Into the Land of Forests, Kočevje, Slovenia

Zagan the motorhome’s sat alone in a free, official and brand new aire about 1km from Kočevje, Slovenia (N45.64433, E14.87113). We’re right up against the tourist information office, and Janis (or is it Yanis?) has popped over and enthusiastically piled us high with top-notch English-language information about the area. The finishing touches are still being put on the aire, but by next week it’ll be a first-class facility, with free electricity too!

Free motorhome aire at Kočevje

Someone once said that travel is lethal to prejudice, or something like that, indicating our in-built but inaccurate beliefs are gradually eroded and replaced with something closer to the truth, with the more miles wandered. Today’s disabused me of some of my in-built stereotype, but not of a foreign one, one of my own nation. Gimme a minute to catch up on where we are first.

Last night I ate a perfectly-cooked, meaty and inch-thick tuna steak, sat outside with Ju, trying to absorb a view over a mercury sea, reflecting the sinking sunlight in colours like an ever-flickering oil painting. The food and view were delicious, aided by a couple of Croatian dark beers of course! The meal came to £26, with a tip, and will be the last one we’ll have by the sea for a while.

Back in Zagan we pulled the map out and pondered. Croatia gave us a wonderful month, but our feeling was we needed to extract ourselves. The safety and convenience of campsites is a two-sided coin – on the one hand giving us an easy ride, a holiday within a life of holiday. On the other hand it was, perhaps, too easy a ride, making us a little lazy, removing the challenge of travel. We decided to leave and, after an hour’s discussion, Zagreb and the surrounding towns were side-lined (Tito was born in one of them, an interest for me), and we headed here. Why here? A free aire of course! Plus the fact it’s on a northerly path, and we need to start chipping away at latitude.

Leaving Krk, the TomTom had a fit thinking the bridge was toll in both directions and attempted to take us off the island via a couple of ferries. Interestingly the CoPilot Caravan app on Ju’s phone seemed to understand the one-way toll. Off we piled, being caught out by the fallen rock slide we’d seen on the way onto the island, and being send off along a coastal detour. A pretty detour as it happened, which eventually took us high up the hillside and out of sight of the sea. That’s the last we’ll see of sea until we cross the European continent, and eventually spy the Baltic. We already miss it.

Bridge inspection or cleaning at Krk, Croatia

Winding roads, and some nut-case who nearly front-ended us cutting a corner, tempted a stretch on the toll. Two junctions later, on roads as eerily empty as a just-opened M1, we pulled up the toll booth to pay, finding no-one in the booth. Ah, we’d picked the auto-toll lane. Sh*te. Fortunately there were zero cars to be seen and after a quick reverse we handed over £1.70 to an unamused booth-sitter, and drove to Lidl to dispense of our Kuna.

Empty Croatian motorway

Statue next to Lidl

Croatian national park: no nabbing of rabbits!

Tree-scape as we headed north towards Slovenia

Miles of forested slopes dropped us to the border, where the Croatian huts stood window-shut and empty. Only the Slovenian guards came out to assess us. These guys must be taught to glare from an early age, as they frowned their way through our passports and waved us on with a failed attempt to sound cheerful. No search of the van, no scanning of passport, just some squinting at old passport stamps and we were in.

Provincial border crossing from Croatia into Slovenia, the EU’s outer-most border to the south

Into what? Into trees! Slovenia’s more than 50% forest, in this area it’s 90% – it’s all about the trees, some of which have never been managed by humans. Bear, wolves, wildcat and lynx roam these ‘ere parts. This area’s well off the usual Slovenian tourist route. The literature we were given has loads of hiking paths on it, and a suggestion that if we were to meet a bear, we should stand still and hope it chooses not to eat us. Ju, has other ideas.

Ju’s bear-management approach

The literature also tells a grim tale of mass murder which took place in among the surrounding hills here, instigated by my British ancestors. As Tito’s partisan army slowly shoved the Nazis out of Croatia and Slovenia, those who’d collaborated with them, or were just anti-communist, opted to head for Austria to surrender to the British. Why? Probably because they knew what was coming if they stayed put. The story is well told here by an Australian journalist, but simply put the Brits sent tens of thousands of Slovenes and Croats back to the communists, lying to them to get them to come back, in the sure knowledge many of them would be murdered. Thousands of men, women and children went to their deaths in naturally-formed deep sink holes in these hills, taken at night and shot or thrown in alive. The holes were dynamited to seal them, and history became a secret for 50 years. I’m disgusted by all of this, who wouldn’t be, but feel a relief the information’s finally out in the open and is presented as clear fact.

If there’s one thing I’ve worked out while on the road, it’s this: nothing is simple. If something looks simple, I try to dig a little before I accept it as fact. The British were presented to me as a child as faultless heroes in the last wars, which clearly wasn’t quite the case.

Heads of heroes in Kočevje, Croatia

Walking into Kočevje, we found we’d accidentally arrived on the day the town was liberated by the partisans. Long speeches were held as uniformed men and women stood in the afternoon sun. Children sang. As the last post played out on speakers, such a heart-wrenching tune, a wreath was laid beneath the town’s communist memorial. The final music played was an old style socialist anthem, a rhythmic chest-beating thing you could find yourself marching off to without a second thought. It seemed to prompt some of the bored-rigid crowd to rejoice and clap the old firemen from the square. One old chap stood talking to friends sporting a flat worker’s cap, complete with a faded red star. But wait, wasn’t communism the devil’s own political system? Once again, nothing’s that simple.

Veterans, presumably of the Ten Day War, when Slovenia fought or independence from Yugoslavia

Independence day, Kočevje, Slovenia

Independence day, Kočevje, Slovenia

We’re back on the road folks. It feels good.

Raising of the communist star, Kočevje, Slovenia

Cheers, Jay