If you fancy a hike in the mountains that is easy to find and do, then this could be the one for you!

First and foremost, the views are totally spectacular.. you are surrounded front left and right by an avenue of Slovenian Julian Alps for the whole of the walk.. but there is more!

Between you and the mountains in the sky are lines and lines of beautiful trees, both evergreen and as you will see from our photos here, gold and red leaf shedding ones too! But there is more..

the biggest mountains are marked out along the path..

You walk on a sea of stone, made from the rocks and boulders that have crumbled over time from the mountains also leaving huge boulders between wedged between the trees. But there is even more..

At the end of the valley you can choose to hike up a waterfall and see the spring where the river Nadiza pops out into the natural world. But there is even a little bit more..

See the centre of the photo where the water starts it's journey from the mountain AND this is where you can climb to!

On the drive home from this valley there is another larger springs to stop off at where you can see the Sava river coming to life as it begins a journey across four countries!

OK that's it for a day.. are you interested?!

The location for this hike is also very special.. You will be hiking to the end of a valley that stretches into the far north western corner of Green Slovenia!

One direction is Italy and the other Austria! How about that!

this is the north west triangle of Slovenia, with 2 other countries you might have heard about on either side of the Tamar valley..

The Tamar Valley Hike with the secret Waterfall..

In just 90 mins from the Lodge you can be parked up at Slovenia's world cup Ski Jumping venue called Planica.

There is a hotel there and A LOT of parking for the winter jumping, so the likelihood is when you go to do this walk there will be a lot of spaces!

not in a million years are you getting me up there in the Eddie Eagle gear..

Just seeing the massive ski jump that those little skinny guys fling themselves off is enough to make your knees wobble.. it is basically a mountain! 

Even in the summer there might be some trainee astronauts flying off the practice slopes at the side for you to watch in awe AND if you are brave enough we heard it is possible to hike or run up these slopes and there is also a zip wire somewhere around here that we havent done yet, but is on our list!

So park up, grab your water bottle and the plan now is to walk to the end of "Tamar Dolina", which is the Tamar valley and goes towards the Italian border.

check out the world cup ski slope carved into the side of the mountain right on the edge of Slovenia's main national park..

Just head for the mountains and there is a big stone path in the middle of the forest to follow all the way..

This route is really easy, so you do not have to be a mountain climber or tooled up with various google aps to find it.. BUT this is Slovenia, so you DO have to have a basic fitness to hike anywhere here!

You will be walking gradually up to the end of this valley, which will be great on the way back, but of course a little tiring on the way there.

fantastic idea for a rock seat..

That said, we cannot think of any flatter hikes in the whole of Slovenia except by the coast or the opposite corner of the country near Hungary, which is as flat as a pancake!

The path is a dream, laid with stone and there are info signs along the way.

We were so lucky with our timing as the leaves were starting to fall for autumn, so there were flutters and showers of golden, yellow and red leaves to accompany an army of solid evergreen firs and pines.

You can ALMOST take a sunny day for granted here on the sunny side of the Alps, but snow had already fallen on some the highest peaks, so we had the most wonderful mix of colours that we hope you will pick up from the photos in the gallery below.

autumnal mountain walls on both sides of the walk..

You will spend the whole time here surrounded.. by trees, rocks and mountains. So there is a lot to take notice of as you march up the track. About one hour plus there and one hour back.

We didn't see another soul for about 25 mins into the hike.. this is quite normal in Slovenia, but laways feels a little strange, so enjoy the silence and solitude.. we spent a lot of time gazing at the colours of the trees and up to the huge rock walls on either side.. 

Every now and then we wandered off the track to explore the forest floor a bit. We found a cave and spotted another larger one in the mountain wall high above.

we spotted a cave high up in the rock wall on the side of the Tamar Valley hike..

Down at human level there are stones and rocks everywhere and the info boards told us the mountains are actually slowly crumbling away, deposting debris down into the valley that actually has to be cleared away over time or it gets too high!

Once you know this it explains why there are river like rock channels leading down some of the hills and some trees have up to a metre of little rocks piled around them.

The larger boulders are the most impressive, just kind of flopped there taking it easy and some have clever wooden benches added to them.

we love these wooden posts with peepholes to identify the correct mountains described!

Even more ingenious wooden posts line the route to tell you what tongue twister of a mountain you are looking at next and what height it is and they have these clever little holes drilled in them at angles so when you look through them you can see exactly that mountain like through a telescope!

After an hour or so of hiking, the end of the path kinda creeps up on you.. but do save some breath to be totally blown away when you see it..

The stone path leads all the way and finally out of the forest to a massive meadow with a little church and a restaurant come mountain hut at the end like a huge cul de sac.

