Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

© Elma Okic
on the approach to Mt Sneznik in Slovenia
GOURMET DELIGHTS
You’ll enjoy the coffee, but that’s not the only gourmet pleasure on the Via
Dinarica. Stopping in villages along the route is like a progressive meal with fresh
meats and vegetables from beginning to end. Each country is proud of its
gastronomy, which was Slow Food long before the term existed. Try to buy any of
the farm-fresh and homemade bread, cheeses, greens, honey and liqueurs you can
manage to get your hands on along the path.
After coffee and reorganising gear into backpacks – carefully jiggering wedges
of cheese, sausages and packets of peanuts among foul-weather gear and layers
– we set out from the hut for the craggy climb up Mt Maglic, the top of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. It was slow going, a vertical crawl: handholds and careful foot
placements. When we reached the summit, I caught up with Thierry Joubert, a
regular hiking companion who has trekked nearly every section of the Via Dinarica
with me over three years of piecing together stages when schedules allowed.
‘There are wonderful similarities across the Via Dinarica, but it’s always different
because there are so many interpretations of landscape, culture and history’, said
Joubert, who is the director of Green Visions, an adventure-travel operator based
in Sarajevo. ‘When you walk through Croatia, you parallel the Adriatic Sea. In
Albania, you are under soaring peaks. In Macedonia, you straddle a ridgeline
border with Kosovo. This trail gives hikers a route to untouched mountaintops. It
gives hikers a way to see villages and shepherd communities that may not be here
in 10 years.’
We descended the other side of the mountain into Montenegro and stood on a
ridge, resting on our hiking sticks, looking down at the heart-shaped, glacial
Trnovacko Lake – a calling-card photo-op along this section of the trail. After
several minutes, we started again. The border crossing and a new country seemed
to give Joubert an extra pop to his step. When he was several yards ahead of me