We have spent lots of fantastic days exploring and mapping out a whole host of different E Bike adventures you can do as complete loops from the Lodge and we recorded them onto a really cool app called Komoot, so guests can follow their chosen route on the phone, concentrating more on the bike ride in Green paradise, than worrying about which turn to take every 5 mins!

We try to keep off main roads and even local roads as much as possible.. Instead connecting the incredible number of stone tracks available around here across fields, up mountains and into forests!

 

We perfected a dozen or so ready to go routes.. Each one is completely different and all have about the 2 or 3 hours of actual biking, which is plenty for most people on hols..

Each ride can be linked to the castles, caves, disappearing lakes, mountains, rivers and forests around here to make full or half day trips and there will always be at least one local restaurant either directly in the loop or within reach for guests to decide to take a lunch or tea break along the way!

 

Not wanting to name drop, but when we say castles, caves etc, we are talking here about you having the option to add the largest cave castle in the world, Predjama or the most visited cave in Europe, Postojna or the biggest Disappearing lake in Europe, Cerknica into your bike ride..

AND there are a lot of other lesser known but epic alternatives too!

 

So you could easily spend a week or two here doing a completely different bike ride EVERY day, but due to the Lodge's amazing location, (we are near everything worth visiting in Green Slovenia), you would also be able to spend the other parts of your days doing other Green adventures, by the coast, in wine valleys, in the mountains, visiting the capital city or pretty much anywhere else that takes your fancy in our Secret Places to Visit section!

We could happily write a blog about each and every bike ride available, but we will let our guests find & experience them for themselves!

 

But it is well worth writing up just a few of our E Bike adventures so you can see & read about what is involved, what you can get up to and what types of terrain you will experience.

So we decided to write up this epic E Bike Green adventure to the Disappearing Lakes of Pivka, which you have probably not heard about before, so you can also find out how easy it is to explore them on a bike too!

 

What on Earth are the 17 Disappearing Lakes of Pivka??

Green Slovenia is over half covered in leaky limestone, otherwise known as the KARST, which is perfect territory for the enormous Green caves and cliffs you might have seen photos of, but you might not have known that Slovenia also has more natural water per sq Km than any other European country and a lot of this is underground..

Well when the water table increases, usually at the end of autumn, start of winter, water pours out of caves, up from sinkholes and seeps up from clusters of leaky limestone rocks to form lots of huge lakes.. very quickly indeed..

 

In spring or summer when the water level goes down again, these lakes disappear, also very fast indeed..

Hence Disappearing Lakes!

Well, the PIVKA river pops up out of the ground near the village of Zagorje just 25 mins from the Lodge by car and curves & wiggles all the way to the Postojna cave, in the meantime, it weaves between villages connecting 17 different disappearing lakes of all shapes and sizes!

 

The whole area is a designated nature park, but many of the lakes do not even have a sign post, so when empty, you need to have a map to know where they are, unless you know what you are looking for and then you can find the numerous, fascinating clues nature leaves for you!

Komoot is absolutely brilliant for finding these lakes though, as they are marked in blue water on this app.. and jumping on a bike is the best way to go visit a few, exploring free & easy!

 

E Biking to Petelinje, Klenik & Palce Disappearing Lakes..

We are not gonna describe every twist & turn or tree that you will see on this route, we will let the photos do the talking for that..

But we will explain the highlights and summarise what to expect on this magic bike ride to THREE of the SEVENTEEN Disappearing Lakes of Pivka, but Petelinje and Palce are the biggest two and Klenik is one of the smallest!!

You will see everything that is fab about the Green Karst region is included in this ride.. rocks, lakes, forest and tracks connecting them everwhere, with no end of local farm animals along the way and maybe a big bird of prey flying above or a deer bouncing away in through the trees..

 

The ride starts with a lovely track that goes from our home village of Landol to a river that actually flows from a giant lake under Nanos mountain to the Pivka river..

You go off road past a corn crake bird reserve and pop out in the middle of a cute Karst village with wells by the side of the road, where you join a dedicated bike path for a bit until turning off onto a local road that leads to the village of Studenec (with the best local Pizzeria, by the way).. Here we take a forest track that goes to a bridge over the motorway and drops us directly into the village of Little Nut, (Orehek)..

 

Little Nut is a key point in this loop where we enter a big chunk of forest between Postojna and Pivka and we found a fantastic forest track that cuts the corner and leads directly to Pivka without being on any main road at all!

This is where the E Bikes earn their corn as there is a steep relentless climb into the thick forest, but always on a stone track used by locals and hunters..

Suddenly you are immersed inside the silent noise of this forest and tempting side roads appear all along the main route, but Komoot will keep you on track.

 

It is difficult to imagine many visitors finding their way along these marvellous forest tracks or even finding this area in the first place without a bit of local help or a route on Komoot, but you still have to keep your wits about you in case a local car whizzes up the track, not expecting to see you!

The uphill becomes a downhill and suddenly you pop out next to some fields on the other side of this forest and our route will now skirt the local roads on tracks through fields next to sheep, cows and horses to reach the edge of the town of Pivka, so named after the river that started the ball rolling for stuff around here..

 

There is a bit of village hopping now until we use yet another new roadside bike path to approach Pivka and cross the busy main road onto a stone track that goes across open fields to the village of Petelinje, where we cross the Pivka river for the first of several times and arrive at the Museum of the 17 Lakes of Pivka!

Worth checking in advance if the museum is open and if so it is a really good place to learn about the enormous quantities of local flora & fauna and how the Pivka river snakes between these 17 lakes..

 

There are maps, exhibits & diagrams and lots of stuff to see and then you would be well set up to go see your first disappearing lake with the same name as the village, the Petelinje lake, just a short ride from the museum..

This is the second biggest of the 17 lakes of Pivka and this writer's personal favourite, cos when you cycle down the track and pop out through the trees that seem to surround the lake in a bowl shape, it is like arriving in a huge Green open air theatre.

 

The total silence here will surprise you and if you look up at the hills around you can see the iconic local Church of the Holy Trinity high above..

We biked this same route 2 times in close succession to really get it perfect and iron out any dead ends.. On this first occasion Chris went with 2 lovely Australian guests who E Bike all over the world.

One of the reasons for choosing this particular route on this particular October day was that it had rained heavily for several days before, so we suspected there might be some water in this particular lake.. Local Knowledge..

 

You see Petelinje is ALWAYS the first of the 17 lakes to fill as quite simply it lies the lowest!

Every disappearing lake fills in a different way and in this 1km long bowl there are multiple low lying little sinkholes, stuffed with Karst rocks that look like giant egg baskets.

The water seeps up through these to create lake taps and when the lake empties it sinks back through these egg baskets too.. rapidly!

 

Our hunch paid off and the there was a big blue patch in the centre of this giant field awaiting us! A disappearing lake was appearing, one of the "Holy Grails of Green Slovenia" was found!

We went back a few days later and the water had reached even further now as the previous deluge of rainwater flowed through the system underground and now the lake was around 40 to 50% full!

It really doesn't matter if a disappearing lake is full or empty as far as having stuff to look for with or without water, but it cannot do any harm to explore one after some heavy rain and then Petelinsko is the Go To First Choice and actually one of the closest of the 17 Pivka lakes to the Lodge!

 

Another really key thing to note and you will see for yourself on this bike ride is that the whole of this ride is in the Green Karst, but as soon as you pop out of the forest near Pivka, (just 15 mins by car from the Lodge), you will notice that the scenery changes dramatically, now with Disappearing Lake territory, so far more Karst rocks littering the ground, far more smaller evergreen trees too..

It is quite remarkable and typical of Green Slovenia where the landscape so often dramatically changes in such a small country, which has everything that is good about Europe in one small package!

