Our latest field trip...

So, frequent readers of this blog have invariably noticed that updates have been sparse for the last little while, but I've got a good reason, I promise! Cori's 21st birthday was on August 20th, and I flew back to the states to celebrate with her, a few days earlier than my normal September trip. One thing led to another, broken air conditioner, replacing water main to the house, Buick breaking down on the side of I-40... honestly, the list could go on and on, but suffice it to say that my normal 3-4 week annual September trip to the states turned into 2 months.

Once I (finally) got back to Germany, the wife picked me up at the airport on Saturday, then I took her to the airport the next day for a week long conference back in the states.

She got back to town last Sunday, and on Wednesday we... did a thing.

I've told everyone that this blog isn't monetized... I don't get anything for y'all reading it, and that's not changing with this entry (or ever, to be honest). I do have to tell you that this blog entry was "sponsored" by a travel agency, 4 Nomads Travel.

Most of you know this, but for those of you who don't, my folks own the aforementioned travel agency. A while back, they booked (and prepaid) a non-refundable room in Ljubljana Slovenia, and due to scheduling issues, they weren't able to use it. They asked if we'd be able to use it, but unfortunately the dates wouldn't work out for us. They were, however, able to change the dates to where we were able to take advantage of it - we just had to get ourselves there, but it'd be much easier for us to go 450 miles on the ground than it would be for them to go 5,600 miles by air!

So... let's start this post by covering some general information:

What the heck is a Slovenia, anyway? I (for one) don't remember learning about it in school! Slovenia is a country in eastern Europe, situated right behind the "thigh" of Italy's boot. It borders Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and the Adriatic Sea. It's mostly mountainous, and highly forested - the third most forested country in the European Union.

To gloss over their history in a handful of sentences, they were parts of several different empires through most of their history until 1918, when they became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. They were annexed by (in turn) Italy, then Nazi Germany, before the country of Yugoslavia was created post WWII. In 1991/1992, Yugoslavia split into 6 different countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Of course, it's much more complicated than that (including being part of the Habsburg Empire from previous blog entries), but there it is, in a nutshell.

We'd heard a saying that Slovenia is a "Poor man's Switzerland," and that nickname seems quite apropos. The country is absolutely gorgeous, bordering on the Alps to the west, filled with forests and pastoral valleys.

Next up: Ljub...? Huh? Is that a real word?!? Yep. It's the capital of the country. Ljubljana. Pronounced Loo-bli-ahna. The city name was first mentioned in 1144, but archaeological evidence shows human settlement as far back as 2000BC... including the oldest existing example of a wooden wheel on an axle. Ljubljana's symbol is a dragon; there are some competing theories about its origin.

One theory (from Slavic legend) says that the slaying of a dragon releases the waters and ensures the fertility of the earth, and it is thought that the myth is tied to the Ljubljana Marsh.

A second theory comes from Greek legend, Jason and the Argonauts are returning home after having taken the Golden Fleece when they found a large lake surrounded by a marsh between the present-day towns of Vrhnika and Ljubljana. There Jason struck down a monster. Over the years, this monster evolved into the dragon.

The third theory is historically a bit more believable: That the dragon was adopted from Saint George, the patron of the Ljubljana Castle chapel built in the 15th century. In the legend of Saint George, the dragon represents the old ancestral paganism overcome by Christianity.

One way or the other, Ljubljana has really leaned in on the dragon being the symbol (almost mascot) of the city, with dragons being everywhere throughout the city, including on the city coat of arms and flag.

Wednesday, the wife was planning on getting out of work early, but got delayed by a couple of hours, so we got a later start than we were planning. Once she got off work, we drove to Munich and stayed in a cheap hotel, to break up the drive.

Thursday morning, we left the hotel and hit the road. A little past Salzburg, we encountered a picturesque castle looming over the valley. We had plenty of time to get to our destination, so we stopped to take a look. 

Hohenwerfen Castle is considered the "sister" of Hohensalzburg Fortress (in the nearby city of Salzburg), as they were both built during the 11th century by Gebhard, the Archbishop of Salzburg. The castle served as a military base, residence, and hunting retreat for the prince-archbishops of Salzburg, and was later used as a prison. During WWII, it served as a Nazi education camp, then as a training camp for Austrian police until 1989, before being turned into a museum. I encountered a specific note during my reading that had reference to it previously belonging to the House of Habsburg... because it's in Austria, and they seemed to have their fingers in a lot of pies in that part of the continent, so of course it did. While researching the castle, I also learned that Hohenwerfen was a featured location in the 1968 movie Where Eagles Dare, starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.

There was a room in the castle that was set up for a temporary art show. While we were there, it had gauze hanging from the ceiling, with drawings of uteruses on the walls. We joined a handful of tourists standing around with puzzled looks on our faces, pretending to contemplate the art.

After touring the castle, we got back on the road, and stopped for lunch on the road. It was a cafeteria style setup... the wife ended up paying €7.50 for a fountain soda - she specifically asked me to share that.

The city center of Ljubljana is pedestrian only, so we had some issues with parking. We followed the directions as near to the hotel as we could, but the closest we could get was a restricted parking lot. We ended up backtracking a bit and parking in (what turned out to be) resident only parking, on the side of a nearby street. We dragged our suitcases into the pedestrian area (only a block or so), and checked into the hotel.

