We found lots & lots of hiking possibilities in the forests above one of our favourite little villages in Green Slovenia, called Lokev.. so we decided to tell you about one of them!

Like many of the secret paths here, we actually found this hike a little by mistake as we were intent on finding the path up from Lokev up to Chicken Hill (Kokoska), which had been recommended by a friend..

Instead we started a bit too far left and ended up finding another mini chain of heavily forested hills above Lokev that turned out to be a really fun couple of hours hike!

 

Maybe you would not drive the 25 mins from the Lodge over to Lokev for this specific hike, with so much other competition in your busy Green Slovenian schedule to see castles, caves, lakes and cuddly white horses..

But this is a very handy route to know about if you are in the Lokev area and have a couple of hours in one pocket and a water bottle in the other!

You see, you may very well BE in the Lokev area, as this is one of many mini Green hotspots not so far from the Lodge where you might spend one of your daytrips! 

 

Lokev is the longest village in Green Slovenia and tucked away in a little corner of the Red Karst region that borders Italy, the Vipava Wine Valley and our own Green Karst bit.. 

We really love lovely Lokev as a great place to stop off for some lunch or dinner, with lots of choice of different restaurants in a Slovenian village that will make you feel like you are in Italia!

Maybe today you will be visiting the nearby Divaca Dancing cave or the Lipizzaner horses at Lipica.. Maybe you will explore Dragon's Crater or see the magical Fairy chamber at the Vilenica cave, another amazing unknown cave ONLY open on Sundays..

 

Maybe you never heard about any of these amazing secret Green places to visit, but that doesn't mean for one millisecond that they are not worth visiting, it just means you didn't know about them yet! But if you do miss out any of these secret green treasures, we can tell you.. you missed out big time!

Most people visiting the greenest small country in Europe have at least now heard about another gigantic cave, protected by Unesco with a slightly tricky name, Skocjan, also totally unmissabubble.. 

Well Skocjan is just down the road from Lokev too, so if you fancy a couple of extra hours of completely unexpected adventure in a cool green forest, then now is the time to get your hiking boots on, find a decent stick, top up the water bottle and accompany us off into the hills above Lokev!

 

Where to park in Lokev..

So maybe you had lunch at Muha, (which comedically means "Fly" in Slovene, but is a mighty fine Red Karst restaurant).. Well opposite here is a little road to the car park for the start of this hike..

Of course you could park anywhere in the village, but there is a really good cheeky little mini car park OPPOSITE Muha..

 

There are sometimes a few spaces on the other side of the road, next to the TIC, (Tourist Info Centre), but these spaces are often taken by restaurant customers, so all you need to do is turn down that little road next to the TIC and there is an extra little car park with a few more spaces there!

The path up into the hills goes directly from here, so off we went and remember we were thinking we could get to Chicken Hill from here, but it turned out that today, with our couple of hours, that would have been a much longer hike, so we did the Chicken Hill hike another day from another starting point in Lokev that is the subject of another Secret Place article.

 

A few extra tips for Hiking around here in the 3rd most Forested Country in Europe..

The paths here in Green Slovenia are locally called "Macadams" and it is hard to imagine better possible hiking or biking paths, the truth of it is they are mainly meant for tractors.

We are not complaining though as pretty much every village in Slovenia will have several of these picture perfect little stone tracks leading out somewhere into the fields or the forest or the mountains.

Another feature to look out for when hiking in the forest or mountains here are the red and white circles usually marked on trees. They look a bit like the RAF (Royal Airforce) logo if you know that one and sometimes they will be just a red arrow marked on a stone..

 

The key thing with these red circles is to use them just as a guide and make sure you are actually following the path you think you are on..

We sometimes find them useful and other times annoying, cos when you are in the forest there can be multiple paths with just red circles and no signs with words on them.

Just because you see a red circle on a tree, it doesn't necessarily mean it is the actual path that you think you're following, cos there is very often no written sign!

 

Maybe this is cos only the locals would think to use these special secret forest paths and they know their way around anyway or maybe there are just so many thousands of km of secret paths in Green Slovenia that there is not enough metal or wood in the world to make all the signs required.. (hope you are getting the mild humour in this bit, cos our point is.. it would be great to have a few more actual signs for visitors please)!!

We prefer Komoot to Google Maps in the Forest..

We have also noticed google maps might be fantastic to go round New York and find where the nearest Pizzeria is and hear about how Sven from Malmo got a really good giant sized pepperoni and a strawberry thick shake at Big Tony's, but here in the undiscovered Slovenian forest with little red circles on trees it can be next to useless!

OK, at the very least you can see the towns and villages in the distance with google, but SO MANY forest paths get missed off it.. The ap we think is reallly good and we totally recommend for Green Slovenia is Komoot, cos it shows so many tracks and forest paths..

 

We use Komoot mainly for E Biking, but it is also handy to use when hiking in Slovenian forests to find the right path or direction..

Even though Komoot is good, you also need to know that there are a ridiculous number of paths and tracks in Slovenian forests, some leading to somewhere, others just petering out, maybe used by loggers for transporting tree trunks or farmers to get to the very edges of their land..

 

So the BEST simple advice for hiking in Green Slovenia we can give you is to ALWAYS know your way back, just in case..

We followed that advice on this trek as we soon realised we had started the hike in the wrong place in Lokev for Chicken Hill, we diverted a bit, looped back and still had a mighty fine hike..

 

How to Hike into the Forest Hills above Lokev..

