the Mitski Park Hike..
This is a really great hike to introduce the Brkini, one of, if not the most undiscovered, unknown and beautiful mini regions in Green Slovenia.
It is an easy to follow & marked epic 3,4,5 hour forest hike that leads each victim to about a dozen mysterious stone sculptures, all hidden out in the forest at the end of different paths, with spooky stories and massive rock carvings that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and put hairs on your chest..
And the starting point for this hike is just a 23 min drive from the Lodge in the picturesque little village of Rodik at the very top of the Brkini..
There is even a little train station in Rodik, with 2 trains a day on the Sezana to Postojna to Ljubblyjana line, so this could be a serious hiking option if you are touring Green Slovenia without a car too..
What is the Brkini..
The Brkini is made of different rock from the Karst limestone that covers most of Green Slovenia.. On top, this mini region is covered in a lush green carpet with fruit trees, farms, cute trails and littered with natural stone circles that look like they were placed there by the fairies..
All this wedged between the Green Karst and the Coast in the south west of Slovenia.. So really close to the Lodge and really close to a lot of other secret places that you might be visiting around here!
We always knew it was a beautiful place, but it was only recently when we properly tried to explore the whole region from tip to toe that we were shocked to find a little short cut route direct from the Lodge into the top of the Brkini at Rodik..
We were even more shocked when we found a cluster of fantastic local restaurants here too and you can read about them further below..
The Brkini stretches down from Rodik for only about 30km in length to the end of Green Slovenia at Podgrad on the Croatian border in Istria and one of the reasons it is so tricky to find or explore is there are very few roads going directly across it.
So it is like a little Green island with roads going in and then just stopping when they reach a village high up on a hill.. so you can get lost or hit a dead end and have to go back on yourself.. quite frankly it is much easier to bypass the Brkini completely unless you plan to go explore it!
But we explored from all angles, entrances and exits to find castles, caves and a hidden WW12 Partisan Forest hospital.
We also discovered they do not make wine here, but lots of other special drinks you might enjoy, like Gin, Cider and lots of different Schnapps, so we also describe the Brkini as Slovenia's 8th Wine region!
All those cider and scnapps making apple and plum trees make such a pretty picture in Spring when the blossoms are out.. There are also 40 to 60 different types of the juniper berries growing here to make the most perfect gin in the world..
Just imagine a big green rocky garden to explore. You can read more about the Brkini here..
When you consider how little time most people actually have to explore Green Slovenia AND the dominant position the many other world class locations like Bled and Piran have in the minds and phones of visitors AND you if you think how tricky it is to find and explore the Brkini, you might just wonder what chance does it have to get into your holiday plans?
Maybe the few little Green nuggets we have already explained about the Brkini have tickled your fancy.. The mere fact the Brkini is so remote, but so near, so tricky to find and NOT Bled or Piran will make it very interesting indeed for some visitors!
But now we are now gonna tell you all about an easy to find, off the shelf hiking route that could be your springboard into falling in love with the amazing Brkini region and it is called "the Mitski Park hike"..
What is the Mitski Park Hike..
This is a wonderful hike that starts in the centre of Rodik village and goes up into the thick forested hills along marked trails that take you to a series of hidden, secret local Rock Legends..
And it is a very clever way to introduce visitors to the mystery and beauty of the Brkini, along a simple to follow track..
You see, it is so easy indeed to go hiking anywhere else in the third most forested country in Europe, trying to follow those little red circles painted on trees and stones..
But it is equally very easy to get completely lost or frustrated with the lack of signs and directions on the multitude of tracks scattered all over the place!
Not everyone was a boy scout, or got medals for orienteering, or is an expert with a map and a compass.. so this is exactly why specific marked trails like the Mitski Park Hike are so fantastic for the rest of us!
MArked routes like these mean we ALL get to explore secret parts of Green Slovenia like a real hiker, but without the fear of totally getting lost and with some idea of how long it will take, where we are going and what we might get to see!
The great news is there are more and more of these hiking trails, long and short, popping up all over the most deliciously hikeable country in Europe and it is one of our missions to tell you all about them!
MOST villages in Green Slovenia will have at least one or two fantastic secret routes leading out of them either into the forest, up a mountain, along a river, down a cave or ALL of these in one!
