Accidental Tourist

A few weeks ago now, there was an article circling the Facebooks of my Hungarian friends. It was written by Frugal Traveller, Seth Kugel. He was returning from a trip to Transylvania and decided on a whim to hop off the train at a random village in the Hungarian countryside. The village was Mezobereny.

I'm sure the appeal to my Hungarian friends was that a random American had decided to write about a town quite familiar to them. For me, it was that Seth Kugel had made a random Hungarian town a little less anonymous.

I wanted to do the same. I longed for the summer, when it's a little more appropriate to hop on a train with your phone and some cash and land in the nearest likely looking town. 

And then I realised, I had done something a bit like this already.

So. Here is my story about a little village in Slovenia (and some other places too) that I discovered last summer.

It all began in Ljubljana. It was beautiful. The weather was nice. But there was a problem. The problem was that it wasn't Budapest. I decided to leave. To go back to Budapest? I'm not sure.

I drove out of the city and up the motorway. I started to get hungry. The car started to get thirsty. I came off the motorway. I drank coffee. I saw a big castle on top of a big hill. I found a map in my car. I pondered. 

The key fact here was that I didn't have an iPhone or GPS. This was old-fashioned navigation. This was back to my childhood in the 90s. This was pulling over at the side of the road to check the map. This was a follow-the-brown-sign adventure.

So I drove. I tried to drive towards the castle on the hill. Somehow it never materialised and I got distracted.

The first thing I discovered was a river. 

I'll set the scene. I was driving. I was a bit lost. I had no idea where I was going and if I was making the right idea. I had a strange feeling, like it was illegal for a 22 year old British girl to drive a Hungarian car around the Slovenian countryside. Or something like that.

I was just making my way back to the motorway, when I spotted a couple of cars pulled over at a junction. They had their doors open and they had towels and flip flops and looked liked they'd recently been for a swim. That was it. 

I took the turning and I followed the road, the whole time waiting for someone to flag me down and tell me that something I was doing was forbidden.

I turned a corner in the road and saw a river to the right. Promising.

I turned another corner.

I saw this and it looked pretty fantastic. What was even more fantastic, was the dirt track that led right through the bright green field towards a crowd of trees hiding a few cars and eventually the river.

It was nice. I won't say it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen because it wasn't. But it was about 35 degrees and I wanted to swim and sunbathe. There were other people there too. For some people I guess it would have been perfect if the place had been deserted, but for me, doing perhaps the most adventurous thing yet in my life, I was happy for the company. Just so I knew the water wasn't going to kill me. That kind of thing.

I grabbed my towel and waded into the water. The current was weak enough that you could just walk straight through to the other side without getting your towel wet. There was a sketchy moment when a couple started shouting at me. I stopped dead, standing waist deep in the water, waiting to be told it was Slovenian only, or I was about to be eaten by a crocodile. No, they were actually calling their dog back. 

I was in heaven. The sun lasted for a good few hours and I got suitably crispy. Nobody bothered me. I had a few dips in the water which was nice and cool. I found a comfy spot amongst the rocks. It was very clean, except for a watermelon quarter that someone had left downstream.

As the sun went down I began to realise I didn't have a place to stay that night, and with the prospect of sleeping the car, I reluctantly made my way back across the river.

When I got back in the car, my bikini soaking through my clothes, my cheeks burning from the sun, I ate the end of a sandwich and embraced my new life as a traveller. I took a few photos, with no hope of ever returning. 

I'd like to know if it was legal to go swimming in that river. There were a few shifty looks from the locals, as if they were worried I was going to let the secret slip.

They needn't worry. I've had a few looks at a map since then, and if you paid me I couldn't tell you where I spent that glorious afternoon.

I don't think these barns could even be a clue. They were rather special to me, but I saw more as I travelled around.

I drove away, looking for a place to stay. The next few hours weren't as successful as the first half of my day. 

I don't think I've ever been on an organised family holiday. We either simply came here to Hungary in the summer and stayed with my grandmother, or went to somewhere in the UK with a promising sounding name and hoped for the best when it came to finding accommodation. My parents never once thought to book a hotel. I guess the attitude was that if you book somewhere, you have to stay there. And if you don't know where you're going, why would you want to do that?

This isn't an attitude I share with my parents. I believe everything should be booked and paid for, at least 4 months in advance. However, the skills required to find a B&B at 11 o'clock at night finally came in handy. At half past nine, after a near panic attack and a stop at a rather fancy vending machine on the side of the road, I found somewhere. After 3 hours looking for 'panzio' or 'gasthaus' or even 'hotel', I learnt a Slovenian word 'gostisce'.

I was right up on the Austrian border by this time, at a place called Krivograd. I got surprisingly few funny looks from other guests and only a 'So, where are you from?' from the manager. For one night, it cost about 30 euro, not exactly cheap for a motel, but I was desperate. Breakfast was included and the view... you can see for yourself.

I went on my way. The plan was to find anywhere I could swim. It seemed like a good thing to aim for. I drove for the whole day. I didn't find any water, but I did see a lot. 

I followed a church up a hill.

There were a lot of churches like this in Slovenia. Seemingly out of reach at the top of a hill with no road. I pursued this one though and it was worth it. There were a few houses surrounding it but the area was entirely deserted. I nearly jumped out of my shirt when the bells rang. Apart from that, it was silent.

I picked a spot and spent a couple of hours sunbathing, reading, and pretending I was Heidi waiting for Peter and the goats.

Oh and this was my faithful Suzuki, who brought me to the top of the mountain.

I owe so much to that wonderful car, which right now isn't so wonderful and only makes occasional trips to Tesco. 

Part two to follow...