 

Well, we now had other lakes in our sights and leaving Petelinje lake, there is a fab stone track that passes some goat & cow fields and cuts into the back of Trnje village..

From here you can bike up the hill to drop into the very next village of Klenik and without Komoot, you will very probably not be able to see where the Klenik Disappearing lake is, cos it is not marked anywhere with a sign.

 

On our first ride here with the Ozzies the lake was empty, but just a few days later this tiny lake was bulging with water.. You might even go past a full Klenik lake and not realise it is part of the flow of the 17 lakes, so the significance of seeing it with water might be lost on you, but we were really happy to see this for the first time!

The next prize from Klenik is to cycle the back route along another completely deserted stone track road directly to the larger village of Palcje.

 

This is a fantastically quiet route with grassy sinkholes on the side of the road, bee hives and maybe the odd villager walking their dog, but otherwise your view of the lake will be obscured by the numerous pine trees until you reach Palcje..

We found a fab route up into the village turning onto a side road that brings you out to another track by a farm where you will get a fantastic view back down & across to the biggest of the 17 Disappearing lakes of Pivka and we were delighted to ALSO see water here!

 

There is an amazing gentle downhill ride now from the village to lakeside and even at about 40% full the lake has a real scale about it!

There is a track you can use to bike along waterside until the waves lap onto the grassy reed covered shoreline and you have to dismount and just admire the lake..

 

At the end of this track you would not know it, but you are almost opposite the cave that acts as a giant tap for this particular lake to fill..

For even this amount of early autumn water to come the cave will be working overtime pumping huge amounts of water out..

(There is a way to find this cave by the way, but it involves going back towards the village and hiking up a steep forested hill towards a crumbled, hidden church and then on the edge of the tree line you will find this cave)..

 

But this is a bike trip and when the lake is so rich with water it is not part of this particular Green adventure.

Instead it is simply amazing to gaze at this lake and over these two bike rides we managed to plot the best way to return from here, not going back the same way to Klenik, but hugging the water and using some epic forest paths, direction Trnje!

 

There are multiple forest paths here and this is such a good example of why it is better to have a route preplanned and not have to go explore each one for yourself, cos there are plenty of dead ends too!

We found a fab curvy bumpy route past hidden cow fields and great views back towards Mt Nanos and ultimately TWO possible ways back, both avoiding the tarmac roads!

 

The first was with the Ozzies and this is another interesting feature to know about when exploring these disappearing lakes cos with a downpour, the water will quickly sit on local roads initially, but take more time to go through the underground sytem and fill the lakes..

So what this means is the route we wanted to go now was blocked, just for a bit, but enough to force us to turn around and find an alternative route, BUT the second time we did this ride a few days later the same route was fine, BUT the lakes were much fuller!

 

So the best time to see the lakes AND do this ride was the second time, a few days after the heavy rainfall so ALL the stone tracks were passable AND the lakes were fuller..

This is key local knowledge that we have now absorbed to give our guests the very best chance of getting the best out of this particular bike ride!

 

There was one stretch with the Ozzies close to a small bridge over the Pivka river that we had to bike very carefully through the water, but made it!

A few days later this water was completely gone off the track gone and we sailed over!

 

Returning to Petelinje now you have got some great options as there are 2 very nice local restaurants you can do a slight detour to get to Pivka and a really good SPAR supermarket, but our fave choice is to stay in Petelinje and stop off at the dairy there, where we often buy cheese and yoghurts for the Lodge breakfast!

The owners are very friendly & there is a little shop and cos they live there, even if nobody is around, just ring the bell and somebody will come!

 

We chose a couple of fresh cheeses and some yogurts for a lunchtime snack and there is a bakery just on the edge of Pivka too that you could bike to and make sandwiches!

