Here at Lipizzaner Lodge we are so lucky to be completely surrounded by Green hiking and biking paradise and this very beautiful natural river is just one of the many highlights along our secret routes..

You can absolutely choose where you prefer to hike each day here.. in the forest, up a mountain, next to a river, go flat, hilly or vertical, stone tracks, forest paths, fields, along the river.. the choice is yours! Indeed on most hikes you will discover the green terrain changes multiple times during your walk!

there is not a chance in a million years of finding this secret bridge, unless you know where to look!

Instead of writing a hiking book, we decided to do a special page on our website, called LODGE WALKS.. there is a huge variety of hikes you can do directly from Lipizzaner Lodge.. but you would never know or find them without a little bit of help.. so please check out the new page if you would like to hike around here.. we hope it makes a lot more sense than writing a book and you will see why on the special page..

Maybe one day we will also write a more general hiking book for Green Slovenia, as we know so much of this country is being missed by visitors who simply don't know about all these secret walks. 

The "problem", (which is actually not a problem, but an "adventure" for hikers) is that NONE of these secret paths are marked with useful signs.. and this even includes the best secret path in all Green Slovenia.. from the Lodge directly through the forest to the fairy tale Predjama castle!

And even the expert google hikers with  heads down looking at a screen, will completely miss much of the nature all around here and not find many of these secret paths! We have given up using google for some of the routes around here and instead found numerous secret paths or hidden forest tracks either not marked on google maps or on a paper map!

As just one example, if you follow google maps from the Lodge to Predjama castle you will completely miss the main highlight of the walk and you won't pop out 70 metres below the amazing castle hanging out of a cliff.. you will just end up in the main car park!

During the winter we spend a lot of time exploring our local mini region.. winter is a great time to hike here as you can find lots of secret tracks when the trees are bare.. Every year we find many new tracks.. This year we even found a secret wartime bunker along the secret path to Predjama castle that we had walked past hundreds of times before and had no clue was hidden there!

The Nanoscica, (Little Nanos) river

This fantastic river flows from a massive freshwater lake under our largest local mountain of Nanos and joins the Pivka river which flows into the Postjona cave and then later smashes into another river completely underground in the Baby Dragon cave, (Planina) to form just one of the seven parts of the River of 7 Names.. wow, what a journey!

It's not one of Slovenia's typical crystal clear ice cold rivers flowing from the Alps.. it zig zags it's way through beautiful farm and marshland and it would take you all day to walk it's start from Nanos to its end, cos it is just so curvy!

this river goes from under Nanos mountain all the way to the Postojna cave..

You can fish in it (make sure you buy a license) and you can swim in it and we hope that one day, our guests will be able to "Stand Up Paddleboard" along it! Watch this space!

And there are some secret places where you can cross it to open up many more possibilities for hiking loops from the Lodge.

One such place is the little metal bridge in the main picture up top, which we don't even have a name for yet, but we just call the Secret Bridge!        

This bridge was built by local hunters who look after the forest and crossing routes for people and anilmals.. it has seen better days, but we love it for it's beaten up character, the wobbly hand rails hanging off the sides and above all, the amazing access it gives us across the river.

You can use the bridge to get to & from Postojna cave from the Lodge, or to cut back into the forest that will take you from the Lodge onto an ancient Roman road that leads to the "Toplar", which is a three storey wooden building used in the past to dry hay and protect crops, but now houses a wonderful museum packed full of agricultural and local relics! There is also a rather good Cevapcici (Slovenian sausage) restaurant there, which is a perfect stop off for refreshments on your hiking or biking day out!

walking the dog..

Even when you know where the bridge is, you wont see it or the river until the very last second and then you will wonder if it will collapse as you cross!

And we also recently found ANOTHER identical hunter's bridge much further up the river nearer the cave.. we just crossed a field to turn a bend in the river and you could have knocked us down with a feather when we saw the little bridge!

So we wanted to tell you about this special little bridge over the Little Nanos river! Not because it is another lake Bled or Ljubljana castle, but just so you know, that if you can find it, (we will help you, of course), then you will be completely alone, surrounded by green countryside and wildlife, 10 minutes from the 2 most visited tourist attractions in Slovenia, but a whole world away in your own little green paradise.. Have a nice walk!

Sometimes the green paradise turns to white.. but then the same walks completely change and we have some favourite hikes to do on the few occasions when we do get snow here!