Here’s an 18th century church …

… that replaced an older church inside a 16th century tabor, a fortified place used as a refugium during the Ottoman incursions …

… that was made from the remains of a 14th century castle …

… that was built on the foundations of a 4th century Roman fortification …

… that was built through a 6th century BC Iron Age hillfort.

Quite a puffed pastry of the past, huh?
This place is in the very remote part of the very remote Bloke plateau, some 25 km south of Ljubljana as the crow flies, but a good hour’s drive from the capital, as the place is, well, remote.

Bloke plateau is vast, wild, sparsely populated, and magnificent. Undulating between 700 and 800 meters above the sea it is a forest fort of all kinds of wildlife, including the “big 4” of Slovenia: the bear, the wolf, the lynx, and the red deer. The villages are small and far between; people are leaving as apart from catering to those rare visitors that appreciate the pristine nature and the wild remoteness, there is not much to do here.

But it wasn’t always like that.
During the Bronze and Iron Age more than 15 of so-called “hillforts” were constructed on the hills of Bloke plateau, and some important trade routes were crossing the area, going from the Adriatic sea to the Alps and on to the plains of Central Europe. One of those hillforts – more a settlement than a fort – was constructed on a hill now called Nadliški hrib; an upper “acropolis” on the Nadliški hill proper, and a lower town on the Reber hill, surrounded by two connected defensive walls.

We don’t know much about it.
Then the Romans came, beat the local Illyrian tribes into submission, and incorporated the area into the Empire. The Romans took different routes and settled in more pleasant places, so Bloke plateau was a bit forgotten until the tumultuous 3rd and 4th century AD, when the Romans built a huge system of fortifications, called Claustra Alpium Iuliarum, the great barrier of the Julian Alps, meant to stop the intruding barbarian hordes and protect the Empire.

A Roman fort was erected on the remnants of the Iron Age hillfort on Nadlišek hill, as a part of the Claustra Alpium Iuliarum walls and forts going all the way from Tarsatica (Rijeka) on the Adriatic sea up to Bloke plateau and across to Nauportus (Vrhnika) and Castra (Ajdovščina).
But alas, the fort and the whole Claustra couldn’t stop the invasions. The Goths, the Avars, the Lombards, and the Slavs descended on the Empire, destroyed pretty much everything in their path, and – at least the Slavs – settled the area around the plateau.

Bloke plateau was pretty much deserted since – though surely a Late Antique refugium or two of the local Roman population managing to escape the newcomers would be found here if we look carefully – until the 12th and 13th century not much had happened here.
Bloke then became a part of the fiefdom of the Patriarchy of Aquileia, and in 1260 the Patriarch Georgio di Montelongo gave a substantial piece of forested land on the plateau to his loyal vassal, Herbard von Auersperg. He saw that atop on a certain hill now in his hands there were old, crumbling walls – so he thought that if the ancestors fortified this hill, he should too. Respect the old wisdom. And thus Castle Nadlišek was built right there on the top of the Roman and earlier Iron Age system of defense.

At first Nadlišek was a simple fort, then expanded a bit in the 14th century – probably the motte-and-bailex tipe, with a keep on the top of the hill – but it was never intended to be a huge fortress, as the place was rather far from the beaten paths and well protected by Nature itself.
But then the turbaned Turks began intruding into the soft belly of Europe, and the vanguard Ottoman irregulars were threatening the villages of Bloke plateau. In 1546 they managed to sack the Nadlišek castle and prompted the Auerspergs to rebuild the castle into a tabor, a large fort meant to withstand the onslaught and protect the people who took refuge in it.

Tabor was already in ruins at the time the book was published. The steepness of the hill is a bit exagerrated.
Tabor Zvezda – the Star – proved to be impenetrable. The Ottomans couldn’t breach the defences and Zvezda became quite famous for that. But it was for the larger geopolitical events that finally put an end to the incursions; the Ottomans settled for their conquests in Bosnia and let go of the idea to bring the Habsburg empire to its knees, and yet again Bloke slid into obscurity.

Tabor on Nadlišek hill was abandoned. There was no need to keep and maintain this huge, expensive castle in a remote place, so the Auerspergs left it to crumble, building a smaller and much more comfortable hunting lodge Ney Nadlischek, the New Nadlišček castle. The original Nadlišček castle disappeared, and in the late 17th century only the church was left standing among the ruined walls.


This church, dedicated to St. Urh – Saint Ullrich of Augsburg – was also old and crumbling, so the good people of Bloke came together and in the 18th century built a new church in a rather typical “baroque” style.
This church is still here, on the top of Nadliški hill, the final layer of the puff pastry of history from the Iron Age to the Roman Empire to the Migration Period to the Patriarchy of Aquileia to the Auersperg fief to the Ottoman incursions to the present day.


The kite aerial photography session on the top of Nadlišek hill was, as expected, quite dramatic. The turbulences around and above the prominent peak were tough, but we managed to steer the kites away from the trees and the church itself.

And we got our kites with our kites 🙂



Kite aerial photos shot with Insta 360 on Cindy delta kite, and with Nikon P330 on The Original Blue rokkaku kite, both made by master kitemaker Janez of Dr.Agon kites.
And the Insta was slowly and valiantly rotating on a brand new AutoKAP picavet, also made by Janez!










Wonderful story and kite flying in challenging mountain conditions.
Well done!
Keep the stories coming!
WW
Thanks, WindWatcher! 🙂
Thanks, WindWatcher! 🙂
Brillant again!
Thank you, Wolfgang! 🙂