We see many local people here often scratching their heads as to why anyone would need a set of wooden posts to find a route they have personally known for years AND why someone not from their village would even want to wander around in this forest for a couple of hours!
They do not seem to realise what a Green paradise Slovenia really is and if it was left to them, we would be stuck with these mystifying red circles on trees and NO SIGNS!!
So four Hurrahs for the Mitski Park Hike!
Legends, Lost Villages and a big Leg End!
So the Mitski Park walk is like doing a big treasure trail in the forest. Not sure, but it was probably paid for from the vast EU funds being chucked at Europe, but on this occasion it seems to have all actually worked out very nicely indeed and they hit the jackpot!
In the middle of a sensationally beautiful forest, several huge rock scupltures have magically appeared at logistical points along this new hiking route at the very end of each of the interconnected tracks and you can walk to each one using a paper map or a phone and have a great half day out in a place you would probubbly otherwise never find or even know about.
Local legends (and we suspect some other slightly made up legends), have all been incorporated into different bits of this huge trail.
Each location to find on the map has a local name.. maybe it was a mythical village or local spot where some poor traveller got murdered and you have to join them up by hiking to as many or as few as you like during your day..
Great idea, sign me up!
The sculptures at each secret spot will depict that particular legend..
So you might find a big snake curled up on a rock, a stone carved map of the lost village of Giants or a bed where you might lose your head and feet during the night if you accepted the slightly dodgy offer of accomodation from the slightly dodgy inn keeper in a hamlet now long gone and covered in trees!
Each legend is very well explained on a plastic story card inside a metal weather proof box hanging on a wooden post at each location..
You will first spot a huge entrance stone monolith with a hearth stone on the forest floor that you need to cross to enter each new location.. Once "inside" there will be a Mitski Park wooden bench to rest on while you read about this next legend..
It is all very well organised indeed!
We will not spoil any of the stories for you as it does become quite addictive to go find the next legend and the further you go and more tired you get, it becomes much easier to believe out here in the forest that there really was once a network of interconnected remote, spooky villages where a lot of harm seemed to come to strangers!
The only word of warning we will give you is that some of the legends might feel a little strange or blood thirsty for you, especially if you have younger kids on board.. But then again this is a long walk, so not suited to little legs, unless you just go target a couple of the legends..
This is middle Europe afterall, so some of the stories are perfectly Hansel & Gretel, but others are more Tim Burton and can be quite wierd.. so go do the hike and find out for yourselves!!
How do I do the Mitski Park Hike?
There are actually 2 main hiking routes, both translated from Slovene, so Holy knows what they are really called, but DO the LONG ONE!
We did this amazing hike at the end of September, whilst it was still warm, but a little drizzly, so we got the added bonus of tramping around these forest paths reading spooky tales and legends as fog and mist floated around the trees, descending from time to time and actually making it feel a bit scary..
But we loved it!
You should also know that some of the secret spots are km's apart and others are closer to each other, but to do the entire trail will take around 3-5 hours, depending..
It is possible to cut corners and cherry pick a shorter route if you study the map a bit before you head off, but then you will also find fewer legends!
The only other people we saw on our entire 4-5 hour hike was a local lady walking her dog and 3 Japanese tourists who also looked like they were really enjoying this enchanted forest adventure!
The hike starts from the TIC, (Tourist Info Centre) located in the centre of Rodik, where you could park up, get a paper map or download it onto your phone using one of those barcode things that young people seem to understand.. we went for the paper map it was like being on Treasure Island.. (thinking about it there is even a box of treasure sculpture at one of the legends)!
One thing to note here and not uncommon for Slovenia, the TIC has a big white plastic door with no window and always looks closed, but PLEASE try the handle and go in and get your map and have a little chat with the shy person inside as it will make your day go so much easier.
DO NOT overcomplicate this hike and worry about getting lost, cos there ARE signs everwhere you need them along the way..
You first walk into the main village then take a big left turn up into the forest and follow a perfect stony track, custom made for this hike.
The forest start of this route is very uphill though for about 20-30 mins, so you do need to be reasonably fit and TRUST the route, cos it feels like an age before you get to the first signpost with the little MITSKI MARKER on it, (the logo looks a bit like an old Nintendo hand held game)..
It is even longer from this first turn up into the forest until you reach the first "village", "legend" "location", whatever you want to call them, but don't give up and this bit of forest is especially beautiful with monster trees..
