Here’s to you, Lily Tolmin

Day 25: Magozd to Tolmin

Hours walked: 8:00 to 2:15

Kilometres walked: 20.5

Jesuses seen: 3

Quote of the day: “Actually, the most dangerous part is when the paragliders try to climb down out of the trees.” -Informative man drinking and smoking outside Tolmin

Bonus quote of the day: “Now we know how to get the kids to walk fast: we just put them on roads in the sun and don’t feed them!” -Tamar

When we left the house this morning, the weather was very pleasant: overcast and cool, just right for walking. We enthusiastically covered the first few kilometres to Dreznica as the clouds drew nearer. It began to rain just as we reached town. Our plan was to buy snacks and lunch at the grocery story in town for the day; unfortunately, although it was meant to be open, the store was so closed that Aurora spied literal cobwebs stretching across the doors. Jakob’s other plan was to get a coffee at the town inn, but we walked into the little guesthouse to find a table full of tourists eating breakfast with their eyes fixed on a man passionately speaking at the head of the table. We stood at the doorway in our dripping raingear, hoping someone would notice us, but after a few awkward minutes where we learned all about why they couldn’t go paragliding in the rain this morning, we left feeling like lurkers. 

Our detour into Dreznica was a disappointment and we left town with the nervous feeling you get when you know you have one apple and a handful of trail mix to sustain six people through 20 kilometres. The AAT at this point heads up into the mountains, a potion or trail labeled as difficult, that visits WWI sites; we decided to reroute onto a lower path that took a mix of trails and small country roads. 

We splashed down the mountain on a single track in the downpour; the trail was at first sketchy and hard to find, and we were stressed that our day would be a total bust; but thankfully the path down to Ladra was pretty smooth once we found it. 

The one advantage of our early-morning lurking was that we learned the rain was meant to clear - and indeed it did, much to the pleasure of Tamar and the chagrin of Aurora, who prefers, like an endive, never to feel direct sunlight. Walking on roads is less scenic but it turns out is also much quicker. The kids were pretty much hungry from the second they found out we had no food (i.e., half an hour after a huge breakfast) which made them walk quicker. 

By late morning, we were all wet again - but this time, from sweat. Tova has pretty bad blisters on both feet but has been soldiering on. We had lovely mountains views on both sides and occasional glimpses of our river friend. We passed through four villages which, despite not having the much-awaited restaurant, were charming and full of restored farmhouses. 

A few kilometres from Tolmin, our destination, we walked past a campsite that sold ice creams. We were overjoyed. We enjoyed a pleasant half hour in the shade eating ice cream, listening to the stories and opinions of the two young men working there, with the rhythmical beat of Tova shooting hoops in the background. We learned all about the paragliding competition that was just beginning, and about the temperatures of all the rivers in Slovenia (the Soca is ~13-15 in summer, colder than average as it flows N-S and hence gets less sunlight than rivers flowing E-W). 

And then after walking past some fields, we entered the town of Tolmin which did not endear itself to us at first glance. After Austria’s picture-book village squares, the concrete and traffic of Tolmin was hard to swallow. However, our evening stroll showed us a cuter side to the town and its history. The past few days have been full of Slovenia’s jewel-green rivers and towering mountains; tomorrow, we’ll enter Italy … and we’ll get to eat lunch.