I LOVE SLOVENIA
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| Lake Bled, from Bled Castle |
At the end of June, 1979, having travelled down the Dalmatian coast from Zadar to Dubrovnik, and then via Sarajevo and Zagreb by train, I arrived in Ljubljana. I noted in my diary that on the way, 'every little farm had a hay barn of wood with open sides and criss-crossed ends. There were hops and many other temperate plants. A far cry from the very Mediterranean vegetation of Dubrovnik. Acacia trees and mountain ash, sweet and horse chestnuts in flower, delphiniums, lupins, foxgloves, meadowsweet and even still poppies. A light grey-blue sky lit the picture in the narrow Sava valley, climbing, climbing, [Ljubljana sits at 300 metres above sea level] very fresh and very peaceful..... Then Ljubljana, an Austrian town in the Yugoslav mountains not far from Italy.'
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| Ljubljana, looking south from the Castle |
'Fading paintwork, dark entrances to courtyards, fairytale cobbles and flower laden garrets.....'
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| Sign of the times |
I remember wandering round and admiring the river Ljubljanica,
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| The river Ljubljanica |
I ate fresh fried sardines and drank white wine, and then after a night's rest had Ražnjići (Balkan skewers of grilled pork) with beer, bought a bottle of Šljivovica (Serbian plum brandy) before taking the 'cranky little electric train to Trieste.....'
Now, almost half a century later, I wander down by the Ljubljanica river again, but this time I am in Slovenia. A lot of history has passed with the flow of the river, and while the cobbles, the squares, and some of the buildings haven't changed,
The world is different. The city, now a Capital, has a population of 300,000, and, with all the offices associated with being a capital (as well as hosting an important university) and with property prices rocketing the daily commute and the tourist industry bring in hundreds of thousands more.
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| University students in Ljubljana |
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| The flags of Slovenia and Ljubljana above the Castle |
And find a brilliant presentation of the works of four Slovenian impressionists (Ivan Grohar, Matija Jama, Rihard Jakopič and Matej Sternen) with three-dimensional projections and selected ambient sound in the Casemate, the Castle’s largest hall.
These are days of poetry and wine:
So I take myself to Vinoteka Movia, where I drink Rebula, a crystalline golden yellow (aka orange) wine from Goriška Brda.
I don't want to give a false impression of contentment, but, briefly at least, with a couple of olives, I'm feeling OK. So much so that I wander off to to play my accordion....
I am on a brief 'Solo' holiday with Riviera Travel, and we have a brilliant tour manager (najlepša hvala, Agnes). Our first day is spent in Ljubljana, but on day two we visit Ptuj and Maribor in the East, near Hungary and Austria. We are reminded that Slovenia has only been the Republic of Slovenia since 1991, and that in its history it has been dominated by (amongst others) Romans, Hungarians, French, Austrians, Germans and Italians, and then was part of socialist Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito.
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| Sometimes you need to stop and think..... |
Ptuj is a pretty town on the Drava river. It is the oldest town in Slovenia and once had a population of over 40,000, though today it is half that.
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| Looking south across Ptuj and the Drava |
The Castle is a fine building founded in the 12th century, when the town was in the Archdiocese of Salzburg, though it was rebuilt during the baroque period. It is now a national museum, and contains furniture, paintings, arms and a collection of musical instruments to commemorate the town band.
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| Ptuj Castle reflected in the Drava |
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| A swallow reflected in the Drava |
Maribor is the second city of Slovenia, but it contained an armament industry for the Germans in WWII and so some 47% of it was destroyed by aerial bombardment.... It isn't a pretty place, though there is a lot to see, including an extremely large wine cellar and a memorial to the partisans which is now known, for hirsute reasons, as Kojak.
My eye is caught by a doppelgänger for our little cat Meadow (who passed away last summer):
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| I will do what I like..... |
But also by some enthusiastic graffiti (in English, for a change):
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| Assuming the Slovene sun speaks English, that is..... |
It is another reason to love the country. Everyone I meet is friendly and helpful and commands good English (which, as ever, puts anglocentric peoples to shame, as even thank you (Hvala) in Slovene sticks in the throat).