It was also a Sunday, so we heard the church bells tolling down in the village through the leaves and it was just incredible..
Once you have reached the first secret spot with the rock snake sculpture and local story legend, the next secret spots will come sooner and quicker.. You will also understand how the map works more and more as you go and like we said, it becomes quite an addictive challenge to pursue the next marker and devour the new legend!
So as you go from legend to legend, rock to rock, wooden bench to wooden bench and spooky rock sculpture to spooky rock sculpture you will "understand" this route more and more and more.. and the map will make sense.
Don't forget the main reason you are here is to do an epic forest hike, which this trail continually delivers on with fab forest and tracks the WHOLE TIME..
We WILL however, let you into a couple of kinda secrets of the map to help you make some good decisions on your way around..
There is one extra loop on the map reaching way out to a stone leg sculpture (what we hilariously call the LEG END) and it is pretty much a there and back walk.. but it IS worth it.. the Leg End is pretty gruesome, but this part of the forest is also very pretty indeed, so if you have the energy, do this extra loop.. you will see what we are talking about if you look at the map..
AND it is also very much worth knowing that the way the main route works is like a giant loop too..
So remember that FIRST direction marker and turn high up along the forest trail turn that seemed to take an eternity to reach? Well, this is also the end of the trail in the other direction!
if you went straight on here instead of turning up into the forest, you would actually reach the other, far end of the trail and one of the last secret sculpture loctions, not so far up the hill from this turn..
What this knowledge means is you could do the trail in REVERSE if you wanted to, by continuing straight on at this very first turn..
The key thing is to do a route that covers ALL the secret spots and read ALL the legends if you can!
It is not 100% clear from the map, but the trail does START in the village at the TIC and ENDS in the village at the TIC!
There is one last twist for your tired legs to consider when you get back into the village form the main trail and that is another extra mini loop that you could decide to do..
Leave the village by the path next to the stone cross, going past a little lake, down into another part of the forest to a final location with perhaps one of the wierder rock sculptures, (ok we will tell you, the devil and his chariot).. but if you have got the legs left, this part of forest with a little stream running alongside is well worth the extra hike!
Whilst that last sculpture is a little sinister, the story and extra hike down here are worth doing if you have the energy!
Green Slovenia is so full of forests and legends and secret regions, so the Mitski Park hike can deliver all of these to you in a big bucket..
But if you also get your timings right and make a booking ahead, you could also have a really good meal in either Rodik or the next Brkini village of Slope after your hike.. wow what a day!
What chance of a spot of Lunch after the Walk?
Rockadoodledo Yes.. One of the things we really enjoyed doing when we started discovering new bits of the Brkini was to eat at different Brkini restaurants every time we revisited..
And there are so many good restarants here we ended up coming back just to eat on several extra occasions, so we could try them all!!
You can learn more about eating out in the Brkini in our main Brkini Secret Place to Visit article, but what a wonderful reward for doing the longish hike in the morning by eating out at one of these fantastic restaurants afterwards!
And we know of at least 6 really, really good different Brkini eating out options within a stone's throw of the Mitski Park Hike!
So just in the tiny village of Rodik you have a choice of a very affordable and unique Michelin starred restaurant, a local farm restaurant or one of the best fish restaurants in Slovenia..
Just a couple of km down the road is the picturesque Brkini village of Slope with two really good farm restaurants and there are other farm restaurants sprinkled all around here too, depending which direction you are going!
You MUST check first that your chosen restaurant is open and probably best to book a table beforehand..
As a guide, weekends are the best bet to get a table in the Brkini, but you really should phone ahead to check, as particularly on a Sunday there will be a mini Italian invasion, but we ALL know Italians know the best places to eat..
There are plenty of Other Hikes around here too..
As we mentioned, there are other possible hiking routes from the TIC in Rodik and the whole Brkini is like one huge hiking park too..
There are so few people and cars here, this is also a place where you could easily and safely hike along the country roads or bring a bike to explore on two wheels instead.
The main message for us to get out there to the rest of the world is..
Just because you might not have heard of one of the numerous secret places in Green Slovenia like the Brkini, it does not mean that you wouldn't have one of your most amazing days out here and we hope we might have persuaded you to do the Brkini now with this Mitski Park hike and meal combo..
Have a great hike!
French Connection en Slovenie
