Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Stage 8 of the Juliana Trail
Bohinjska Bistrica to Podbrdo ~ 26,000 Steps
Today I begin with an apology. I had a PEBKAC error with the website, and I accidentally, on purpose turned off the gizmo that sends subscribers their email. If you are receiving this after several days of silence, you’ll need to go back a few days to catch up.
Today we said goodbye to our lovely Guesthouse Alenka, it’s wonderful balcony with a view, and all the grandmotherly good feels it gave us.
There was no breakfast included with the guesthouse, although we did have a small fridge and microwave, so I think perhaps I was a little worried about finding breakfast today, because I did not sleep very well last night.
Today is another difficult stage, 9 miles long, with 2,500 feet of elevation gain and loss, so we set off early in search of breakfast, coffee and lunch, in no particular order.
There’s a bakery quite close, so we picked up a prepared sandwich from them, but we need something more substantial for breakfast to make it through the climb. We went over to the market, grabbed cash from an ATM, and went to see if the Hotel & Restaurant we had dinner at last night will sell us breakfast. If not, there’s always the market.
We were in luck. The Tripic Hotel has a breakfast buffet for their guests, so we can fuel up for the day.
We left at about 9 am, after our breakfast and coffee. And so the climbing began! Thankfully, our bodies have given in to the daily torment and are not as sore or achy as the previous three days.
Initially, the day started out pretty sunny and cool, but as the day continued, the clouds increased. Both Alenka and the Hotel’s reception desk gal warned us that it was supposed to rain.
We walked past a little village, Nemski Rovt, its church, and a small public park.
From Nemski Rovt, we left the valley and began climbing into the forest. We saw a local man hiking, and he told us we had 40 more minutes uphill to a meadow (planina in Slovene), and an additional hour after that to the top of the pass.
All day, every day we hear both the cuckoo and the chiffchaff as we are hiking, and today was no exception.
The uphill climb was quite a lot of work, and even though its not that hot or sunny, we are both covered in sweat. We time ourselves according to the man’s suggestion, and it takes us 30 extra minutes to make it to the top.
Along the way we see the same plants and flowers that we’ve been seeing every other day, but today was the first day we saw the giant black European slug! It was as big as my phone!
We passed the meadow and make it to the top where we rest at a shelter and picnic table and have our lunch.
After lunch, the sign down to Podbrdo indicates that the downhill portion should take 2 hours, but we are not sure if that is for billy goats or actual people. The first bit leaving the lunch shelter was rather steep and treacherous, but we walk out of that area quickly, and most of the afternoon is spent leisurely walking down lovely forest paths.
We arrive in Podbrdo at 2:10, and get settled into our apartment right as it begins to rain.
Today’s apartment is wonderful. Just the right amount of space, with a terrace, small kitchenette, and an honor system, self-service pantry, with beer and local wine, local firewater “Alpine Mystic”, eggs, bread, pasta, chocolate bars, yogurt and sandwich fixings.
We settle in, decide we don’t need to do any washing, and get showered up. It’s quite cool outside, but we make tea and coffee and sit out on our terrace.
After sampling the wine and firewater, we walk down to the market for lunch and snack supplies, before heading to dinner up the road.
The only restaurant in town is a kilometer up the road, and started as a family fish farm and grew from there. We both have the fried trout and french fries and it was delicious. Best of all, the kilometer walk home is downhill!
Tomorrow is another big day!