The Ljubljana Marsh is a wide, flat plain of peat and wet meadow south of the city, drained since the eighteenth century by canals, and it hides one of the most interesting stories in European prehistory. Some five thousand years ago people built houses on stilts here, at the edge of lakes that have since vanished, and the remains of their villages lie preserved in the peat. The pile dwellings near Ig are part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, shared with five other countries.
The most famous find was made near Ig in 2002: a wooden wheel, together with its axle, dated to about 3150 BC, which makes it the oldest wooden wheel ever found. It is on display in the Ljubljana city museum, and the find started a lively debate about where the wheel was first invented. Archaeologists believe the wheel was part of a cart used by people who lived and farmed on the marsh, and that the lake edge was a place of busy trade.
Today the marsh is a landscape of reed beds, ditches, small birch woods and fields, and a haven for birds, including storks, lapwings and the elusive corncrake. The Gruber Canal, dug in the late eighteenth century to drain the marsh, still threads through the area. Morning mist often lies on the plain, with the dark hump of Krim mountain, over a thousand metres high, rising to the south. Ig is a modest village at its edge, with the Iški Vintgar gorge a short ride away for those who prefer cool rock and water to open fields.
Riding across the marsh is easy and flat, with long straight roads, cycle paths and the odd tractor, but the beauty here is in the light and the wide sky. Be careful on summer evenings, when mist and mosquitoes arrive together, and in winter fog can reduce visibility quickly. Weekends bring joggers, cyclists and families. Spring, with blossom and bird song, and autumn, with mist, are the best seasons. Fuel is available in Ig and Škofljica, and Ljubljana has every service, only a dozen kilometres away. The route then runs south to the Snežnik forest and the Dinaric plateaus, with the sort of long wooded climbs and empty roads that make Slovenia a rider's country.