A trip over the Julian Alps, testing the limits of Slovenia's electric carshare
WE PARKED on the valley floor and lifted up our eyes. In front of us was Slovenia’s ceiling. Triglav. Pihavec. The aptly-named Razor. Desolate mountains, each one cresting high above the tree line. From ground level they formed a colossal amphitheatre: they looked down on us like an expectant audience.
We sat in silence, Pommette and I. Not a sound could be heard inside the car. Ahead of us, winding somewhere in among these towering rocks, we knew we would find the Vršič Pass, a collection of steep hairpin bends that would take us over five thousand feet into the sky. “You know,” I said in a small voice, “even the pass between the mountains is higher than the highest mountain in the UK.” Pommette groaned. That, she said, was an unhelpful thing to say.
We sat for a while longer, waiting for the problem to resolve itself. For the mountains to take the hint, perhaps, and shuffle themselves out of our way. But no, there was no getting round it: we were about to drive an electric Smart car over the Alps.
IF YOU ever go to Ljubljana, you’ll see these cars everywhere. Pug-nosed, electric blue, often with ads for insurance plastered across the back window. Avant2Go: it’s an ingenious idea, really. Just as in other cities you can whip out your phone and rent a bike for a few hours, in Slovenia’s capital you can get yourself an electric car in exactly the same way. You head to the pick-up point, open up the app, and away you go.
These are city cars however, designed for a zip round the ring road or a one-way trip to the airport. In truth, they handle like very fancy dodgems. The first time Pommette and I decided to use one for a day trip, we weren’t even sure of being allowed to drive it out of Ljubljana. We searched the Avant2Go website and found nothing explicitly forbidding it. But then, perhaps they just hadn’t thought anyone would be foolish enough to try.
Neither of us had driven an electric before, so we had our teething problems. The battery drained halfway to the coast, that first trip, but at least we pulled off the motorway in time to find a charging station. (Luckily they’re everywhere in Slovenia, a country that prides itself on being one of Europe’s greenest.) Eventually we got used to stopping for a refill en route; the battery did its thing, and it was just another excuse to go off exploring whatever town we found ourselves in.
For a few months we pinballed all over Slovenia from behind the wheel of the wee blue devil: from the banks of Lake Bohinj to the vineyards of Brda. At a certain moment we considered ourselves old hands; for our next trip, we decided to be ambitious. We would head into the Alps.
THE RIVER SOČA runs through a crease in the alpine foothills. If you head out west from Ljubljana, almost to the Italian border, eventually you’ll find the winding road that hugs its banks; follow that road to the river’s source and you’ll reach the Trenta Valley, deep in the Triglav National Park. From there, it's over the Vršič Pass to complete the loop back to the capital.
It was an itinerary that had been hammered into us by every Slovenian we knew: “An absolute must.” So one weekend we did what must be done and set off from Ljubljana. We met the River Soča at the small town of Tolmin, around two hours (and several charging breaks) later. Our Slovenian friends hadn't lied.
The Soča itself looks impossible. Fake—as if, were you to dip your hand in, it would come out dyed a luminous emerald. But no, the river really is that spectacular, sparkling against the white limestone through which it carves its way to the Adriatic. For generations these waters have been inspiring Slovenian poets and songwriters. It's easy to see why.
A few kilometres upriver from Tolmin is Kobarid, a town that, on both sides of the Slovenia-Italian border, has become a symbol of the First World War. The name Soča—Isonzo in Italian—holds the same historical weight in this part of the world as Somme or Passchendaele do further north. (Incidentally, it’s up and down these slopes that a young Ernest Hemingway drove ambulances during the war, and where he later set A Farewell to Arms.) Between 1915 and 1917 the river valley was the site of twelve separate battles between Italy and Austria-Hungary, forming a continuous front at which half a million soldiers died.
Emblematic of this bloody history is the Italian Charnel House in Kobarid, an enormous military shrine housing the remains of over seven thousand Italian soldiers. Inaugurated by Mussolini in 1938, it’s a memorial built to the dictator’s tastes, with strict geometrical lines imposing themselves on the landscape. Pommette and I stood scrutinizing it with the rest of the visitors. Perched atop a sheer cliff face, dominating the town below, it's an undoubtedly impressive sight. To the Italian and Slovenian tourists who swarm into the valley each summer, it’s also a reminder of the knotted history that’s nudged the nearby border back and forth between the two neighbours over the centuries.
