Terms and conditions

This website and the treks sold through it are operated by the business below. The details are published here because the Slovenian Electronic Commerce Market Act and Article 5 of the E-Commerce Directive require a service provider to be identifiable before you deal with it.

• Trading as: Andara, Queen of the Alps
• Email: info@andara.si

What you may do with it

Read it, print it, send it to the people you are thinking of walking with. That is what it is for and you need no permission from us.

What belongs to whom

The text, the route descriptions, the itinerary, the layout and the Andara name and mark are ours, and copying them onto another travel website is not on. The photographs of the Slovenian landscape are used under Wikimedia Commons licences and every one of them is credited at the foot of every page, with a link to its source and its licence. If you reuse one of those images you must follow its own licence, not ours.

Where the site is wrong

We write the itinerary from routes we have walked ourselves, and we keep it current. Even so: walking times, ascent figures and distances are estimates for a reasonably fit walker in good conditions, hut opening dates change, trails close after rockfall, and a page written in winter can be out of date by August. Nothing on this website is a guarantee of conditions on the ground. The binding description of your trek is the written itinerary we send you, not this site.

Links out

We link to Google Maps, to accommodation we like, to Wikimedia and to our own social profiles. We do not control any of them and we are not responsible for what they contain or what they do with your data once you are there.

Availability

We would like the site to be up all the time and it very nearly always is, but we do not promise it. If it is down when you want to write to us, info@andara.si still works.

Sending the form costs nothing and commits you to nothing. There is no deposit to ask a question and no card is requested anywhere on this site.

What you receive back is an offer: your dates, the huts we can actually hold, the transfers, and a full itemised price. An offer is not a booking. It is valid for the period stated on it, and hut availability in the Julian Alps in July can disappear inside a week, so an offer that has expired may not be repeatable at the same price.

The The Triglav Circuit combines accommodation, half board, luggage transfers and road transfers over 7 days. A combination of travel services of that kind is a package within the meaning of Directive (EU) 2015/2302 and the Slovenian consumer protection legislation that implements it. That gives you the full set of package traveller rights, and it puts a matching set of duties on us.

• You receive the standard information form for package travel contracts, and the essential terms in writing, before you are bound by anything.
• We are responsible for the proper performance of every service in the package, whether we deliver it ourselves or a hut, a driver or a guesthouse delivers it for us.
• You may transfer the booking to somebody else who meets the same conditions, on reasonable notice and against the actual transfer costs.
• The insolvency protection covering your payments is named in the written offer and confirmation you receive before you pay anything.

What is and is not in the price is set out on the trek page and, definitively, in your written itinerary. Travel to Slovenia, lunches, personal equipment, and travel and mountain rescue insurance are not included.

Every trek is priced on your dates and your group size, because hut rates and transfer costs move with both. The price you are quoted is the price for your group, in euros, and it includes all taxes and unavoidable charges.

The deposit, the date the balance falls due and the accepted payment methods are stated in full in the written offer, and again in the confirmation. Nothing is due until you have both in front of you and have said yes.

After the contract is concluded we may increase the price only for the reasons the package travel rules allow, which in practice means a change in the cost of fuel or transport, in taxes or fees charged by third parties, or in exchange rates. Any increase must be notified to you clearly and with justification at least 20 days before departure, and it may not exceed 8 per cent of the total price. If it does, you may accept it or withdraw without a penalty. The same right works in your favour: if those costs fall, you get the reduction back, less our actual administrative expense.

If you cancel

You may cancel at any time before departure. Because we pay the huts and the drivers in advance, a cancellation close to your start date costs real money, and a scale of cancellation charges applies to the total price.

The exact scale, by number of days before your start date, is set out in the written offer and repeated in the confirmation, so you know the cost of changing your mind before you commit to anything.

If unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances at the destination make the trek impossible or seriously affect it, you may cancel without paying any fee and you get a full refund of everything paid.

If we cancel or change something

We may have to change a hut for one of similar standard, or reroute a day, and small changes of that kind we simply tell you about. If we have to change something essential, you may accept the change, take a substitute of equivalent or higher quality, or withdraw and get everything back. If we cancel the trek ourselves you are refunded in full within 14 days, and you may have a further claim unless the cancellation was caused by unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances or by too few bookings where that was made clear in advance.

The 14-day right of withdrawal does not apply here

This is the part that matters most, and it is the reason the FAQ leads with it. Nobody walks with you. There is no guide setting the pace, reading the sky or deciding when to turn back. That decision is yours, every day, and by booking you accept it.

• Fitness and experience. The route is graded demanding. Days of 6 to 8 hours, long ascents and descents, narrow rocky trails inside the national park, and occasional stream crossings. You confirm that everyone in your group has previous multi-day hiking experience and is in a condition to walk it.
• Equipment. Proper boots, waterproof and warm layers, sun protection and a charged phone are not optional in the Julian Alps. We send a full list and we expect it to be taken seriously.
• Insurance. You must hold valid travel insurance that covers mountain rescue and helicopter evacuation in Slovenia, and medical treatment abroad. Rescue in the Julian Alps can be expensive and it is not covered by us. We may ask you to confirm this before departure.
• Judgement on the day. You follow marked trails, hut advice and the weather. If conditions turn, you turn with them. Our route notes describe the normal route in normal conditions; they do not override what you can see in front of you.
• Keeping us informed. Tell us before departure about anything medical that could matter on a mountain, and call us from the trail if your plan changes. We can only rearrange a hut we know about.
• The huts and the park. Hut rules, quiet hours and the rules of Triglav National Park apply to you as they do to everyone.

We are responsible for the services in your package being delivered as described: the beds being booked, the luggage being where it should be, the transfers arriving, the route notes being accurate. If something in the package is not delivered properly, tell us without undue delay and we will put it right. If we cannot, you are entitled to an appropriate price reduction and, where you suffered damage, to compensation, on the terms the package travel rules set out.

We are not responsible for the mountain. Weather, rockfall, trail closure, your own route choice, an injury from a slip, or a decision to press on when you should have stopped are the ordinary risks of alpine hiking, and choosing a self-guided trek means accepting them. Nor are we responsible for services you arrange yourself, such as your flights or your arrival and departure accommodation.

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our own negligence, for intent or gross negligence, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. Where a limitation is permitted and no international convention sets a lower one, our liability for damage other than personal injury is limited to three times the total price of the package.

Tell us on the trail, while it can still be fixed. A hut that got your booking wrong on Tuesday can often be sorted out by Tuesday evening, and almost never in October. Call the number you have for the whole week.

If something is still unresolved afterwards, write to info@andara.si. We answer every written complaint within 8 days, and we tell you within 30 days what we are doing about it.

Out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes. We are not currently bound by, and do not recognise, any provider of out-of-court consumer dispute resolution as competent for disputes arising from these terms. This is published here because Slovenian consumer law requires a trader to say so plainly. It does not affect your right to take a dispute to the competent court, or to contact the Market Inspectorate of the Republic of Slovenia.

• Governing law. Slovenian law applies. If you are a consumer resident in another EU country, you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer rules of your own country, and this clause takes nothing away from them.
• Courts. Disputes go to the competent court in Slovenia. A consumer may also sue, and may only be sued, in the courts of their own country of residence, as EU law provides.
• Language. These terms are written in English and the contract is concluded in English. A Slovenian version is available on request.
• Severability. If a court finds one clause invalid, the rest stays in force.
• Changes. We may update these terms. The version that applies to your trek is the one published when you booked, and we keep a copy of it with your itinerary.
• Your data. Handled as described in the privacy policy, which forms part of these terms.