young kids were riled up in the back seat, complaining loudly about the lack of pop music on the radio, now in hysterics after their grandfather’s blunder. They were quieted when we rounded a bend and the Soca River (Isonzo in Italian) flashed into view. It is otherworldly, the color changing in the sunlight.
I want to take a cue from Hemingway’s pared-down prose, but the Soca Valley is so beautiful it makes me want to gush adjectives.
From our rental house in the town of Bovec, Dad was driving us to shadow my husband, Pierre, who was cycling up Slovenia’s highest road pass (5,285 feet). It was the end of February and the Vrsic Pass, a formidable ascent with dozens of serpentine switchbacks, had just opened for the season. It was built by Russian prisoners of war in 1915 and ’16 as a supply route for the Austro-Hungarians battling at the
Isonzo Front.
The mountains rise in dramatic craggy formations, their cliffs coated in snow as we climbed higher. When they built this road out of the impregnable wilderness, many of the POWs died as a result of avalanches and sickness.
Pierre was goaded on by our car following closely behind him and doggedly pedaled the rental bike, a bulky mountain model instead of the carbon road bike he typically uses. When we caught up, the kids were thrilled, yelling, “Go, Papa, go!” And he powered through to the summit, surrounded by the snowy peaks of the Julian Alps and Triglav National Park. We leaped out of the car into the raging wind and attempted to walk through the snowdrifts, but we didn’t last long. The sunny Soca Valley beckoned down below.
This was not only a family vacation for the kids’ winter break but a reunion of sorts, bringing together far-flung relatives.
Always up for adventure, my aunt and uncle had taken the train south from their home in Prague. My father, arriving from the United States, had driven his rental car from Switzerland. We had flown to Ljubljana, Slovenia’s lovely, cafe-lined capital, from our home in Paris.
Our respective journeys to get there illustrate how this tiny country is a nexus at the crossroads of Europe — wedged between Italy, Austria, Croatia and Hungary. Historically, the borders have been fluid in this contested land, sitting at the junction of ancient routes and civilizations. Slovenia became the country we know today in 1991, after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
With its myriad charms,
Slovenia could win over the most demanding traveler. It’s also remarkably green. More than half of Slovenia is covered with forest, and in 2016 it was declared the “world’s first green destination” by a Netherlandsbased nonprofit. Slovenia is a place to which I keep returning.
Strangely, there wasn’t any snow in the valleys for cross-country skiing. Blaming climate change, locals told us that late February brought record-high temperatures. But there were plenty of other outdoor adventures — from hiking to zip-lining in Europe’s largest zip-line park.
And there was still downhill skiing in the highaltitude mountains. Bovec is known as the gateway to some of the best slopes in Slovenia. In the summer, adrenaline junkies flock here for kayaking, whitewater rafting and paragliding.
On a waterfall hike near Kobarid, we stopped to chat with a couple who were fishing a piece of driftwood out of the turquoise stream. They said they planned to hang it as a piece of art in their home.
I noticed this same Slovenian eye for aesthetics in the beautifully painted beehives arranged in rows in the fields and the carefully stacked woodpiles.
There’s even a word for this craft of arranging firewood: “Tase.” It’s an ancestral tradition, and woodcutters measure a tree before cutting to get exact measurements for a flawless stack. In this aesthetic coexistence, humans are in harmony with the natural world.