After saying goodbye to (and exchanging blessings with) the exceptionally nice man who looked after us for the night, and promising to be back in two years to continue the walk (next year we plan to finish the French section to the Mediterranean), we walked to the railway station at Podbrdo.
It was about an hour’s walk and included a steep slippery descent through forest, just for old time’s sake. It was a good thing it wasn’t a long walk because this has happened to my boot…

Podbrbo station feels quite remote (and Trainline.com doesn’t believe it exists.

Now we are on our way to Venice, where we can stay for a bit before heading home.
Even though, with the benefit of hindsight some of the walking days were a bit too long for us, it feels good to have completed a very obvious stage of the Via Alpina- going from the coast to the Alps.

In 7 days of walking we covered 115 miles. It was quite hilly- our walk included 7600m (25000 feet) of ascent. There were also a lot of trees- something like 3/4 of the Slovenian landscape is dominated by forest. And some very friendly, hospitable and generous people.
September seems like quite a good time to do this section of the walk. It was cooler than high summer and we had excellent weather. Occasionally, though, fallen leaves made steep paths very slippery and hard going.
We hardly met anybody else walking-once away from any town or village, the paths were more or less deserted.
So, I think that’s it for this year…