Let's make something crystal clear right now.. If you are standing on top of this massive mountain meadow on a sunny day, Alpine flowers fluttering in the breeze, with cows wandering past the wooden Hobbit houses, their bells jingling and maybe just a solitary fluffy white cloud drifts by to remind you how high up you really are, then you can rightly claim to have cracked Green Slovenia.. It just doesn't get any better than this.. 

And that is saying something..

The really brill problem for you is that there are at least another 50 or so more Secret Places to Visit in the Greenest country in Europe that we could make the same epic claim about and try to squeeze into our ultimate Green Top Ten..  

If Bilbo Baggins came out of this Hobbit hut and offered you a cup of tea, it would be no surprise at all..

Surely that's a good dilemma!

Select the perfect day to go up Velika Planina and we can think of no better place in Green Slovenia to spend a warm, sunny day than on top of this flat topped, meadow-like 1,666m high mountain with views all over Slovenia and especially across to the Kamnik Alps..

And when you do get to the very top, there is a massive surprise in stall, cos your eyes will be drawn like a magnet to a bundle of cute wooden Hobbit houses scattered in the distance at the back of the mountain, where the local inhabitants just come up here in the summer to have a bit of a rest and make some cheese!   

Gwendolin, Doris and Gladys.. Fill your water water over there too..

Most visitors will actually be able to say "Velika Planina", some will know it means "Big mountain meadow", but for us, the most honest and best way to describe it to you is "Heaven on Earth". 

Like we said.. the perfect day up here would actually not be completely sunny.. To enjoy the majesty of this place you need to wish for a cloud or two to float past and you then will feel like in heaven..

These are the Kamnik Alps, Baby..

When to go Up Velika Planina:

One of the many things we have learnt about living in a country with 4 different Alps, (Julian, Karavanke, Kamnik & Dinarics), is NOT to risk going up a mountain if the weather looks even a little bit rubbish, cos guess what, the weather can and often does get a lot worse when you are up the top!

So always check the weather forecast for your day and it is best to pick a clear sunny day to go up Velika Planina, cos if it gets worse, then going to cloudy from sunny is much better than going from cloudy to rain and thunder! 

The good news is Slovenia is on the Sunny side of the Alps, so you should get a lot of sunny days!

Perfect conditions on Velika Plania, with the cows and just one little cloud drifting past..

It is almost impossible to find a travel publication, (maybe apart from this very website) that does not try to regionalise Slovenia and persuade you to hop around different "regions" like you would do in a much bigger country, but that is simply nonsense for Green Slovenia as you can get anywhere in a couple of hours max here, with most of the best places to visit being a lot closer together than that..

We immediately noticed this when we first visited Slovenia, just like you will notice and so we decided to locate our Lodge as a comfy base between the mountains and the sea where you could easily get to ALL the good stuff.. It really is as simple as that!

Do ya see why we call it Heaven on Earth..

Apart from not having to unpack your suitcase and check in and out of a new place every two days, it is so much better to choose your base camp here and then decide day by day which secret treasure you will go visit, depending on the traffic conditions, weather or how you feel today, rather than which corner you may have stuck yourselves! 

Today could be the perfect day for the seaside, a disappearing lake, a stunning river or indeed be your special day to go up Big Mountain Meadow.. Velika Planina..

May is a fab time to see the new spring flowers cover the mountain top like a carpet..

As far as the best time of year to visit Velika Planina you might not have the luxury of choice here, so just grind your teeth a little when we tell you the very best times to be up here are in May, when the Alpine flowers are blooming and carpeting the meadows and maybe the cows have just been let out for action OR in September whilst the cows are still up here and the days are still long and warm..

But seriously, any sunny day will beat a miserable cloudy one and on a very hot day it feels cooler on top of a mountain..

the month of May is your best bet to see a colourfest of Alpine flowers..

How to get Up Velika Planina:

So if today is your day to go up into Heaven on Earth it is a simple 75 min drive from the Lodge via Kamnik, directly to the Velika Planina Cable Car car park.

Kamnik is an hour or so and then you need to follow the brown signs for "Velika Planina" which basically take you up the Kamnik Bistirca river to the Cable Car..

There is a small car park next to the ticket office and cable car station, but also a much bigger one the opposite side of the main road..

Get your tickets at this shiny new ticket office next to the cable car station..

Unless you are a Finnish rally driver with time on your hands DO NOT just put Velika Planina into your SATNAV, as you will be sent on a 5 hour guided tour round the back of the mountain up hair raising stony tracks directly to the top..

Not necessary.. just get to the beautiful Alpine town of Kamnik, maybe visit the castle, stroll around the old town, have a coffee or a bite to eat and then jump back in the car and follow the brown road signs to Velika Planina.. Or go up the mountain first and visit Kamnik afterwards..

We are going up there please driver..

Imagine if they sorted the traffic problems out in the middle of summer in Bled sensibly and actually stopped cars needlessly piling into the town, instead, opening a few park & ride car parks on the motorway and shuttling people in on E Busses to do their walk around the lake in peace!! (Obvious isn't it)! 

Well part of the magic of Velika Planina is that you can pretty much only get up there by cable car, so numbers are always restricted to the 30 or so people who can fit into the little metal box that whistles up and down the mountain every half an hour..

Comfy modern ski lift seats to ride up and down in..

In peak times the cable car just keeps going up and down, so travels a bit more than every half an hour, but regardless, for such a huge mountain, there will not be a lot of people up there!

Indeed, surprisingly maybe.. this is one of the few cable cars operating in Slovenia, so even more reason to give it a go and this hair raising experience just adds to your day.

