This is What You Find Away From the Tourist Routes...
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For our road trip through Europe, there was no doubt in our mind that we wanted to drive. Sure, the trains are fast and efficient and airfares are cheap, but we knew that the only way to fully immerse ourselves was with our own wheels. The time to direct our car away from the highway did not take very long.
For the previous two days, we had been around Venice. We had stayed in a delightful and authentic Villa on the outskirts of the city and had roamed the labyrinthine streets our own special way. The following day, the E70 Autostrada was beckoning and onwards we drove towards Croatia, every kilometer of pavement inching us eastwards. On the way to Croatia, we had already decided to take a detour into Slovenia to investigate an organic farm restaurant in a tiny village in the mountains. Therefore, we exited the E70, went around Udine and edged our way towards the border and into the foothills of the Alps.
It was a sunny day and the bright yellow glow was beaming onto the hillsides to the side of the highway. We saw villages and imposing villas clutching the hillsides earnestly as we slowly transitioned away from the more developed parts of Italy. They appeared frequently, as if there was one continuous village, despite the increasingly rugged terrain. We began to cross rivers as the faint outline of mountains appeared on the northern horizon.
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Up until this point, we also had been seeing a number of castles interspersed among the foothills. Each one of them were positioned above their respective village realm and appeared in different states of disrepair. One particular one caught our eye - a castle hidden in an escarpment, tall and proudly positioned above the river far below. We only caught a brief glance as the mountain quickly hid its adornment behind one of its rocky wings. We really wanted to check out one of these villages and decided that this was the one calling out to us.
I checked the GPS and took the next exit, sure to find a road back up towards the castle on the cliff. We navigated towards it and found the road became very tiny indeed just a hundred meters off the highway. Crossing a river we then took a left and began to wind upwards above the valley. The more we climbed up, the narrower the street became and it wasn't long before it reduced to a single lane. Continuing on, we felt we were approaching our goal, and in a few moments we had entered a village. There was no one about and the road seemed to hug the buildings so closely, it resembled more of a footpath than pavement for vehicles.
The village had a very distinctive character, as if absolutely untouched and intact from the 17th Century. Parking the car, we tentatively took a look around and made our way between the buildings. Hidden down a lane was a small courtyard that looked straight out from an Elven fable. One of the stone houses had a wooden balcony, with three baskets of red flowers sitting on top of the beams. A stone staircase led up from the ground to the second floor. On the ground floor was an entrance to a basement with a small window on the side. The wooden door looked as if it had been there for centuries. To complement the house, to one side were wooden decorations, one a vintage wheelbarrow with flowers and the other a stand holding more red flowers. To the left of this dwelling was an even more striking home. The weathered stone walls were barely visible from the incredible amount of ivy that had taken over the roof. Drooping down in every corner, the ivy hid the house so well, it looked as if a tree had grown and the people had dug a house out of the wide trunk. Bushy green shrubs and flowers completed the natural cloak. The fact that no one was around completed the tranquil atmosphere.
We wandered on around the other buildings peering over the edge and returned to the car. Realizing that the hidden castle was on another route, we drove back towards the crossroads to take the other road. Finally we saw another vehicle - remarkably, a truck - who kindly found a space off to the side in order for us to proceed on. At the crossroads we took the other road which carried us up even further through the trees as the road narrowed and snaked its way around hair pin bends and stone barriers. Eventually we passed through another settlement, this time the one we had seen from the road. At the end of the road was a small carpark beneath trees, with a heavily shrouded pathway to the right and a church to the left. A brisk breeze greeted us as we exited the car and took in the scene. Should we take the path or investigate the church first? We decided to see what the church was. A stone wall lined the carpark and extended past the church down a set of stairs as the terrain dropped. Peering over the wall, we could see the village below us and the highway even further down with the endless trail of cars. The settlement appeared to be empty of people and subsequently the church was closed.
The next logical step was to examine the veiled path at the end of the pavement. So we steadily made our way over there and upon passing the cover of trees and bushes, we found ourselves on a dirt path with a wooden fence on the left and the rising bank of the mountain looming to the right. The path was heavily shaded and the smell of leaves being carried through the air by the wind was refreshing. The dirt path crunched beneath our shoes and after about 100 meters, the path ended and transitioned to a small bridge. There were signs indicating that there was a "grotto" up ahead. Although it was tempting to find out what it was, we knew we had some way to drive that day and opted to leave it "for another time". And that was fine as we felt we had already satiated our exploratory sense for the time being.
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We had a brief rest under the shade of the trees and then walked back to the car to continue our journey to Croatia. We still had another hidden gem to unearth shortly after, in Slovenia (another article on that shortly!). With that in mind, we drove back down the winding narrow road and back onto the highway that would lead us to our next destination. To have glimpsed the castle on the crag and to have had the possibility to delve into a mysterious village gave us such an uplifted feeling! To this day, we recall how we felt and what it was like to come across this amazing scene. Would we have had that chance on a tour? No way! Would we have even seen it had we not taken this quiet highway instead of the motorway? Impossible. We had the wonderful possibility to see these places because:
1) We had a car,
2) We had a particular location in Slovenia we wanted to visit, and
3) We did not dismiss it simply because it is not famous or widely recognized.
4) We followed our great desire for adventures.
You don't have to be in Europe to find tantalizing corners that you never thought existed. Nor do you need to visit an "exotic" place. These corners are everywhere, even within 5 minutes of where you live. Look to the left and right sometimes and find a place that will stay with you your whole life!
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Author: Dennis Rettke
22 Jul, 2017
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