You probably did not sign up for the Green Slovenia experience to go looking for 80 year old wooden huts in the middle of a forest or to worry too much about history..

But you ARE probably hoping to do some hiking in the woods, in the 3rd most forested country in Europe!

Well read on a bit and then it might not seem too bad an idea to combine these two activities into a simply unique Green adventure that you can only do here in Green Slovenia!

And this particular mission would be to go find a secret WW2 Partisan base hidden deep in some of the most sensational Unesco protected Slovenian forest..

This is not just any old base.. This collection of over 20 huts is the ONLY surviving Partisan Resistance HQ left anywhere in Europe!

And the forest is pretty special too.. Maybe you vaguely heard something about a unesco protected forest in the unpronounceabubble Kočevsko region.. Well the ancient Beech tree forests of KROKAR are just around the corner from this secret Partisan Base!

So hiking along a marked signposted path, deep into a stunning forest on the side of a mountain to find an epic, hidden camp, full of wooden huts with notice boards explaining the history & significance of it all.. might actually be a really groovy way to have an unexpected Green adventure.

What is BASE 20..

Base 20 or Baza 20 (as signposted locally), became the Slovenian HQ for the entire Partisan movement, housing almost 150 soldiers and polititians, with kitchens, 2 hospitals and even a secret bunker hidden further out from the camp for you to go find!

Maybe you already noticed on the map that Slovenia is perfectly positioned in the strategic centre of the most violent continent on the planet and EVERYONE in history had to go through here to get to the other bits of Europe..

In WW2 the local resistance fighters, known as Partisans, had one big, unique advantage over the Nazi occupiers and that was their local knowledge of these massive, immeasurable forests..

So they built a network of secret, hidden Hospitals, Camps and even a Printing Press to hide from the enemy, look after injured soldiers & continue the fight and fortunately, some of these sites have been preserved, restored and protected for us lucky visitors to go hike to and appreciate and maybe learn something about mankind too..

Sometimes a local historical society will look after a Partisan site, but in the case of the huge Base 20, the government restored and created an open museum here and no other country in the world has something as unique and historically powerful as this hidden Base, inside a Unesco protected forest area!

So is anyone up for a bit of a hike to BASE 20 ?!

Where is Base 20..

That is exactly what the Italians wanted to know at the start of the war and then the Germans later in WW2, when they took over this part of central Europe, but NOBODY found Base 20!

Fortunately for us, google and very good local signs will help us locate it nowadays!

Driving from the Lodge it would only take 1 hour 40 mins directly to Base 20, but this secret Place is best visited as part of an epic daytrip and we will suggest some other places & things to see and do on the way there & back at the end of this article..

The camp is hidden on top of a massive 1,000m high horn shaped Karst plateau, covered in white rocks and massive beech trees, called Kočevski Rog.

Rog means horn, (animal horn), but remember ROG, cos all the signs will say this and the nearest main settlement is KOČEVJE, an old mining town that is the kinda capital of this central southern part of Slovenia and gives it's name to the massive ancient forests spiralling all over this part of the map.

We suggest approaching Base 20 from the fast motorway above via Žužemberk or Novo Mesto and then returning to the Lodge using an uber epic well maintained forest road that wiggles it's way down to Koćevsko and then rejoins the main roads..

This way you get to first hike in the forest, using the marked paths and finding parts of Base 20 camp scattered all around, then you also get to have a really good drive around to fully experience the vastness of this wooded paradise..

Our Green adventure was via the Novo Mesto route and the nearest biggish place on the map to Base 20 is the pretty spa town of Dolensjke Toplice. From here find the village of Podturn Pri Dolenjskih Toplicah, which is a bit of a mouthful, but fortunately there is unlikely to be another place on google with the same name!

Join the 917 road to drive up Kočevski Rog and keep an eye on the signs for Baza 20 until you reach a very generous sized car park that looks like it was built to cater for school busses, cos there will NOT be many other people up here! 

What is there to Do & See at Base 20..

Now the hike begins from the car park on a stone track that leads steeply up into this stunning example of a Karst forest, with white rocks scattered all over the place, green moss and dry leaves on top of everything else, like a birthday cake..

Logically, not one secret Partisan location will be on flat ground and you always end up going high into the forest until after about 20 mins of huffing & puffing you suddenly arrive at a magical place littered with wooden huts in all shapes and sizes..

Some bigger huts are hidden down below in a huge rock crater, whilst other smaller buildings lead on up the hill and all you have to do now is walk around this mini village and work out which building is which and what the occupants got up to around here!

But never forget, this place is in such a beautiful and secret spot, but just one puff of smoke, or footstep left in the snow, might have been enough to give the location away to enemy brigades & bombers, so you really have to have this in mind as you walk around and get your breathe back after the hike up.

It can be a bit confusing for visitors to read about all the different local groups here in Base 20 and one thing you will not get is any clarity about exactly who was in charge, but for us visitors, it is maybe better to remember these were all Slovenian Partisans who loved their country and wanted to resist the occupiers.. that is the powerful story for us.

