The cattle are lowing.....

On Sunday morning, I awoke to the bellowing of cows and the jingling of cowbells, reminding me of the hysterical SNL skit, More Cowbell! The rain had stopped, the skies cleared and the day beckoned.
After a leisurely breakfast, Ana, Marko and I set off for a small hike. The entire area where Ana and Marko have their cabin is a national park, so there are strict regulations as to what can be done in the way of renovations and what cannot be done.
Some villages allow no renovations at all, such as the one a few hundred meters from our trailhead.
Our destination? Blejska Koca, (or Blejska Hut) Lipanca (1633M). Autumn is in all her glory on the mountain, but compared to Lubnik of last week, I noticed the majority of the trees here are conifers. So what was providing all the color? Here there is conifer that they refer to as a "pine" that behaves like a deciduous tree by turning color in the fall and dropping all of its needles!


(I am hoping my father will weigh in here at some point and tell me what this tree is!!)DADDY???


After about 50 minutes we arrived at Blejska Koca, an Alpine hut that offers food and lodging to travelers.

This is a cross roads of sorts as from here one can travel in many directions along the trails. Of interest is that an accidental finding of a bronze dagger dating back to 10 century BC below Merzce proves that the alp was settled in the Bronze Age. People, and sheep have been traveling this route for a long time!


Eventually we stopped basking in the sun and made our way down the mountainside again, stopping at the local watering hole for coffee and a shot of their specialty, Pine Schnapps! Yes, that is not a typo; I meant to write Pine Schnapps! Which, surprisingly did not taste like a mouthful of needles, but was quite sweet!
Later in the afternoon I really began to feel like a native Slovenian as Marko and I went out to walk some more, and Marko gave me a lesson in picking mushrooms. Sadly the crop is limited now, as the temperatures have become quite cool for mushrooms. But amongst the pretty poisonous ones,
we did manage to find a few edible mushrooms which we collected and later, Ana prepared for us. What a treat!
We finished off our day by watching hockey on their wooden TV! Ok, I am kidding, it is actually a very nice flat screen TV built right into a wooden frame, which matches the wood décor of their cabin beautifully! The Pogacnik cabin sits in a place of peace and tranquility, its backdrop against incredible beauty.