There are lots and lots of Disappearing Lakes in Green Slovenia, appearing and disappearing depending on the level of water in the the vast Karst underworld, which sits below pretty much half of this little country's surface..

Just 15 mins from the Lodge is the little town of Pivka, which will be known by the thousands of drivers racing through each day trying to get to Istria and Croatia as quickly and directly as possible..

But as these people hurry through they are not only missing out on the most beautiful and greenest country in Europe.. they are also driving DIRECTLY past the 17 Disappearing Lakes of Pivka!

Actually a lot of Europeans, especially currently Germans, are starting to notice how stunningly beautiful Green Slovenia is and are stopping off for longer and longer to properly explore!

 

Many of our lovely German guests have now completely ditched Croatia once they have "discovered" how much there is to do and see in Green Slovenia and how good the food & wine is here too..

But even then, it is still an easy daytrip from the Lodge to go and bump into your neighbour from down the street on a Croatian beach for a daytrip if you really want!!

Well, just one of those amazing Green Nuggets that you will have close to zero chance of finding unless you read about it here on this website is the massive Green Nature park of the 17 Disappearing Lakes of Pivka..

 

Yes folks, there is even a brand spanking new micro Museum of the 17 Disappearing Lakes that explains ALL about the phenomenon of the 17 lakes and where to find them and this is JUST a 2 km turn off from that busy road where pretty much everyone driving down to Rijeka needs to pass through!

And this fabulous micro museum is covered in fantastic English explanations inside, with lots of stuff for kids too.. In just half an hour or more you would be able to consider yourselves fully briefed about Disappearing Lakes and the incredible special Green nature available here..

But herein lies one of the biggest problems in Slovenian Tourism, which is equally so simple to fix..

Guess what.. on that busy road there is only one road sign and JUST in Slovenian for the museum, so it might as well be in Chinese, cos the rest of the world will have no idea that there is a fantastic museum within reach.

 

You are left in absolutely no doubt with multiple signs in English that there is a tank museum just down the road, (also well worth a visit by the way, especially if you wanted to learn more about the recent war of Slovenian independence), but NOT A SAUSAGE for the remarkable new Museum of the 17 Disappearing Lakes of Pivka..

Unbelievabubble and it gets a little worse, before we can make it a bit better for you!

Imagine you did take that chance of wondering what on earth the road sign meant and followed it to drive through the village of Petelinje along the road to the Museum..

Well, for a museum that is half explained in English, the MAIN SIGNS for both the nature park AND the museum are ALSO incredibly JUST IN SLOVENE.. so visitors will have no clue outside whatsoever where they are or what the Museum is about.. another opportunity to turn around and miss the fun is completely lost!

 

This problem is repeated at ALL of the 17 nearby lakes, some with no signs at all, some with just those little red circle markers on trees and some signs just in Slovene, BUT WE KNOW ALL of the lakes have amazing tracks and paths, they are different shapes & sizes and have different springs where the water goes in and out to fill and empty them to find!

It is particularly frustrating there are no signs in English for this new museum cos one of the easiest to find and get to of the 17 Disappearing lakes is just a short walk from the museum car park!

So this is why we have to write it up for you, otherwise we are worried you would not know about these phenomenal lakes!

Lodge guests can also E Bike through some really cool forest to get to these lakes, but now we are gonna tip THREE ways to enjoy the Petelinje Disappearing Lake by foot..

 

What is the Petelinje Disappearing Lake?

It is a couple of km square and the second largest of the 17 Disappearing lakes of Pivka.. 

It is also the lowest of all the 17 lakes, which means it is always the FIRST to fill when the Karst underground water table rises and the LAST to empty.. 

This means you have the best chance of seeing a disaapearing lake with water in it here..

When you reach the lake you get a very clear understanding of where the lake area is as the huge grass meadow is surrounded by a thick forest of pine trees like a green wall and you almost get the feeling you have walked into a huge green theatre..

The lake stretches as far as the eye can see to the tree line on the horizon and appears to be a perfect circle shape, but actually it has an extra little corner loop out of sight from the main path at the end of the horizon..

 

Do not be surprised when you get to the lake and stand there and hear the beauty of NOTHING.. It is so silent here at the lake that you can actually listen to the silence.. how often do you do that in Liverpool or Minneapolis?

The way this lake fills and empties is also VERY interesting.. There are multiple spots at the lowest points on the massive meadow where you can find what looks like baskets of eggs, but are little clutches of white Karst rocks where the water sinks through or rises up.. effectively sinkholes!

There is a beautiful mountain backdrop behind the lake rising to the highest local peak of Sveti Trojica, (the Church of the Holy Trinity), 1,106m.

 

The other peak you can get great views of from around here is Sneznik, Snow Mountain, 1,796m in the distance, with a perfet "volcano shape" and the highest non Alpine mountain in Green Slovenia..

And of course it is possible to see our beloved Nanos mountain, 1,313m from here too.. Nanos is Slovenia's last mountain before the coast and dominates the view from the Lodge back garden!

