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Walking takes longer… than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. – Edward Abbey, “Walking”
Walk…Walk…Walk—today, tomorrow, and on holiday. Don’t waste your next vacation on speed (which is probably an oxymoron). Stretch it—and your legs—on a walking vacation. No special equipment required, and you’ve been doing it since you quit crawling. When you walk, your body and soul get lost in the present. If you can ambulate, you can perambulate!
Take A Hike—In Surprising Slovenia
Kathy Moyer Dragon, Dragon’s Path/Active Women founder and ever pioneering, resourceful, and authentic walking sprite, introduced her Hiking Tour to Slovenia by quoting Lonely Planet: “Rich in resources, naturally good looking and persistently peaceful, Slovenia’s been doing just fine (flourishing, even) since breaking away from its Yugoslav owners in 1991. Travelers in search of an antidote to much of Europe’s crowds and high prices can, at least for the meantime, consider it their little secret…” Say no more; I’m there!
But first, let’s get out our maps.
East Europe meets West in a country with historic Hapsburg and Venetian influences (refer to your political map.) Slovenia’s Alps, the easternmost part of the range, are called The Julian’s. They’re wild, beautiful, deeply loved, and have the good sense to sun themselves by facing the Adriatic (see your topographical map). Slovenia’s people prove themselves warmhearted, and friendly; they appreciate their relative affluence, their family and community based society, and their particular brand of Catholicism (see your demographic map). When I visited, we sang, danced, and ate together in peoples’ homes, mountain huts, vineyards (oh yeah), and country restaurants or gostilnas (see your food and fun map).
Maps, though instructional, are flat. Slovenia is anything but, making it a perfect location for hiking. Kathy has an outgoing, fun-loving spirit that attracts similarly minded travelers to walk with her. She makes friends everywhere (she’s an ambassador of the best sort) and her travelers benefit from her friendships. She appreciates the texture and substance of small town and country life, and delights in finding the local finds. (She invited the local squeezebox musician to dinner at our farm house/guesthouse one night. Whoopee!) Kathy’s energy is boundless, so don’t go expecting a stroll. Her walks are energetic and sometimes personally challenging, but never anything that you can’t do or choose not to do. After all, a challenging walk makes reaching those high meadows more rewarding, and the cold Slovenian beer back down in the valley more inviting!
My family jokes that wherever I’ve just been is “the best trip ever.” But in this case, hiking in Slovenia really is on my short best list.
Last I heard, Kathy was walking the paths of Northern Vietnam and Laos. Catch her if you can at Active Women. She does custom trips and if you’re lucky, you can join her on one of her personal joy walks.
“Basque” In The Basque
Like a page-turning mystery novel, the Basque has a richly complex cast of characters, an intriguing back story, and sharp and delicious sensory experiences to offer. Cathedrals are filled with silver and gold treasure, mountain passes are shrouded in mist, and ancient pilgrimage routes are haunted by millions of believers. The blend of politics and religions makes for lively, zealous dialogue.
That’s the Basque, a wonderfully mysterious corner of Spain that is politically, physically, culturally and linguistically (if not officially) autonomous. Here is a country within two countries that hasn’t succumbed to the neon of Hard Rock Cafe’s and McDonalds. As I walked this dramatic countryside, I breathed in the fresh air of a place neither French nor Spanish. It’s Basque.
Country Walkers is one of a very few travel companies that knows the secrets of the Basque and will share them with you if you care to explore by foot. After an afternoon of walking through high Pyrenees meadows, I was able to distinguish the different musical timbers of bells worn by sheep, cows, goats and horses. What a sweet symphony they made when they all came together, some from near, some from a distance. One morning that would culminate at a Rioja wine cellar, I allowed my eyes to paint an Impressionist’s canvas from the blue, yellow, pink and green flowers growing wild beside the path. I raised my eyes to an open field, elevated just enough that all I could see was green. Curious, I climbed the incline and discovered that the field was alive with orange poppies. No faxes, no phones, no cars, no yesterday, no tomorrow. Just orange poppies.
One day we chose a harder walk through a Merlin-like forest. A dense mist obscured our way; the path was narrow and steep with boulders punctuating the grade. I leaned heavily on my space-age metal walking stick, keeping my eyes down, watching each foot placement. Sweat mingled with mist. For half an hour, the angle upward was at least 60 degrees. And suddenly, I reached the top. A breathtaking valley spread out before me: a distant village, a shepherd with crook (yes, with a crook!) tending his sheep. Then clouds lifted and we had a picnic on the grass. Strenuous exertion stimulated our appetite and thirst—we passed around a wine skin and the laughter of my companions flew up to the hawks soaring overhead.
There’s a here and now to the Basque people. Everyone’s related; everyone knows one another. It only takes one visit to the Basque pie stand on the market square to be considered a friend. We drank coffee in their homes, danced in sidewalk cafes with wedding-party revelers, leaned against a village bar for a schnapps-like fortifier, sang at the tops of our lungs at the Basque cooking club, and learned the tongue-twisting Basque language in a family wine cellar amid great hilarity. What made it even more fun was sharing the experience with like-spirited travelers who came together for a walk in the Basque.
Alberto, my man in the Basque, remembers walking the back hills and vales of this land with his father. He met the farmers, innkeepers, and priests of his secluded, fabled country and learned to appreciate and eventually communicate to visitors the subtleties, innuendo, and mystery behind the enigma that is Basque.
Country Walkers has chosen to help travelers walk throughout the world. They, like me, love the pace and peace of walking. Walking is certainly a meditation, definitely a belly laugh, obviously an exercise, and most assuredly, the best way to feel fully awake and alive in the moment.
Just Google Walking Tours and you’ll be overwhelmed with possibilities. Here are a couple more favorites.
Walking Vacations:
Walk Locally—some are free for the downloading:
