Zagorje ob Savi, miners' country between the Sava and Mount Kum

Zasavska Sveta gora and Mount Kum

Zasavska Sveta gora, 852 m high, rises on the left bank of the Sava between Zagorje and Litija. At the top are a mountain hut and the church of the Nativity of Mary, from 1753, ringed since the late 15th century by a wall with a defensive tower that now serves as its belfry. The tourist office says you can see from Triglav to Pohorje and as far as Snežnik, and roads climb it from three directions.

Across the Sava stands Mount Kum, 1,220 m according to the Slovene Wikipedia, the highest peak of the Sava Hills, which walkers call the Triglav of Zasavje. At the top there is a hut, the church of St Agnes and a radio and television transmitter.

Izlake: Valvasor, Medija and Gamberk

The Gall family, who came from Bavaria, held the castles of Gamberk, Medija and Kolovrat here. In the 17th century Gamberk was one of the most powerful castles on Slovene soil and stored the mercury brought from Idrija; today it is a ruin. Medija Castle, at Izlake, belonged to the Valvasor family from 1562 to 1765.

Johann Weikhard von Valvasor grew up at Medija, as his father was lord of Gamberk and Medija. He is thought to be buried in the family tomb of the castle chapel, which bears a plaque, a relief bust and a Latin inscription by his contemporary Janez Gregor Dolničar. A family walk leads from Izlake to the source of the Medija, passing below the ruins. As an adult he lived at Bogenšperk Castle.

Mining museum, festivals and famous names

In town, the tourist office is housed in Weinberger House, which has a room devoted to the opera singer Ladko Korošec, born here. There is a mining museum, a park named after Janez Drnovšek, the former Slovenian president, who spent part of his youth in Kisovec and is buried in Zagorje, and a small photography gallery, the f/2.8, opened in August 2020 next to the miners’ old washrooms. The ship-shaped water treatment plant flies a sail with the silhouette of Primož Roglič, the local cyclist.

The calendar is very much about mining. On the second Saturday of September there is a walk along the mining trail, on 4 December the St Barbara procession, and in August, for the municipal holiday, the mine spirit Perkmandeljc invites you into his land. Zagorje is the last stretch of the Pot Srečno, which comes from Laško through Hrastnik and Trbovlje. If you want more, carry on to Hrastnik.

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Zagorje, the coal town

Zagorje has 5,995 residents, and its municipality 16,347 across 78 settlements and 147.2 km², the most populous in Zasavje, according to SURS. The town stretches along the valley of the Medija stream, which joins the Sava to the south. It first appears in 1296 as Sagor, in a list of tithes of the Patriarch of Aquileia now kept in the Vatican.

The big change came in 1755, when coal seams were found. The old mining colonies that make up today’s town grew from that, along with a working-class culture the municipality is proud of. The tourist office highlights the Izlake-Zagorje painters’ colony, which it calls the oldest in central Europe, and a brass band now more than 160 years old.

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