A nice spot to visit in our immediate vicinity is the hilltop of Sveti Peter. Located at 888 meters, it is also the highest point in the region »Suha Krajina«, as it is called here, and you have a beautiful view. At the top of the hill, there is also a wooden lookout tower that you can climb for an even better view. Sveti Peter also has a three municipalities point. The municipalities of Žužemberk, Dolenjske Toplice, and Kočevje border each other exactly there.
It doesn’t have to take a lot of effort to get there because you can get drive most of the tour by car and the shortest route is then only a 15 to 20-minute walk through the forest. With a good jeep, you can even drive all the way up, but we don’t have one. Of course, you can also walk all the way from the bottom and park the car in the village of Lašče, in the parking lot of gostilna Rojc. From there it is a good hour and a half walk on a wide forest path. The last part goes up quite steeply though. We could walk from our home, but we haven’t gotten that far yet. It is an hour’s walk to Lašče first, which I have already done several times. But then it is still more than an hour and a half further uphill. We will try this in the spring. First we (read »I«) need some more practice and build up our condition :). Walking uphill remains a problem for me. I have Dutch legs, and they insist that they have to walk flat instead of uphill, hahaha. I keep trying because it is always worth it when you come up after a big climb and enjoy the great view.
More than 20 years ago, when more and more hikers came to walk this route, it was decided by the locals to build a wooden hut on the top where hikers can rest or seek shelter. In 2014 it was decided to renovate the old cabin and make it bigger and the locals got to work. Unfortunately, tragedy struck. Only a few months after the opening of the renovated cabin, it burned down completely on the night of December 28 of that year. It is not known how this could have happened, but the local residents did not let themselves be bothered and immediately went back to work the next spring to build a new hut. After more than 2000 hours of work by dozens of volunteers and with the (financial) help of the municipalities of Žužemberk, Dolenjske Toplice, and Kočevje, the new hut was opened in June 2016 and fortunately, it is still standing today.
The forests around Sveti Peter are beautiful and there are also bears here, which unfortunately we have still not seen :(. We recently found evidence that they actually walk around there though, in the form of a pile of bear poo, haha.
You can walk or drive for hours through these forests, which go all the way to Kočevje, because there are so many different roads and paths everywhere. In these forests, too, a large part is privately owned and wood is regularly chopped. The forests here are generally well maintained. Dead and diseased trees are felled, old wood is removed and shrubs and overgrowth are regularly thinned. That will also be one of the reasons that the percentage of forest in Slovenia is still growing every year. In any case, it is a nice place to go to and we come there regularly. We often discover new places, huts or viewpoints. Every season is different and beautiful. We have been there at least once in every season. We often take visitors there as well. It’s a fun outing, so if you’re ever in the area ….. highly recommended :).
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