Escape to Europe: Slovenia in Autumn Colours

The most photographed tree in Slovenia stands alone on the shore of Lake Bohinj, a single common beech that has watched over the water for longer than anyone can say with certainty. For eleven months of the year it is simply a tree. In October it becomes something closer to an event, its canopy turning the deep orange that draws photographers down from Bled specifically to stand in front of it, waiting for the exact hour when the low sun sets the whole lake on fire behind it.

That single tree is, in miniature, the case for visiting Slovenia in autumn at all. This is a small country, barely the size of a modest American county, and yet it holds an entire season's worth of colour compressed into a landscape you can cross by car between breakfast and dinner. Lakes, gorges, vineyards and high mountain passes turn gold and copper within an hour's drive of one another, and for most of October, almost nobody is there to watch it happen.

Where the colour actually starts