Didn't really expect to find a big grass meadow and these huge mountains at the end of the valley walk..

All this is absolutely dwarfed by the mountains that rise up behind and we learnt a new favourite Slovenian mountain called Jalovec, which has a peculiar ski jump look to it a bit like Planica too.

It is Slovenia's 6th largest mountain at 2,645m and mightily impressive. Once you have picked your jaw up from the floor you now have a decision to make.

We had been prepped for this adventure by a Slovenian friend, but the trouble with locals, God blees them, is they have so many amazing natural wonders here, sometimes they forget to tell you all the stuff you might be interested in, so we were shocked to find there was a sign at the start of the meadow saying Izvir Nadiza 20 mins..

vista across from half way up to the waterfall..

This will probably mean nothing to you at the moment, but we know izvir means "river or waterfall springs". Whenever we see such a sign here in Green Slovenia, a red buzzer goes off in our heads and we trot off to go find the izvir like amateur explorers!

So now you know too and the decison to be made right here right now at the start of the meadow with the magnifence of Jalovec in front of you is a straight shoot out between having lunch at the mountain hut or going off to find a waterfall!

The great news is that if you survive the waterfall climb then you get to have lunch too, so we would recommend going off to find the elusive springs first and building a bit of an appetite!

you can get close and personal with the waterfall..

Another thing to mention is that whenever you see a sign here with an estimated time on it then, unless you are an olympic athlete, be prepared for it to take much longer than advertised.. so the 20 mins was prob for any mountain goat who could read Slovenian!

WOW, what a mini adventure to go see this waterfall! We are always pleasantly surprised when we find new stuff here in Slovenia and this hike was amazing enough on it's own.. but then we had to hike, crawl and scrabble up the side of the mountain to get a peek at one of the most beautiful things in nature.. a new river springing out of the side of a mountain and crashing down to the valley floor in the form of a waterfall!

BIG SAFETY WARNING..

There were a couple of times going up this zig zag mountain track that hugged the waterfall on the way up the mountain when we thought this was crazy and we almost turned around and went back.

it was a really unexpected and exciting Green Slovenian adventure going up to the spring..

You don't have to do this extra bit, it is optional and most familes with smaller kids should not give it a go.

But if you are careful, go slow and even bring some amateur climbing things then it is possible.. cos a 52 year old Welshman with massive vertigo made it up and then was very happy to get back down again!

Seriously, take it easy going up.. The views across the tree lined valley to the massive mountains opposite, accompanied by the sound of running water crashing down the mountain side where you are mainly hiking, but sometimes scrabbling could even be the highlight of your hol and that is saying something!

It is not so high up there but it feels like that.. it is all worth it when you see that water pumping out of the side of the rock.

Coming down was much worse, so don't be shy to slide down, but do not slip at all costs on the narrow sandy track.

this section down from the waterfall was so steep it was a slidey downy on ya bott kinda place..

Once down, it is a short hike across the meadow on terra firma to the hut where the newly crowned mountaineer was treated to a slap up mountain lunch in the premium seats with a view directly up to Jalovec mountain.. on the other side of which is Italy by the way!

It is best not to expect too much at the many different mountain huts dotted around Slovenia, but this one was fantastic, with a great choice of traditional Slovenian favourites, often heavy on the meat, but fantastic energy for hiking.

Not a bad place to have a spot of lunch at the end of the valley..

The walk back felt like a victory parade, with mother nature conquered for just one day and aching limbs massaged downhill on the track, spotting new things we didn't see on the way up and still taking a ridiculous amount of photos!

the Sava Springs..

Not far out of Planica on the main road home it is very easy to drive straight past the wooden cafe at Zalenci, so do look out for it and park up. 

(if the wooden cafe hut is behind you, head leftish for about 10 mins for the best bit)

Otherwise you will miss a short mini hike along a feature forest track to what initially looks like a big pond with pretty coloured water hidden in the marsh grass. 

ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.. the source of the Sava river..

Bit this is much much more.. Look carefully into the crystal clear water and you can see little mini volcanoes bubbling the water up from under the ground!

This natural pond is where the mighty Sava river springs from.. Yep, still a spring, not pouring out from the side of a mountain like the Nadiza we just saw in the Tamar valley, but this one bubbles and pops up from under the rock in the ground and becomes Slovenia's longest river.

mini volcanoes and fish at the crystal clear beginning of a river that crosses 4 European countries..

It is totally awesome to see this natural phenomenon with your own eyes and the view is made more special if you climb the little wooden viewing tower and look down on it all.

As you drive home via Kranska Gora and Martuljek to rejoin the motorway you will ride next to and cross bridges over the same water you just saw gushing out of that big pond source!!

Just another completely different and amazing day out in Green Slovenia!