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Slovenia / Italy: Hike & Fly - Sabotin

One of this year's plan is to put some new stamps into my hike & fly book. One of the peaks, you need to conquer is Sabotin and today's goal was set. Nada, Rok and me drove to Solkan, from where we hiked past "Tito" sign and church of Saint Valentin to the summit of Sabotin. We admired the view and looked into some bunkers from WW1. After a while we moved to the take off site, from where Rok and me flew back down. I landed in Gorica in Italy, while Rok landed in Nova Gorica in Slovenia. Sounds far, but we were only 500 meters apart, so I just walked back to my home country. We waited for Nada in the nearby bar. Since we had some time left, we decided to do a small detour. That small detour ended with driving over Trnovo Forest Plateau and our 15 extra minute side trip produced a 60 minute delay back home.

It is believed that the hill was named Samotin by the Slavs when they arrived to this territory some thirteen hundred years ago. The name, which comes from a Slovene word sam, meaning lonely, alone, was given to the hill because the Soča river separates the Sabotin hill from other hills in the Trnovo plateau.

We took the Southern route.

 

Hike with heavy backpacks.

Easy trail to the top.

Selfie time.

View to the Soča valley over "TITO" sign, that was made in 1978 in honour to Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito. The sign changed a lot during the ages, from "NAŠ TITO", "SLO", "NAŠ FIDO", "NAŠ TIGR", "VSTAJA", "THC",...

 

From church of Saint Valentin we had a good view to Sveta Gora (Holy Mountain) and the Basilica of the Assumption of Mary.

Towards the hilltop.

Remains of World War 1 and Sixth Battle of the Isonzo.

Towards the take-off site.

That's it. Time to prepare the gliders.

 

I went first.

Successful launch.

Above "The Emerald Beauty".

 

Rok followed me.

 

Flying on the border between Italy and Slovenia.

I landed in Italy, while Rok set foot in Slovenia.

Solkan - Sabotin - Gorica

After landing I had to walk back to Slovenia.

 

On our way back home we did a "short" detour through forest Trnovski gozd.

GeoCaches found:
- Sabotin - Sv. Valentin, GC26QF8
- Pot na Sabotin, GC4YRXV, where I dropped off trackable item "Salzburger’s toothbrush", TB6R4Z4 and took "Pavlina's Turbo Island Hooper", TB7CBP2