The Petelinje lake is also the closest of the 17 Disappearing lakes of Pivka to the Lodge, just 15 mins by car!

 

Hike There and Back or All the way up Sv Trojica..

So, two of those hikes you could do would be the shortest and the longest options..

the Short hike..

You could easily just walk to the lake and back from the Museum and when you are there at lakeside whether there is water or not, you can spend as much time as you want exploring the shoreline or walking out to the centre of the lake to find the multiple karst rock sinkholes where the water comes in and out!

the Long hike..

Or you could go for it and hike from the museum to the lake, follow the signs for the mountain of Sv Trojica, for a longer 2-3 hour hike up and stunning views not only over this Petelinje lake, but a lot more of this enormous 140 km square nature park of the 17 Lakes!

We have been up Sv Trojica by car and that was quite an adventure.. There is a beautiful church with a bell you can ring and we know how stunning the views are from up there, but the hike up is still on our long list to do!

 

Hike around the Petelinje Lake..

Believe it not, after living here now for 10 years, we have only just done this particular hike.. walking around the entire circumference of the Petelinje lake.. and it was so much fun we decided to write this article about it, to maybe encourage you to have a go!

It is fair to say the Petelinje Lake is our favourite of the 17 Disappearing Lakes of Pivka and we have been here many many times..

 

We get it that it might seem wierd for you to know that we had never considered hiking AROUND the whole lake before!

You see, the idea might not come to you to do this when the lake is empty or half empty as it is so easy to hike onto or acrosss the lake, so it only really occurred to us to try to hike around the entire lake when we arrived at the shoreline to see the perfect shaped lake, not covered in water, but ice!

 

It was early Feb and we had never seen the lake completely covered with ice before and the idea just kinda jumped into our heads to walk around the whole of it to see every angle!!

And you don't need the lake to be necessarily full or covered with ice to hike around the circumference now we have given you this idea!

So of the three walks we mentioned, this walk is the middle option, but the most adventurous.. Hike to the lake and then walk around it ALL.. what could be easier!

 

Well folks, you will only realise how amazing and tricky it is to hike around the lake if you arrive when it is full of water or ice, cos there is NO PATH!

Yes, this hike will be one of the most exciting walks you might do in Slovenia as you have the shape of the lake to follow, but in parts you might need to scramble, duck branches or climb a bit to make sure you properly go round the entire circumference!

Due to the nature of when visitors tend to come to Slovenia, you will probably be here in the summer and so the lake will probably be empty, so it is also very possible to cheat a little and instead of walking around the entire circumference of the lake.. in parts you will be able to walk "in" the lake  to do a few little short cuts and avoid scrabbling through bits of forest!

 

We would encourage you to give it a go keeping to the exact edge of the lake shoreline though.. We had no choice as the lake was full of water, which made this hike extra special and easy to see which way to go!

As with so many of the other secret Green places to visit tips we have on our website, we have often been to these places several times before to combine our experiences there and knowledge gained to come up with a wonderful one off couple of hours or day out.. you do not have the time to waste on hols or the opportunity to come back and try again, but we do!

 

Well Chris was asked to do the English voice over for the narratives at the museum so he was invited to the new Museum opening on a Saturday and he walked to the lake that day later in the afternoon to see the lake as a massive ice rink and got that crazy idea to walk around the entire lake!

Well he went off to the right and got a bit over half way round before the light was starting to fade and the bushes were getting thicker and so had to turn back the same way for safety..

He came back with Hanna the very next day to try hiking around the lake the other way round as the ice was already melting and the water was appearing and receding fast into the sinkholes.. basically the lake was shrinking or disappearing!

 

This is why you will see some of the photos here with the lake having thick sheet ice over it and then already by the next day when we came back to do the full loop hike, you can see mostly water left on the lake as the ice melted!

So to have a good chance of walking around the entire lake we recommend when you arrive at lake side.. GO LEFT.. and walk this way around the lake.

We hugged the tree line and there IS actually a kinda path you can follow through the grass.

 

There were a few families with kids enjoying the ice at the start of the lake and it was not long before the excited shrieks of the kids were lost as we were left alone with the lake..

One of the really cool things about ALL disappearing lakes is you can easily see where the last lake shoreline reached by looking for the line of reeds and grasses on the side of the field..

This side of the lake is particularly beautiful and easy to hike and you will find little outcrops of Karst stone and lovely viewpoints out to the water on the lake with the higher mountains mirroring nicely on the water for great photos!

 

We reached the end of the lake that can be seen from the starting point and this is where there is another large extra section of lake that bends left and some of this had already cleared of ice and already drained as the grass was dry and flat.

This meant we had to scramble a little through the tree line where there was still ice on the filed and other bits you could walk on the grass.

 

A very bushy tailed fox suddenly popped out of the bushes about 50m in front of us, stared at us and probably thought, "what the hell are these two doing here" and then ran off!

