Day 34 – from Tolmin to Tribil di Sopra

Today we’ll leave the Soča valley. It’s not that I very much regret it because although the Soča is nice 60km hiking along the river nearly all the time is getting really boring. 😉

And moreover we were glad to leave Tolmin behind because with all the Punks here it was rather loud yesterday evening. I mean honestly, German people singing O Tannenbaum in the mid of summer – how much alcohol do you need for that?!

But when we woke today we saw a grey sky that looked like rain. We weren’t even ready for breakfast when the rain started. Breakfast was also very disappointing so we headed off immediately. The rain had stopped meanwhile and it did look a bit better.

We didn’t know it yet but obviously we had booked the survival tour for today… 😉 At first we hiked on an asphalt road out of Tolmin and reached the Soča.

Here already the first problem occured. Due to the storms from last night the path was totally blocked by a fallen tree. The undergrowth was too dense to pass with our backpacks so we tried to find another way. We walked a few metres down the riverbench and then fought through some undergrowth there to return to the correct way again.

Then we hiked to the church of St. Daniel, the oldest church in the Soča valley.

Afterwards we walked along an asphalt road again for 3km upwards. Fortunately there weren’t too many cars passing by. Then finally we got to a forest path. This appeared to be another “survive the hiking trip” path. Here also the storms must have made quite a devastation and we crawled over and under fallen trees etc.

After 3km we came to an asphalt road again, and we hadn’t even hiked there longer than 5 minutes before the rain started. We continued but it got worse each minute. So we sought out the next best trees near the street and hid under them. Meanwhile we heard rumbling thunder. The rain got heavier and panickingly we rummaged around for our rain ponchos and gaiters. The street was now nearly a river for how much rainwater was flowing down.

Even with our ponchos on we didn’t want to continue. It was raining so much that you couldn’t even see the surrounding properly. Then we also saw lightening.
When the thunderstorm had finally passed and the rain got less we continued.

After 2 more kilometres we reached the Kolovrat open air museum on the WW1. It showed the positions and observation posts of the Italians during the war. If we had been there during the rain we would have had shelter. 😣
We stopped, got out of our ponchos and continued upwards to the boarder between Slovenia and Italy. It didn’t rain anymore but everything around was dipped in fog. We couldn’t see a thing. Up there at the boarder the view surely was fantastic but we didn’t see anything at all. 😞

So we hiked downwards, passed a Rifugio on the way and continued to the small mountain village Clabuzzaro where we finally made a break at the Osteria al Colovrat. Since it was already noon we decided to get something to eat.
The pasta was just delicious! We got three different kinds of pasta, all homemade: normal pasta with tomatoe sauce, gnocchis with cheese and something like spinach spaetzle.

Happily we continued in the direction of the Monte Cum. The path was mainly through the forest but with quite some ups and downs. On the way we passed a monument for the first Italian soldiers that died in WW1 and the church of San Volfango.

The way to the Monte Cum was another part of the survival training. It was steep and neverending. Every time we passed a corner we thought to be on the top.

But when we finally were it was disappointing. We were surrounded by trees and bushes and didn’t have any view at all. Thankfully, I made a picture from our way up where we still had a nice view.

Down was also a bit wearing: here also thunderstorms must have raged as there were trees and branches littered all over the path. It was wet from all the rain and very muddy. We slipped and slided quite often.

So we were grateful when we finally arrived in Tribil di Sopra at 4 p.m. Our accomodation was a hostel and we had a shared bathroom but at least a room for us. And we made quite good use of the room:

And dinner was a little reward for today’s hardship! We had 4 courses: soufflé, risotto, vegetarian patty and french fries, a large bowl of salad and icecream. We ate it all. 😂

Some figures for today:

• 22,2km
• 1353m up
• 663m down
• Hiking time: 5h 19m