A working pasture, not a museum
Herders come up each summer and make cheese — you can buy it from them.
Zakordon — CC0 · Palickap — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Palickap — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Unknown authorUnknown author — Public domain
A high mountain pasture in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps north of Ljubljana, part of the Velika Planina plateau, and among the last working summer pastures in Europe to have kept its traditional settlement form. What makes it exceptional is the huts. The herders here build oval wooden huts with spruce-shingle roofs that slope almost to the ground, a style found nowhere else. The form is practical: it resists wind and heavy snow and can be repaired with local materials. The whole settlement was burned in the Second World War and then rebuilt in the same style. This is not a museum: the herders still come up with their animals each summer and make cheese and soured milk here, which can be bought from them directly in season. The landscape is open and rolling — meadows, rocky hollows and scattered herds — and entirely unlike Slovenia's rugged mountains. Decisive practical points: access is by cable car from Kamniška Bistrica then a walk, or a climb on foot of two to three hours. The herders leave in autumn and the settlement empties. The weather changes fast at this altitude.
Herders come up each summer and make cheese — you can buy it from them.
The settlement was destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt in the same style.
Open rolling meadows — unlike Slovenia's rugged mountains.
The Velika Planina plateau, Kamnik-Savinja Alps
They are parts of the same plateau separated by a short walk. Velika Planina is the larger and better-known settlement with most of the huts and the small chapel; Mala Planina is smaller and quieter. Anyone who goes up normally sees both on the same walk — there is no need to choose.
Late June to September, when the herders are present and the pasture is alive. Outside that the settlement is empty and the huts shut; the landscape is still fine but entirely different. In winter the area becomes a skiing and snowshoeing ground.
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