Slovenia's mountains, from the high Alps to the hills

The Julian Alps and Triglav

The Julian Alps are the highest range and the one everyone associates with Slovenia. This is where you’ll find Mount Triglav, 2,864 m, the peak on the national coat of arms that gives its name to the country’s only national park. Below it open the Vrata, Kot and Krma valleys. Vrata faces the north wall of Triglav, a challenge for mountaineers and experienced hikers, while Krma is where the longest and easiest route to the summit begins, according to the tourist board.

The Trenta Valley beside the Soča, and the Planica and Tamar valleys with their ski-flying hills, are Julian Alps too.

Easy mountains: hills and plateaus

Slovenia’s hills don’t call for any climbing experience. The Škofja Loka, Cerkno and Polhov Gradec hills are green uplands with hamlets and hilltop churches. The Pokljuka, Jelovica and Menina Planina plateaus are easy walking; Pokljuka also hosts international biathlon races, and Menina Planina has a lookout tower facing the Kamnik-Savinja Alps.

If you want to string it all together, there’s the Slovenian Mountain Trail, dating from 1953, which runs from Maribor to Ankaran across the country’s mountains.

The Kamnik-Savinja Alps

The second-highest range sits further east, between Kamnik and the upper Savinja valley. The Kamnik-Savinja Alps have 2,000-metre peaks that the tourist board recommends tackling with a guide, and at their feet are two of my favourite places in Slovenia. One is Velika Planina, a working herders’ settlement where trnič cheese is still made. The other is the Logar Valley, a glacial valley closed in by rock walls.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Kranjska Gora for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.

The Karavanke, the longest range

They’re Slovenia’s longest range. They get less attention than the Julian Alps but have plenty of geology and wildlife, enough that part of them is a UNESCO Global Geopark shared with Austria. In spring Golica is carpeted with daffodils, and in the Topla Valley, inside the geopark, people hunt for fossils of prehistoric snails on the way up Mount Peca.

Pohorje and the eastern hills

Next to Maribor rises Pohorje, a mountain of forest rather than rock. It has peat bogs with small lakes, waterfalls and ancient woods, and in winter it hosts the Golden Fox Alpine Ski World Cup. Further south, the tourist board mentions Bohor, 1,024 m, with four waterfalls in its woods, and Lisca, 948 m, above the Sava valley, for climbing, paragliding and mountain biking.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Kranjska Gora on GetYourGuide.

Mountain safety and rescue

The tourist board quotes a Slovenian saying that the mountains aren’t crazy, the people who climb them are. I’d take that literally. Check the forecast, choose a route that matches your fitness and carry the right gear. The FCDO warns of avalanche risk off-piste, insists on a harness and helmet on via ferratas and reminds you that mountain rescue is on 112.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Kranjska Gora for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.