For anyone scared of heights, (like one of the Lodge team), the sheer length and steepness of the cable car is terrifying, so just stand in the middle of the wobbly tin can and remember, this will be over very soon and should be only scary thing about your day.

Velika Planina means Big Mountain Meadow in English, you can see why here..

For those still a bit worried about being so high up, don't, cos the clue is in the name of "Big Mountain Meadow", not flat, but no scary drops and more like a big hill with slopes for sure, but the sensational views will immediately calm you down..

So once you have gingerly stepped off the cable car, you are safe on this huge island in the sky and all you have to do is choose how you are gonna go to the very top!

Heading up to the top ski lift station..

What to do on Velika Planina:

You have three main choices to go up the mountain to the top and the main cafe, from where you can see the Hobbit village for the first time and decide to go walk there.

You feel like being on an island raised above the rest of the world here..

Ski Lift Up..

Most people will step off the cable cr and walk the short distance to the really cool ski lift with comfy wide seats, uber incredible views and you are locked in to the seat with a safety bar, so again nothing to be worried about.. takes about 10 mins up..

If you are gonna use the ski lift or even if you are not sure you will or not, then make sure you buy the extra ticket when you buy your first cable car ticket at the car park..

And maybe you will just use the ski lift to go up and then walk back down to the cable car station, the choice is yours..

There are NO scary sheer drops if you decide to walk directly up the hill to the main cafe, following the ski lift..

Hike Up..

Either go directly up the grassy stony slopes, with a little bit of scrambling, pretty much under the ski lift pylons for a more authentic hike OR use the stone track that winds up the hill, criss crossing the cable car route..

Shockingly, this bumpy stony track is also part of the main road up, which is why you would need nerves of steel to drive all the way up here, but equally you will be shocked how the odd rickety 30 year old French hatchback with bald tyres, driven by a smiling local edges past you on this track now and then!!

The ski Lift will drop you off at this first main cafe OR you can hike up the stone track here..

Most people from your cable car group will hop off at the first ski lift stop to arrive at the main cafe all at the same time, so best to push on to the top and go to the cafe later..

You exit the ski lift, then walk a bit to the second station, which will bring you the short distance to the very top, where it is so worth climbing a few rocks and feeling a bit like a climber to see the VERY summit with a stone table dial and the VERY best views of the Kamnik Alps opposite..

The views are so good from up here that on a clear day you can easily see back to Mt Nanos, (1,313m) and to the coast, which is the last mountain in Slovenia and the one you can enjoy from the Lodge back garden!

Short climb to the very top point at 1,666m..

And then Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls.. You will finally see the Hobbit village in the distance at the back of the Big Mountain Meadow..

No prizes for working out this is your next destination and we recommend you do a loop to here and then back around the other side of the top to the main cafe for some refreshments and to make the decision whether to walk down the stone track or whizz back on the ski lift to the cable car station..

We kinda think this is Slovenia's Machu Pichu moment..

Depending on what time of year you visit there are several little Hobbit cafes in the mountain village itself, selling cheese and other goodies and you can see the quality of the grass that the cows are eating all around you up here, so expect very good cheese indeed..

There are now also a few little trendy mini cafes near the main cafe too, but for us if you go up a Slovenian mountain there is nothing to beat that good old bowl of sausage soup with beans & cabbage to put the energy back in your legs!

A good selection of hot dogs, cafes and ice cream on top now, but NOT too many..

And believe it or not there is ANOTHER Velika Planina, but this one is called MALA PLANINA, which means Little Mountain Meadow on account of it being smaller than it's bigger brother!! It is possible to walk there and back from Velika Planina!

You can find the path there if you head towards the church end of the village and the track goes off underneath..

The church is just to the side of the main Hobbit village..

Make sure you have time to go there and back AND then back down to the cable car though, but this extra hike could easily turn this daytrip into an all day adventure on top of Velika Planina..

It takes about 2 hours to walk there and back to Mala Planina and the way you should think about Mala Planina is it IS a part of Velika Planina, rather than being a seperate mountain, cos that detracts a little from the total awesomeness of this massive mountain meadow that IS Velika Planina..

Surprisingly Green Slovenia only has a few Cable Car and ski lift stations, so make the most of them in the summer..

It is worth making a note that the main cafe and of course your exit route to the mountain is in a place called ZELENI ROB and this is where you need to head for when leaving the main Hobbit village.. It will be on all the signs..           

Well, what about that then, what a day.. Well actually maybe not, cos if you can believe it and if you can get here to do say the 10 or 11am cable car, then you are also in with a fighting chance to drive 10 mins further up the road from the main cable car park to get a choice of THREE, yes THREE more epic adventures..

This very secret gorge is just up the road from the cable car car park..

These are an unbelievabubble hike to a waterfall and a secret WW2 Partisan Hospital OR a stunning spring that pours fresh water out of the trees like something out of Tomb Raider OR a hike to a secret Gorge with massive rocks, crystal clear water and white beaches.. 

OR go see ALL OF THEM.. We know you can do Velika Planina and these 3 too cos we have done it.. And we still had time to go for a pizza in Kamnik old town and get back to the Lodge in the evening.. 

We always thought this church has a Scandinavian look to it..

Maybe you will max the mountain and try just one of the "extra" secret places we just mentioned or simply go back to the Kamnik Old Town and enjoy chilling in one of our very favourite town centres in Green Slovenia..

But whatever you do, remember you ain't even been to Green Slovenia if you ain't been up Velika Planina.. AKA.. Big Mountain Meadow.. AKA.. Heaven on Earth..