Re energised, the route reverses back through the villages we came by on the way out here and now you have a choice, whether to return to Little Nut (Orehek) through the forest, going the exact reverse way we came or go on the quiet local roads, where you get an amazing Green Panorama vista of mt Nanos and the 2 churches in Orehek with the old castle!

 

Not wanting to complicate things, but this is also a great time to say that if you wanted to do a longer ride, then there is a bigger loop you can do through very remote forest, but with excellent stone tracks we found on another bike ride, but the point we are making here is we often put routes together for guests based on what they fancy doing, where and how long for..

Anyway, our ride today went back via Little Nut and took a few more twists and turns along some more tracks and quiet country roads, rejoining a designated bike road and passing 2 more local restaurants, so more opportunities for a later lunch or even an early dinner, depending on where you are on your day!

 

We are now back in the shadow of Nanos mountain in Lodge territory, so we stick to some very quiet stone tracks, one an old Roman road, which also crosses a Napoleon bridge and the loop is finally closed, arriving in Landol from the pretty village of Smihel, (St Michael)!

Well, what a ride, we are absolutely sure you could not imagine how amazing such a bike ride could be here without giving it a go!

 

And consider this.. We didn't go anywhere near Predjama castle, Postojna Cave or up Nanos mountain, perhaps the only places you might have known about before arriving AT ALL on this ride!

That will be for another day.. But today was all about discovering, experiencing and learning all about the fascinating 17 Disappearing Lakes of Pivka..

 

Why do I need an E Bike?

You don't, maybe you are an Olympic athlete or like unnecessary pain on your holiday! It is not a problem to do this ride or any of the other Lodge Bike routes with a regular mountain bike and that is your choice.. But it will take a lot longer..

Since we got our fleet of E Bikes and started properly exploring around our own little loops of Green Paradise here, we realised how especially amazing E Bikes are for Green Slovenia..

 

They are just the perfect match, cos Slovenia is just so Higgledy-Piggledy, up and down EVERYWHERE, which helps to make it so beautiful, but also so challenging for regular bikes.

What the E Bikes do so perfectly here is smooth out the hills, so you still get a great work out, but you also get to enjoy the ride!

E Bikes are also chunky bits of kit, about 3 times heavier than a regular bike, with big chunky tyres, so you should also feel safer exploring the forests, mountains, dirt & stone tracks and everything else that a typical Green adventure here will throw at you.

 

Even on flat bits here, if the wind is blowing against you, maybe you have a heavy backpack and you might be deep into your bike ride, then an E bike can give you just that little boost to keep going and get back to the cover of the trees!

Distance is also key for using an E Bike and it doesn't make sense to measure KM's in Green Slovenia cos it really is so up and down, but generally an E bike will give you around 60km of up and down, which is plenty for a whole multitude of adventures from the Lodge!

 

Almost lastly, but we see it so often with family groupings, even couples, who often have different levels of biking ability & energy, so everyone being on E Bikes completely levels the day out for everyone and you can have more fun as a group.. together!

Sometimes, but rarely, we get couples where the man insists on a reg mountain bike, despite our advice and the lady takes an E Bike.. Well you should see their faces when they return from an adventure going up & around our local Mt Nanos, the last mountain in Slovenia, covered in amazing forest tracks..well, talk about the donkey and the horse!! 

And finally we have talked here just about comparing E Bikes to Bikes, BUT isn't it more likely that the alternative to taking an E Bike would be using your car and that is not great for the environment at all..

 

Our bikes are recharged from the sun and washed with rainwater collected from our roofs, so you cannot get greener than that unless you try to cycle around on a stick of celery, with peas for wheels!

Combine this lovely warm Green thought with going on an E Bike instead of your car AND exploring and getting so much closer to nature than you could ever do so in a car and you have produced a very satisfying day!

 

Here is a link to another E Bike ride over Mt Nanos to the Vipava valley we did if you are interested and also to our dedicated E BIKE page.. 

We hope you have enjoyed this little Green loop adventure to the lakes and maybe one day you will get to try it for yourself..