When @darth.gizmo told me he can't go to hiking because of Australian Open tennis finals, I was like WTF?! Seriously?! I am not keen on going alone in the winter so i already thought that I'll be at home for the entire day and already planed some house works to do in the morning and maybe watch some tennis. I've got an short hiking surprise invitation in the morning from another friend but, I just got out of bed, so i kindly declined that. I've done my work quickly and while watching tennis i checked the weather outside. It was still cloudy and fog everywhere. It was supposed to be a bit nicer, but in Ljubljana we are used to fog in winter time. I still had this feeling, that our closest mountain could be just above the clouds. I've checked the live camera and i was right. Just above the fog. I decided to at least go to Šmarna gora after lunch and after asking @darth.gizmo, he said he'll come along.

It's only 10 minutes drive from Ljubljana to the starting point. We took physically the hardest route, and less crowded that leads to Šmarna gora through Grmada. It's called Westrova and it's a good exercise route to get your heart rate up :) It was still foggy and a bit cold at the beginning, but just few meters below the top, we had a great opportunity to get above the fog. The view was spectacular. We were completely speechless. Well ... I don't count woooOOoOow and oooOOooOoo as speaking =) It was worth every drop of sweat to get to the top. A sea of fog on the one side with a couple of hills pointing out and a sea of fog on the other side with our beautiful Alps shining in the last sun rays.

The only place you can witness such a view (except mountains) is an airplane. And this is much cheaper :)

I sat down for couple of minutes and just observed. Speechless ... Amazing

Couple of branches are disturbing the view from Grmada towards the Kamnik Savinja Alps

We knew that it's getting late and we wanted to reach Šmarna gora before sunset. To get some clear view of the Alps and to not get back in complete dark. Even tho we had our headlamps in backpacks. Šmarna gora with it's walls and church looks really lovely from Grmada. There are hundreds of visitors of Šmarna gora and only few of them goes through Grmada. It's a shame, to not see this beauty and luck for us, since it's not that crowded as routes to Šmarna gora. After all it's one of the most if not the most visited route in Slovenia. Proximity of our capital city Ljubljana makes it really popular.

Looks a bit like castle but it's only a church

From Grmada, you descend for a few minutes to reach the main path towards Šmarna gora. I call it "the highway" because it's wide and usually quite busy. From there it's a 10 min climb to get to the church and restaurant (opened every day from dusk till dawn. Just kidding it's the other way around. From dawn till dusk. Don't worry ... nothing spooky happening on Šmarna gora at night. It's actually popular for night hikes as well, but you need to bring your headlamp and the restaurant at the top is closed. But you can meet few people almost every time of the night.

We were just in time, to see some last sunny mountain tops.

Few known mountains on the photos: Storžič (far left alone with pointy top). Jezerska kočna (left) and Grintavec (just next to it with "clean" snowy top) in the middle. A bit in front and to the right you can see slopes of one of the most famous ski resorts in Slovenia - Krvavec. Mountains following are Brana and after the saddle you can see Planjava and Ojstrica (Hint: Click on the photo to get it bigger)

The moon was already up, and it was time to get back to the car

Around the church we got last view of the day. An orange sunset just above Grmada (we were there just a bit earlier).

...

And as always. We rang the bell 3 times for our wishes to come true :)

Ding Dong Ding xD

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!! Enjoy your hiking and stay safe !!