traveling cell geek: Now THAT's a Nor'easter!

The Kras region of Slovenia (written as Karst in English) is a dry, rocky and thickly forested limestone plateau, scattered with ancient stone villages.

The Karst region is where I went on my third hike in Slovenia. We climbed to Slavnik (1028M).

It was an interesting day because once again, I was experiencing Bura, but here in Slovene it is written as Burja. Burja is a downhill wind, in that it blows from a north to north-eastern direction, in gusts, down an incline. This wind is an integral feature of Slovenia's Kras region. Because the region separates the lower Adriatic coast from the Julian Alps range, extreme burja winds often occur there. They have influenced the region's traditional lifestyle and architecture. Buildings in several towns and villages in this region sometimes have stones on their roofs to prevent the roof tiles from being blown off!!
On Sunday Burja was mild to moderate in strength, making our hike up Slavnik very refreshing for me, until we stepped out onto the high plateau. Then, although I was still very much enjoying the wind, my companions were forced to stop and put on weatherproof jackets, hats and gloves!

I have to admit there was a few gusts up at the top that made me grab for some support, to avoid getting blown over!
The views from the mountain hut at the top were spectacular. Slovenia has 46 km of coast and from where we were standing we could see all of it including some of Italy as well. Far off in the distance was a sailing race of over 2000 vessels. From where we were standing the boats looked like tiny stars in the Milky Way the way they were distributed along the coast.