Further upriver, the terrain gets more rugged; the Soča begins to dig itself into gorges, throw itself from waterfalls. Pommette and I stopped again and again at the beauty spots that dot the length of the valley, dipping our feet in the river and letting the sun warm us on the rocks. Eventually we reached Bovec, a pleasant little tourist town known as a centre for outdoor sports, as well as being the last settlement of any size before the Julian Alps throw themselves up to impossible heights. We put our Avant2Go on charge and went to have a bite to eat.
A sensible traveller, at that particular moment, might have realised how ill-equipped they were. Sitting on a terrace in Bovec, admiring the view, surely it must have struck us how mountainous everything was? I can’t say it did. As far as I remember it came as a perfect shock when, half an hour or so after setting off again, Pommette pulled in on the valley floor: lifting my eyes to the jagged peaks, hearing the weedy buzz of our electric engine, and thinking maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all.
At the very least, we had power on our side. With a full battery from our stop in Bovec, our little dashboard told us we could do 125km. Even if that figure was wildly out—which, admittedly, it had been in the past—the town on the other side of the pass was only 25km away. Whatever stress we took out on the car, we could just charge it up when we got to the other side. We sat parked on the valley floor, convincing ourselves we were right.
Eventually, it was settled. We were agreed. We would go through the mountains.
THE ENGINE gave its opinion on our decision at the very first incline: it was furious at us. Livid. It roared and roared. After 200m, Pommette tapped the dashboard counter. We’d already taken 2km off the battery. The car had always been a little temperamental going uphill, but this seemed plain spiteful.
We looped around one hairpin bend after another. The road felt as though someone had dropped it carelessly onto the side of the mountain like a piece of thread. We didn't say a word as we climbed. I kept my eyes fixed on Pommette's hands choking the wheel; looking at the dashboard counter was a bit too much... In a matter of minutes we’d eaten up 25km, then 30, 40—and still we climbed and climbed.
Now and then a Land Rover would appear at our tail, arriving like a whale behind plankton. “If we get stranded,” I said, “at least there are other people on the road.” Pommette growled. She said she would rather die of exposure than of embarrassment. Did I feel like explaining to the driver of a 4x4 why we ever thought the Smart car was a good idea?
All of a sudden, a sharp, insistent beep. There it was: Low Battery. Somehow, in less than 10km, we had used up almost all the power we had. To its credit, the car was awfully polite about it. The dashboard screen suggested it were best we stop and find ourselves a charging station.
Pommette ignored the suggestion. She bore down on the road, cursing to herself in French; she was ready to throttle every kilowatt from the engine. I was resigned. I turned to face the passenger window and prepared my body for impact: that moment when the engine would drain with a sad whimper and reality would hit.
Out the window, the sun was giving the peaks a parting kiss; it was melting the chalky mountains to honey. The scene was spectacular, the kind I imagine people must picture when they meditate. So maybe it’s not all bad, I suggested to myself. An experience. A lesson—yes, at least it was a good, character-building lesson. And isn’t travel all about learning new things? For example, the cost of abandoning a hire car up a mountain: we’d certainly learn that.
With the battery flashing red, the steep slope in the road at last began to even out. We'd reached the top and, in a certain way, were over the worst: if the car died now, at least we would only have to push it down the mountain. For a moment the road hovered at five and a half thousand feet, before swinging us back down on the descent.
It was at that moment that our Avant2Go revealed another of its little foibles. We were already well-versed in some of them: the fact that, for example, turning on the air conditioning will drain the battery and cut the distance you can drive in half. Here was something we hadn't been aware of: if the car hates driving up mountains, it loves driving down them.
Suddenly, the engine was our friend again. Gone was the furious tirade, in its place a satisfied hum. A familiar hum, in fact. One we'd gotten used to over months of stopping to plug in. We couldn't believe it, but the evidence was there to see. The car was charging itself downhill.
There are not many things that can beat a view of the Alps in the setting sun, but little numbers ticking up on a car dashboard were enough for me. 10%, 20%, 30%. By the time we reached the safety of a charging station in Kranjska Gora, the resort town on the other side of the pass, there was hardly any need for it. We were the ones in need of a recharge. In a local pizzeria we sat with dumb expressions on our faces, unbelieving of what we'd just done.
We made it back to Ljubljana around midnight, the car—and ourselves—in one piece. The little day trip over the Julian Alps had proved two things to me. One, that my partner is far more level-headed and composed than I am. And two, never doubt the power of Slovenia's electric carshare. If it could get us over the Vršič Pass, it could get us to anywhere.
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