We got the strong feeling there were lots of animals here in the wild forest surrounding the lake and that is really cool!

We got a photo of the "ice line" on the bushes at this very far end of the lake about a metre high and we assumed this is how high the water or snow level had recently reached, which is really humbling cos it is difficult to properly comprehend how much water really does flood into this lake so quickly.. But it is a lot!

 

We were able to walk along the surface of the lake to navigate the far corner and then we had to follow some farmers tracks to go up into the forest to be able to get around the next corner of the lake!

Chris had almost gotten to here the previous day and had realised there would need to be a bit of a scramble through the forest to get to the other side of the lake.

So this is why we approached this hike the other way around and now we went up into the forest, following a track, which might have been used by hunters as we saw a hunter's tower fixed to some trees at the end of a grass clearing..

 

This is the part of your adventure where you could still decide to just hike back the way you came.. our strong advice in Green Slovrnia is to ALWAYS keep this option open.. 

But for us today, the real adventure was about to begin..we knew there was a track on the other side of this thick patch of forest with amazing views over the lake, so we just had to get through!

We kept a picture of where the lake was and dove into the forest, following some animal tracks.. It sounds cool to follow animal tracks and it is, but in this situation with no proper path to follow it was our only choice and the thing we have learned hiking in Slovenia is there are lots of animal tracks in the forests and they usually lead to water!

 

So we had a bit of a scramble, popping out into mini clearings, then back into the bushes and trees, following a clear line in the dirt..

We almost gave up and turned back, but we always knew where we were and even caught glimpses of the lake, so knew exactly where we were and then, we broke through!

Just one more duck under a branch and out we popped on the side of the slopes of those hills that sit on the "other side" of the lake when looking from the main entrance..

 

We also knew that the track followed a farmers electric fence that started higher up the hill and went down all the way to the forest next to the lake as Chris had found that yesterday..

So we can tell you here if all is lost, then just follow the fence back!

But it is not necessary to hug the fence as there is a path up here with really great views of the lake, we would say this is above the other far corner of the lake and when the lake is full it offers beautiful photos from higher up!

 

You can choose from here to follow the fence back, but it would be such a shame to miss the water line of the lake on this length, so we had another little scramble through the trees, still following animal tracks where possible, to reach lake side and were rewarded with some whacky sheets of ice and more beautiful views across the water..

There are unique angles across sections of the lake from here you simply will not be able to see from the starting point!

We discovered the ice had receded enough in just a day for us to make it along the shoreline to a position reached the day before where it was impossible to hug the lake and Chris had yesterday had to find that fince and other path on the otherside of the trees to progress.

 

So a key point here is to empthasize is you will pretty much never have the same conditions here on different days, so the best advice we can give is to try to hug the shoreline and stick as close to the tree line as you can for the maximum lake experience!

If the lake is dry you could now cut the corner here to get back along the home stretch to the start and the main path back to the museum..

Luckily that was not an option for us so we had to go back along a farmers track towards the electric fence and here you can see a little gate that goes through the fence and is sigposted for Sv Trojica.. so this is where you go for the hike up the mountain..

 

The Sv Trojica hike is marked from the museum and leads off along another track JUST BEFORE you reach the lake.. 

This means you can hike back up this path a bit to get around this corner of the lake when it is full and we found a little track that leads back into the forest and a secret spot with a swinging wooden chair and little path steeply down back to the shoreline..

We could have just continued back on the Sv Troica path, but we really wanted to be lakeside again as the ice was at it's most spectaular on this part of the lake!

 

So we had done it! The whole circuit had taken around one and a half hours to do and then we just had the 15 min walk back to the museum to do.

Wow, what an adventure and what a walk!

Both the museum AND the Petelinje Disappearing lake are a hub and magnet for exploring more of the 17 lakes..

 

You could have a wonderful half day trying to do exactly the same circuit we explained here and after you could maybe go off and find a few more of the lakes, but visit the museum first to check exactly where the other lakes are!

Please note the museum is open at weekends and if you know you will be visiting during the week, you MUST phone ahead to make sure there is someone there to open up for you..

 

There are so many hikes and disappearing lakes around here that it can be a little overwhelming trying to decide what to do and how to do it, so we hope this idea for a hiking adventure can help you explore one of the best of the 17 Disappearing Lakes of Pivka to use as a starting point for your understanding of and love affair with this very unique Slovenian part of Mother nature!

Or you could totally miss the sign in just Slovenian and drive by with the other thousands of motorists per day who have no clue what they are missing!

We have done our best to put these miracles of Karst geology onto the map and to help you to discover and enjoy them.. the rest is up to you!

 

A final little bonus now as we met some people walking their Slovenian Sheep Dog puppy by the lake and had to take a photo to show you!

This is the ONLY native Slovenian dog breed and is also used by shepherds to actually live with the herds of sheep to protect them from wolves!

They can be so fierce it has been known for them to scare off wolves, so if you see a field with a herd of sheep in the middle, we would advise walking around that particular field!