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| Yellow Archangel |
So, day three and we are taken to the Lipica stud farm, near the Italian border. Lipizzaners (the name derives from the linden (lime) trees (lipa in Slovene) that the Austrians liked and which they planted all around here when they founded the stud farm in the late sixteenth century).
It is an attractive spread, with docile horses, and meadows and training and swallows flitting in and out of the stables, and, just for us, the President of Slovenia (Nataša Pirc Musar) comes to join us, with her friend, the President of Algeria (Abdelmadjid Tebboune).
Nataša is a lawyer, and her rise to fame began, perhaps, when she was chosen to represent Melanija Knavs, who was born in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, but who became Melania Knauss Trump (whose statue is currently missing, believed melted down..... [Don't ask me! Ed])
Anyway here (somewhere behind the horses) is Nataša reviewing her troops at the stud farm:
Actually, though the horses are lovely, I am more taken by the Hirundinidae. House martins, here demonstrating a Nijinski-like sauté, are nesting above the shelter for those who wish to watch demonstrations of the mature horses.
But then, exhausted by the protocol, the sniffer dogs, the men in dark suits and dark glasses with bulges on their hips, we go on to recharge our batteries before the afternoon trip.
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| Agnes, Chris and Cathy in Piran |
Without so much as a raised eyebrow we pass through Italian and Slovenian borders on the way down to Piran, where the main square is named after the virtuoso violinist, Giuseppe Tartini (1692 - 1770), who was born in this town when it was a part of the Venetian Republic.
It is lovely to be by the Adriatic (risotto al nero di seppia and malvasia), and the Venetian style of the little town is great. I aim at swifts, who are far too fast and spirited to let me harm them, but we reach a speedy agreement, high above the Gulf of Trieste, and then we fly on.....
Far below the square seems empty:
But when I get there we are ready to go, Tartini or not.....
The last day of our trip is the icing on the cake. A bus ride up towards the north and west, where Lake Bled shimmers at 500 metres above sea level like a shy fawn amongst the forested mountains. The only island in Slovenia is about as picturesque as it gets:
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| Marko Pernhart, Bled, 1854 |
Not having Marko Pernhart's artistic eye I walk around the lake pointing and shooting, the brilliance of technology doing it all for me, whether from a high viewpoint:
Or from the lakeside.
With colourful youth as the 'punctum' that Roland Barthes identifies as the 'certain shock' within the 'studium' that make the 'unary photograph,' I feel I have something, but the rather flat light of a nebulous day does not sharpen the image.
So, having scrambled up to nigh 600 metres above sea level to Blejski Grad for the picture that heads this piece, I walk back around the lake, rain threatening, and wild flowers nodding at me:
The Castle is impressive, from any angle, especially when sighted against a mountainous background:
But, when all is dead and sons, I will take away this picture. Blejski Grad is there but insignificant against the cloudscape, which is itself less important than the grasses and the flowers that (almost) hide the lake and leap upwards toward the light.
Slovenia is a very green country. It is about a tenth the size of the UK, but only has approximately 2 million inhabitants, and it has about a quarter the density of people per square kilometre. Sixty per cent of the country is forested, and one third of the country's electricity is generated by hydro power.
Nowhere on this planet is without its difficulties, as, for better, for worse, we are all inter-dependent on each other, and Slovenia has problems with its economy, with immigration (it is on the migration highway from deprivation to aspiration) and with traffic (all the trucks from Eastern Europe to the West seem to take Slovenian routes). But, after a glimpse into the jade green waters of Lake Bled, and after the briefest encounter with the people of Slovenia, I can honestly say it is a lovely country. No other country in the world has LOVE in its name. Sometimes the truth is staring you in the face....
So, I return to Movia for a last sip of Slovenian wine, and the delightful girl there says she hopes I return in another forty years [Backhanded compliment? Ed] and then, en route to the airport, with ice cream mountains melting in the pavlova clouds, there is nothing else to think. Whoever put the LOVE into SLOVENIA wasn't entirely wrong....
[though I wish there was a bit more LOVE in some other countries..... Island of strangers, indeed!]
Na zdravje!
With thanks to Zelko and Agnes and all at Riviera Travel for introducing me to another world
