I’m back in Torino “summer” (I think there have been about 6 sunny days so far this year) so it’s time to relive some more vacation highlights.

“It’s good working here over summer, there’s plenty of tourists who I can practise English with,” said the barista at the cafe in Kamnik. I had to smile — I was just thinking how few other tourists I’d seen so far on my way out of Ljubljana and up to the mountains. I was heading for the ski lift at Velika Planina, which, according to a friend of a friend was a good spot to visit alpine meadows. The barista agreed. “It’s a really pretty place,” she said. “Great for hiking.”

“Really pretty” is an understatement. This was one of the highlights of my trip:

Not bad eh?

Conveniently for lazy people like me, there’s a ski lift that they keep running in summer, so you can get to views like this without having to hike up yourself. (My totally legit excuses: it was already nearly lunchtime by the time I got to the bottom of the valley thanks to the not-great public transport schedule out of Ljubljana; it was a hot day and the sun was out in full force; I had already hiked strolled on flat ground the 2 days before; if the family with small children who arrived at the same time as me could get the lift, so could I.)

Once you get off the lift, there’s an easy walk of about 40 minutes to get to the traditional cow-herds huts:

Apparently these are mostly (all?) reconstructions after a fire in the mid-20th century, but it took quite an effort to get them reconstructed as huts and not a state dairy farming collective. I think everyone’s pretty glad the effort was made — can you imagine a tourist campaign to come see the drab communist buildings on top of the mountain?

As I got closer to the village, the sound of cowbells, which had been faint near the ski lift, got louder and more constant. Although, as far as I can tell, many of the huts are now holiday homes, people still keep cows up in the meadows. They’re pretty chilled out cows, especially considering they have to share their space with hikers.

mooooo!

I had brought some lunch but it turns out I didn’t need it, since you could buy delicious mountain food from one of the huts. Trust me, you will never feel more like Heidi than when you’re eating this, though I don’t think Heidi ate from an Ikea bowl…

Left: sour milk, which is a bit like yoghurt. Right: meat and grits.

It was super tasty, and very filling. Almost enough to make me feel guilty about not hiking up from the valley. (No, not really.)

After lunch, I wandered around for a few hours, oohing and ahhing at the views of the mountains in one direction, and the plains in the other. I think I said to myself “this is so perfect!” about 75 times that day. I did consider hiking down just to work off the lunch, but in the end I took the lift, to make it pretty much the ultimate low-energy but still-satisfying walking day. Definitely recommended.

Practicalities for future reference: You can do this as a day trip by bus although car would be much more convenient. Different people said different things to me about how frequently the lift goes up — every half hour? every hour? At any rate, it runs until 6pm during the week and later on weekends. There’s a campsite at the bottom of the ski lift if you want to overnight. It also has ‘glamping huts’, which are more or less wooden garden sheds with beds (which I stayed in and liked just as much as any dorm room; if you want one in high season you should probably call and book — I got lucky there was 1 free when I rocked up).