A Walk To The Black Fields And Back

Lately, I've only been wandering around my hometown.
It was a sunny Sunday again and time for a short walk in the woods and surroundings.

I went to the Black Fields, a popular place for a hike. You can get up there by car, but I walked up a rather steep path, which is only a couple of kilometers long.

First, I pass Gradina, which is what the locals call the remains of a former castle. In the sources the castle is mentioned in the 13th century, when it was the residence of the lords of Bistrica, later it was the property of the Counts of Devin, and in the 14th century, it came under the Auersperge.

In the 17th century, the inhabitants used the castle for storage and shelter. The last known picture of the castle was depicted by Janez Vajkard Valvasor in his voluminous book Glory of the Duchy of Carniola.

source

Well, there's not much left of the luxurious castle now, apart from one wall.

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Compared to the 17th-century picture, it is now completely overgrown, whereas when the castle stood here the land was bare.
Atos and I continue along the path into the forest.

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Finally, some spring flowers. Common primrose and large blue hepatica.

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The track is still sloping uphill, and it's even more densely overgrown.
I heard? read? somewhere that this track is over 2000 years old because it leads to a hillfort called Trnovska Necropolis. As they discovered, there was a mound almost 1000 meters long, they found wooden remains of beams and over 200 graves with urns.
Finds of ceramic pottery, bronze, and iron objects dating back to the period between the 8th and 5th centuries BC, the earlier Iron Age.

Only the steep trackway is visible now.

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Finally, the forest has started to thin and we are approaching the plateau of Black Fields.

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Before that, I will stop by the beehive, which is located nearby. It's owned by an acquaintance of mine, a beekeeper.

As you can see it's a high-tech beehive :) 😁
It's fenced with wire. Why? There are quite a lot of bears here in the Snežnik forests.
Bears love honey and this beehive has been their prey many times. So the owner has put up some solar panels and fenced it off with electric wire so that now the bears leave it alone.