Despite the tiny population of Slovenia, locals seem to love complicting simple things around here, especially in politics, so if you are really interested in that, then do try to work out who the Communists and National Liberators and all the others were, but for most visitors this will not be the most important thing..

The really amazing thing here and something you will also powerfully notice at all the other Partisan bases, is the story of human endeavour & exceptional bravery in places so stunningly beautiful, it would be impossible to imagine how brutal war can be if these huts and wooden buildings were not here to tell the tale..

Base 20 is the tip of a network of other unique, preserved Secret WW2 Partisan Forest Bases that we were just so excited to discover here in Green Slovenia, so we devoted a whole page of our website on it, to tell you all about the other ones..

Bunker 44..

The hospital buildings at Jelendol are a 30 min or so marked hike from the main camp, but we strongly recommend you at least go see the closer, but completely hidden secret bunker, which is signposted from the main camp and then you have to kinda go down a forest track a bit until you see another small sign and then go off scrambling into the forest for about 10 mins, climbing over big white Karst rocks to find a small clearing with a small square shaped hole in the ground!

Kids will love this.. Go closer and you can see this is the bunker and you can climb down the wooden steps to see a hidey hole carved underground, which we presume would be used in case of sudden attack, escape or compromise..

Without the signs you would never find this bunker and if you wanted to know what a bit of Karst forest really looks like, then Bunker 44 is the place to see it, with huge trees and chunky white rocks!

So depending on time, do go visit the closest hospital buildings and then you will complete the full suite of Partisan organisation in just one epic place..

But there is one last gruesome story that must be told and you can see evidence of this after jumping back in the car and beginning your journey down to Kočevje..

The Pits of Death..

Taking the road from the car park you will soon be swallowed up again by this forest and look out for the signs with crosses on as these mark some of the locations where thousands of collaborators were dealt with brutally by the victorious Partisans, executed and dumped down the deep Karst sinkholes and caves.

We found a large sinkhole with a big wooden cross marking one of these sites and of course the bones have been discovered and removed with dignity, so now these places are reminders of history.

Our job is not to judge, but try to understand the motivations of the inhabitants of this place, inside some of the oldest preserved forest in Europe..

And then it is time to leave this unique area and enjoy the forest drive down into Kočevje, probubbly meeting more cyclists and hikers than the odd car..

How to include Base 20 into an Epic Day Trip Green Adventure..

There are so many ways to do this, but Kočevje is certainly in a remote part of Slovenia, so we suggest doing the route we did from Novo Mesto and then we will tell you about an alternative route via Žužemberk, with different stuff to see, but it completely depends on what you want to do and maybe you will decide to spend a much bigger chunk of your day out at this very special hidden Partisan village.

The key thing to know is if you get your route and logistics right, then it is possible to see such a big variety of different types of things in just one little country..

From Novo Mesto..

Whizz up the motorway from the Lodge to Novo Mesto and maybe visit the island of Kostanjevice, (Chestnut), continuing into one of Slovenia's 7 wine regions with little hills covered in vineyards and maybe pop down to see the Krupa Springs.

You might even decide to visit another stunning wine area in Metlika, right on the border with Croatia..

Whatever you choose to do, head back towards Dolenje Toplice and drive up Kočevski Rog to explore Base 20..

From Žužemberk..

Whizz up the same motorway towards Novo Mesto, but come off earlier to go visit Žužemberk, which has a surprisingly fab castle, which would be especially good for kids to charge around and explore.

Maybe you will also search for the magical Karst springs of the bottle Green Krka river and possibly drive further along the river a bit, but make sure you return to the river road at Soteska to go find Base 20..

Returning from Kočevje..

It will take an hour or so driving down to Kočevje from Base 20 along those stunning, twisty, turny forest roads and every now and then you come to clear high view where ALL you can see in every direction is trees.. wow..

Form Kočevje, there is a great route, now on regular tarmac roads again, via Ribnic, with fab little castle, Tower of Tourture and a really, really good handicraft centre for hand made wooden stuff..

Then head via Sodražica to Cerknica, home of the biggest Disappearing Lake in Europe and an easy hop back to the Lodge, maybe making it back to Planina in time for the 5pm Baby Dragon Cave Tour, or now choosing from so many lovely local restaurants to stop off at for an evening meal to cap off a most unexpected day out..

We are so often unexpectedley and pleasantly surprised when we go explore and find so many different Secret Places to Visit all over Green Slovenia that we almost EXPECT to find the UNEXPECTED here and so should you!

But we honestly thought we had pretty much found all the secret Partisan sites worth finding until we rocked up here at Base 20 and were totally shocked how big and extremely well done it all is..

However in our humble opinion, the Franja Secret Partisan Hospital in Cerkno is still the most amazing, stunningly beautiful, emotional, outdoor experience you can possibly get to try to understand this unique Partisan Forest experience and history..

For emotion, surprise, adventure and beauty, we do not think there is anything to touch the Franja WW2 Secret Hospital anywhere in the world, but Base 20 is just one of those places here in Green Slovenia where you can give it a go and have a great hike into the process!

This just underlines how ridiculously lucky Green Slovenia is to have all these hidden forest treasures tucked away and how fortunate you are to now know all about them..