From Idrija, the road curves northeast for two and a half hours, through forests, ridges, and valleys, before reaching Karawanken / Karavanke Geopark. No signs mark the border. Just a soft shift in rooflines, in language, in the tilt of the land. The rock here is nearly 500 million years old, remnants of the vanished Tethys Ocean. In Mežica, I was given a helmet and a headlamp, then lowered into the mine with a bicycle. We rode underground for miles, tires crunching gravel, light glancing off walls veined with lead, zinc, and wulfenite. Later, in Petzen, I paddled through flooded tunnels, water, stone, breath. Above, the villages feel stitched between worlds. A farmer sold me dried pears and elderflower syrup. “From both slopes,” he smiled. At Obir, stalactites hung like frozen bells. The cave held a mineral hush, not silence, but something older, condensed in stone. In a kitchen black with smoke, a woman served jota, turnip with beans and sausage. Her son hummed in Carinthian dialect. She stitched wool slippers by firelight. No borders. Just gestures. And warmth, held deep in the rock.