Ok, so from the car park in Lokev, the path leads up alongside grassy fields, with classic Red Karst stone walls and increasing patches of forests until you reach one of these little religous shrines, very common here, where you turn left and follow a track to the village of Preloze pri Lokvi..

 

Remember this village for your way back from the forest in case you do get a little lost up there. Follow the path marked with those little red circles out of the village and you are soon back in the forest.

The path is typical of one used by villagers to take the dog for a walk so easy to follow and you are walking into the hills so expect to go up.

 

We had just a couple of hours for our hike so our hopes of reaching Chicken Hill were already starting to fade.. The initial forest path was getting steeper and steeper, but was still wide & good and marked with those red circles so we pushed on and were rewarded with a forest crossroads.. and wait for it.. a sign!

It was here we decided to take stock.. The sign showed Chicken Hill off to the right, but 45 mins.. (By the way, it is best to always add a few extra mins onto a suggested time here in Slovenia as the locals are so fit)!

 

We didn't have the time to make it going right, so decided to go left and follow the route to Velike Gradisce, with the added bonus that this should also be the way home to both the village of Preloze and Lokev..

We know that "Grad" means castle in Slovenian, so our instinct was to go see what we could find at the Grad!

Walking in the Slovenian forest for us is a bit like being in the jungles we remember from our travels in Equador and Malaysia.. step off the path and you can get lost very easily as the trees and bushes are so green and thick!

 

Our new quest brought us soon to a most unexpected spot in the forest where the path turns off again to the left, but we were transfixed by a big natural pond that suddenly appeared with a very mysterious door poking out from the base of a green hill, looking a bit like a mini train tunnel!

With the local knowledge we have acquired over the years here, our best hunch was this is either a local community spot where villagers come for celebrations and get togethers or maybe a hunter's spot for the same purpose, so we didn't poke around, just admired this spot in the middle of a green forest and moved on!

 

The path narrowed again and here a bit deeper into the forest those little red circles on the trees become more welcome..

With a glance at the watch we saw it would soon be time to turn around and Komoot showed us a right turn in the path would be heading away now from Lokev, but up to the Grad.

We marched up a much narrower, but perfect hiking track and Kommot told us we were fast approaching the "Grad".. The only visual clue we had was the path was getting steeper still and we were definetely going up a hill, so a good place to have a castle!

 

We have been lucky enough to do lots of hikes like these in numerous forests around Green Slovenia.. often spotting deer or other forest animals and have found bits of ruined castles, Italian WW1 bunkers and even secret WW2 hospitals, so we knew to keep our eyes peeled..

So we started to look for signs of castle battlements or sections of rock foundations tucked away next to the track in the forest floor around us.. But then we reached a final very steep jog up and the little stone pyramid that marks the top of a hill or mountain in Slovenia, so we knew we had reached the peak of Veliko Gradisce, (Big Castle)..

There was no castle at the Grad!

 

There may well have been a castle here or we may have completely missed any signs leftover from a castle, but it can happen here that a place name leads to disappoinment and so this Grad might just be a name for big hill here and maybe never had a castle!

Slovenia has SO MANY castles in all shapes, forms and conditions, so we were genuinely hoping to find yet another little medievel masterpiece here, but we were really not disappointed to find nothing as we had had such a wonderfully unexpected hike in a stunningly quiet and beautiful forest and what about that little pond and mysterious gateway too!

So we were delighted to at least reach one of the destinations in our revised plan.. The trees had grown up high around this mini peak so we didn't have a view and were still surrounded by deep forest.

 

The path that lead off from the top of Grad hill went ahead into the trees was in totally the opposite direction from Lokev and Chicken Hill, so we decided this was the furthest point of our expedition and time to go home!

When we got back to the main path that should go to Lokev, we had more time on the clock than the 20 mins we had seen it would take on the sign and we were also not exactly sure where this new path would lead, so we decided not to complete a shorter loop and instead to go back EXACTLY the way we had come, past that pond with the mysterious tunnel.. (maybe an entrance to the Kindom of the Dwarves in Lord of the Rings)?! and down the hill into Preloze pri Lokvi and back along the grassy track to the car park.

Sometimes a "there and back" hike is better than a "loop" and it certainly felt that way today!

So this whole mini green adventure probably took two to two and a half hours and we had seen and found out so much valuable info about this little piece of Red Karst green paradise that it gave us the confidence and motivation to go find Chicken Hill for the next visit!

 

So we hope this article will genuinely help you to see a few of the small challenges when hiking here in Green Slovenia and maybe you will decide to come here to explore the hills above Lokev.

We did not see another person on the entire walk, so this is yet another example of the many, many secret Green places in Slovenia that will never be busy or crowded even in July or August or at any time of year!

 

We can now confirm that there is a real network of forest paths reachable from Lokev that link up several mini peaks in the forest hills and if you have time it is possible to do a longer walk this way to reach Kokoska, Chicken Hill, which touches the green border to Italy.

Before you decide which hike to do, you might be interested to read about our other discoveries hiking up Chicken Hill to see which other places you might include in your hike.. For example, it would also be possible to do a full days hiking via Chicken Hill, with lunch at the Lipizzaner stud in Lipica along the way!

 

But if you only have a couple of hours spare after maybe visiting the horses or Skocjan cave and you want to do a really quiet, really different hike then this one might be for you.

On a hot summers day it is really great to be in the cool embrace of the forest for a few hours and if this little article encourages even just one person to give it go hiking the hills above Lokev, then we have been helpful and successful!

Happy Hiking!