SLO as in slo-mo.

After some foolhardy hikes down Austrian black ski slopes still holding patches of last year’s snow, the Grossglockner High Alpine Road took us to the Karawanks Tunnel and from there we rolled into Slovenia.

Adrenaline and four-wheel overdrive have been replaced by bucolic bliss. For us, that is. The young couple keep pumping it up, though: long distance mountain biking, ziplining, rafting in the rain, canyoning, fossil hunting…you name it, Slovenia’s got it.

After picking them up from Ljubljana airport, we offered them a Lady and the Tramp-spaghetti moment by the side of the road before dropping them off at their hotel in Tržič. From there, we went our separate ways, with a Whatsapp group called “Družina” (=family in Slovenian)as staying in touch tool.

While they are Red Bulling through the countryside, we are slowing down in a Slovenian Sound of Music–like fairy tale: birdsong and cowbells, fluttering wildflowers in rolling meadows, “darling buds of May” against a backdrop of bear- and lynx-infested dense green forests, with imposing 200-million-year-old fossil-fuelled limestone peaks standing guard. Farms are our camping spots of preference. Fresh dairy galore and, at times, a “Na zdravje!” as we down the homemade schnapps with or without honey offered by the farmer as a daily night cap. That same farmer told us about the special place the hayrack, or kozolec, holds in the Slovenian heart. “We all maintain our hayracks so they can be passed on to the next generation. It is part of who we are.”

Those hayracks can be spotted all over the countryside, their silhouettes acting like beauty marks on the landscape. They were originally constructed to dry hay through natural air circulation. Nowadays, the moist hay is wrapped in plastic and left to ferment. The cows don’t seem to mind, but microplastic pollution of water & soil is becoming an issue. And the hayracks? They are stacked with firewood instead.

Speaking of wood. There’s lots and lots of it. Slovenia is one huge forest, with roads and trails serpentineing through it. Huge trucks loaded with logs tackle the hairpin bends with confidence, as does My Driver. We have now reached Lake Bohinj. Leave it to Slovenia to turn a self-service gravelled parking lot into an eco-refuge for motorized nomads. We even had a deer dart across the bicycle path right in front of us and a colorful lizard sunning on the rocks. But at the moment, the ice saints are keeping us indoors. Next step: dinner with the young couple in their cosy rental house near Bovec. We are keeping the champagne on ice guys!