ARGONAUTS
Length
47.4
Length 47.4 km ​
Time needed
03:30
Time needed 03:30 ​
Največja strmina vzpona[%]
17
Greatest slope of the ascent: 17 %
Greatest slope of the descent: 5 %
Average slope of the ascent: 2 %
Length of ascents above 5%: 1.10 km
The lowest point of the route: 322 m
The highest point of the route: 287 m
Difference in altitude: 287 m
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Poraba kalorij
7122
Consumption of energy for men: 7122 kJ (1701 kcal)
Consumption of energy for women: 5803 kJ (1386 kcal)
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Difficulty
Difficulty: Less demanding ​
Quality of the surface
Quality of the surface: Mixture
Type of bike: Trek bike
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Short description

Picturesque and exciting route, full on natural and cultural snaps from the treasury of the Ljubljana Marshes. Most of the route runs along the macadam roads and cart tracks and some of the sections on asphalt roads. The route is mostly flat with few short ascents.

Course

Ljubljana (Vič) – Vnanje Gorice – Notranje Gorice – Bevke – Blatna Brezovica – Sinja Gorica – Vrhnika – Mirke – Verd – Sinja Gorica – Brezovica - Ljubljana (Vič)

From the city to nature
The route starts at Vič (at Interspar). Set out straight to Tbilisijska ulica Street and at the end of it, next to the post office, turn right above the bypass, to Cesta v Mestni log Road. Continue right to Cesta dveh cesarjev Road. Cycle past the pavilion , then left at the first crossroads. The route runs from the suburb through Črni log forest , named after black alder trees. Turn right at the crossroads and continue past interesting settlements, not at all suitable for the landscape park which you have just entered. Cycle straightforward until possible and you arrive to the more open part of the marshes . When you cannot go straight any longer, turn right, then at the third branching left to the more rough macadam . The fields, forming a typical pattern, alternate along the road and create the image of a cultural landscape of the marshes. Then, after some hundred metres of cycling, you can see the first solitary hills and Krim .

Barjanske Gorice
After the solitary hill Brce, which you pass already on the asphalt road, enter the road (called Požarnice) to Vnanje Gorice. Cycle to the centre of the old village, placed between the saddle of two solitary hills. There are some nicely maintained and preserved farms , and, if you're in the mood, you can proceed up the hill, at the top of Gulč and visit the Church of the Holy Spirit , and enjoy the view of the surrounding plain. Ašičev dom Hut is near and so is the botanical educational path , where you can get acquainted with numerous medicinal plants. Continue from Vnanje Gorice to Notranje Gorice , so that you turn left from Požarnice to the main road and cycle for about a kilometre, then just before crossing the railroad, carefully turn left, past the houses, at the last possible branching. This is the edge of Notranje Gorice and somewhere along the route a marvellous view of the Church of St. Anna opens up . The road leads right across the railway line, then to the main (Podpeška cesta) road on which you cycle only for about 300 m.

Stržen
Before the underpass under the railroad you will see a big macadam car park on the right. Turn right to the macadam road. Drive along the railway line all the time, then the road turns right at the underpass and it opens in a vast landscape. Magnificent views of the southern edge of the marshes – the solitary hills, open: Sv. Ana , Žalostna gora with the abandoned Podpeč quarry in the slope , , Sv. Jožef and Goričica. The view to the north unveils another peculiarity that is an eyeful: Stržen or the old bed of the Ljubljanica River . According to some, Stržen is the remnant of the biggest interference by the Romans in the Ljubljana Marshes - changing the riverbed of the Ljubljanica. The entire remain of the riverbed that got swampy, is approximately 6 km long and interesting due to its rich and diverse marshy vegetation which can be observed on the way. The macadam road starts turning into cart track and the latter loses itself in a meadow in places , but if you stick to the swampy Stržen, the road will lead you across it, then left to the nicely maintained macadam road along the Ljubljanica River where you run into information boards. You are at the Bevke educational footpath.

Villages at the solitary hills of the Marshes
You soon approach the Ljubljanica River running idly, with the quite overgrown riverbed. Cycle past the confluence of the Ljubljanica and Borovniščica rivers . The path turns right at two farms positioned at the prestigious location by the Ljubljanica River, and you continue towards Bevke. Before the centre of the village where the Church of the Elevation of St. Cross is, turn left at the cross towards Blatna Brezovica. This road is frequently flooded when there are floods. One of the two ascents awaits you, but a beautiful view of the centre of the village on the top of the slope will cheer you up, as the view shows the vast and open space of the village along the road, with houses in a straight line and a richly painted chapel of an open type with stone pillars .

Nauportus
Through Sinja Gorica , where you turn left somewhere in the middle of the settlement to the Pot na Tojnice Road, you cycle to Vrhnika. First continue below the motorway, then turn right to the main road Ljubljana-Vrhnika where you go left and stick to this direction until the slope at Verd. You can stop at Pri Botru Inn in Vrhnika . Just before the top of the slope , turn left to Močilnik. The road is less busy there. At Močilnik , one of the springs of the Ljubljanica River, you can refresh in a cool shade. Proceed to the macadam path towards Mirke. Stick to the right side. The road ends in a narrow cart track where you see the 'forbidden for traffic' sign. If you were consistent you would walk one or two turns and observe Retovje in the meantime - another spring of the Ljubljanica River - this time of the Velika Ljubljanica River . The path leads you to the settlement of Verd. There you can sit on your bike again and proceed to Vrhnika . Cross the Ljubljanica River and at the main road which you have cycled before, turn right and at the first possible branching after the motorway junction, right again to Opekarska cesta Road, then to Pot na Tojnice Road, once more below the motorway and to the roundabout in Sinja Gorica. You will reach the roundabout if you turn left behind the underpass below the motorway at the first asphalted crossroads. Go straightforward in the roundabout and right to the macadam road.

Back to the starting point
The macadam road leads in a zigzag way along the motorway to Ljubljana. Cross several transverse overpasses and always find the shortest way to continue on the macadam road in the same direction and you won't get lost . Turn left in Brezovica and cycle a few tens of metres to the main road, then right again to the railway station . At the railway station turn sharply left, next to the motorway fencing then right and ahead – along the railway line to the underpass and again along the railway towards Vič. The direction will not change now. Cycle to the Cesta v Zgornji Log Road, then turn left to Cesta v Gorice Road and you are almost where you started. You can return to the starting point by turning left at the pavilion at Cesta dveh cesarjev Road, cycle along it for a while, then turn left again to Kančeva ulica Street and then right to Tomažičeva ulica Street.

Vnanje Gorice
The village is positioned between two solitary hills, Gulč and Veliki vrh. The old village centre has some lovely arranged farms and the surrounding solitary hills serve as the viewpoints where, among other peculiarities, some interesting archaeological remains were found. At the top of the solitary hill Gulč, the Church of the Holy Spirit , built in 1526, is located. A special feature of the church are frescoes on tufa stones, the work of a local artist Izidor Mole. Gršak Homestead, built in 1863, is located in Vnanje Gorice as well. There is also the starting point of Ašič botanical educational path which connects the settlements of the Ljubljana Marshes via the side paths.

Notranje Gorice
Notranje Gorice is the oldest settlement in the Marshes. There is a chapel in the middle of the village, built in the memory of the plague and small pox epidemics which ravaged between 1850 and 1860. The Church of St. Martin is known for its priest and a writer, Janez Jalen, who wrote the novel Bobri (Beavers). In the vicinity of Notranje Gorice, the archaeologists found the oldest remain of the crannogs where the crannog dwellers lived in the Stone Age.
The solitary hill Plešivica that rises above Notranje Gorice is the highest point of the Marshes. In the central part of Notranje Gorice, an abandoned quarry was cut into the hill in 1848 when the construction of the railway line Ljubljana-Trieste over the Marshes took place.

Vrhnika
The development of Vrhnika is closely connected with ships and traffic on peacefully flowing and deep Ljubljanica River. There is the shortest passage from the Ljubljana Basin over the Notranjska and Karst forest plateaus to the sea, so Vrhnika was of high importance as a town on the trade routes from Italian to North Adriatic cities and to the navigable paths of the Sava and Danube rivers. The boatmanship started to die out only with the completion of construction of the Vienna-Trieste road. Vrhnika lies at the junction of three geographical areas: Dinaric, pre-Alpine and marshy, so it is possible to find diverse vegetation there. Ivan Cankar was born in Vrhnika and described in his works many of the places in the vicinity; among them was the Church of the Holy Trinity and Vrhnika Klanec (slope), which gained symbolic dimensions in his work Na klancu , .

Boter Pizza Restaurant and Inn
Boter Inn is in the centre of Vrhnika at Tržaška cesta Road. You can order one of their many pizzas or meat and seafood dishes .

Jason and Argonauts
Almost three thousand years old legend tells that Jason, due to the stealing of the Golden fleece, fled to the mouth of the Danube River on the way from the eastern coast of the Black Sea to hide from the Colchis navy, and proceeded up to the mouth of the Sava River and to the Ljubljanica River. As he ran from the vengeful attackers, he came right to the Ljubljana Marshes which were completely marshy back then and the navigable path ended there. Because it was autumn, Jason had to spend the winter in the area of present-day Ljubljana, and continued his journey in the spring by dismantling the ship and transporting it to the Adriatic Sea where some of the crew set out for the native Greece.

Bevke
Bevke is located at the solitary hills of Kostanjevica, Brdo and Gradišče. Peat was cut here in the past and used for warming up the houses. In autumn or spring rains, the shortest road between Vrhnika and Bevke was flooded in the area between Blatna Brezovica and Bevke. Thick fog, typical of the Ljubljana Marshes, occasionally covered up accessible paths, so 'a journey to Bevke' also stands for the journey to the marshes, to the flooded area, or simply, to the fog (for ignorant people) – journey to the unknown.

Numerous traditional events, some of them being closely connected with Ivan Cankar, such as Cankarjada Festival (usually) in autumn, or Cankarjevi dnevi Festival in spring, are organised in Vrhnika. June is full of cultural, entertaining and sports events called Argonavtski dnevi (the Argonaut Days), and summer can be celebrated in Vrhnika in August.

Stržen – the relocated bed of the Ljubljanica River
Romans supposedly moved the bed of the Ljubljanica River in the area of the Marshes between Notranje Gorice and Podpeč closer to the quarry in Podpeč from where the construction material was transported up the Ljubljanica River between Emona and Nauportus (Ljubljana and Vrhnika). Both riverbeds were supposedly active for some time after the moving of the bed but then the old bed got swampy in time. There are no documents or any other written proof on the regulation of the Ljubljanica River, so the opinions of some experts on the moving and regulating of the Ljubljanica River in the past, clash , , , , .

Crannog dwellers at the Marshes
The southern part of the Ljubljana Basin – today's Ljubljana Marshes – was approximately seven thousand years ago a 2 or 3 m deep lake, and then the water surface gradually lowered. Crannog dwellers lived there back then and Janez Jalen writes about them in his novel Bobri (Beavers), and numerous findings indicate their existence as well. The crannog dwellers fed on wild animals and picked fruits, bred domestic animals and grew flex. They used dugout canoes (made of a tree trunk) for sailing, and the findings of copper skewers and moulds for pouring copper and bronze testify of the developed metallurgy. In the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, the lake gradually turned into the high marshes and the peat overgrew the remains of the crannog settlements.