The hotel was a boutique style hotel, right at the end of the pedestrian area. The room that my folks had reserved... let's talk about that for a moment.

With it just being the boss and me, all we really needed was a couple of beds and a bathroom. Lucky for us, that's what we got. Our room was a little weird: It was basically a hallway with a couple of bends in it, with 2 twin sized beds and a bathroom. The clerk offered to let us change rooms, and offered us the connecting room, but... the two rooms were part of a suite. Basically, one doorway off of the main hallway that opened into a little antechamber. From that antechamber, there were 3 doors (not counting the one to the main hallway): 1 to our room, 1 to the other room that he offered us, and 1 to their bathroom. The other room had a double bed, but no bathroom - you'd have to go out through the antechamber to get to your bathroom. Basically, it would have been a perfect setup for a family (or small group), as a single door could control access to two hotel rooms and two bathrooms. We didn't want to leave the room to go to the bathroom, so we chose not to switch.

From what I saw, the other rooms on our floor were all more traditional rooms, with larger beds and bathrooms inside the rooms. The hotel was quite nice overall, in a wonderful location for tourist activities. Parking was a little challenging, as you'll hear shortly.

After we got all checked in, I went back to move the car to a public parking lot, leaving the wife to carry our bags up to the room. Turns out, the clerk carried them up the stairs for her, poor guy! The parking lot was easy to find, but was a couple of blocks up the hill and across the river from the hotel. Found it, parked the car, and walked back.

We went out exploring, and ended up eating dinner at a local pizza restaurant that the clerk had recommended; quite good!

Friday morning, we started exploring the town in earnest. On our side of the river, there were two main pedestrian thoroughfares: the one we were staying at the end of, and the one along the river, running parallel to our "street." The street that we were staying on seemed to be mostly stores, and unfortunately, Friday was evidently a holiday for Slovenia (All Saint's Day), so about half of the stores were closed. We explored and wandered, and ended up toward the end of the main tourist area, at the foot of the city's castle... because there's always a castle in European towns and cities.

This castle is called (ironically enough) Ljubljana Castle - shocking, I know. The castle dates back to the 1100's, but the site of the castle has been continuously settled since around 1200BC. Throughout the years, it functioned as a garrison, was owned by one of the Habsburgs, and later was used as a prison. Part of the city's museum is there, so we toured through that area.

Couple of interesting things: there's a replica of the earliest wooden wheel in the world on display in the museum. The wheel is about 5,200 years old, and provides evidence that the wheel was invented almost simultaneously in Europe and Mesopotamia. Also, there's a cutting of a grape vine growing inside the castle that's part of the oldest grape vine in the world. The main vine is in Maribor (another city in Slovenia), and the cutting was planted at the castle for some unknown reason. Interestingly enough, the wine that the vine produces has been described as "virtually undrinkable."

After touring the castle, we stopped in a nearby square for a bite to eat at a local food truck, where the boss found this:

It was too late in the day to tour any other places on our list, so we spent the rest of the day exploring the town, stimulating the local economy as the urges struck us. Dinner was a light meal of nachos and drinks on the riverfront.

Saturday morning, we wandered around town for a little while, as I wanted to check out the local street markets. The big square at the center of town (at the foot of the castle) was filled with tables all covered with every imaginable type of fruit and vegetable. On one side of the square, there was a vending machine for milk that we missed seeing while wandering around the previous day.

We left the city late morning, and headed back toward home... just about 40 minutes up the road though. The boss had heard of a picturesque lake there, Lake Bled. Part of the Alps stretch into Slovenia, and Lake Bled is nestled up among them. The lake is about 7,000 feet long, and about 4,500 feet wide, with a church built on an island in the middle of the lake. 

Unfortunately, the boss wasn't the only one who'd heard of Lake Bled; I'm pretty sure half of the country went to the lake that day. It took us almost an hour to drive the 2 miles from the highway to the town, and once we got there, parking was an absolute nightmare. We ended up parking quite a ways from the water and walking down there.

By the time we'd explored along part of the waterfront, it was apparent that we wouldn't get a chance to visit the island, as the boarding area for the boats had no discernable organizational system, and the docks were jammed with tourists already. Instead, we wandered around the town and had a bite to eat. We stimulated the local economy there for a while, then headed back to town.

Dinner was at a wine bar that the hotel clerk had recommended; we each had a flight of 4 small glasses of Slovenian wines, and shared a charcuterie board with cheeses, sausage, and different cuts of meat. Evidently, "bear sausage" is a thing in Slovenia... it wasn't readily apparent by looking at the menu what the sausage was made of, and I didn't ask. I can tell you though, that it was a bit gamey for the wife's taste.

The wife went to a bar, as she wanted to try Slovenian beer while we were there. I wasn't interested, so I just went back to the room. Evidently, she made some friends there, she mentioned talking for a while with the bartender, and with one other patron who insisted on talking about American politics with her.

I went back to the restaurant later that night and asked the waiter, just so I could tell y'all if we'd had bear sausage. He said that there it was just normal sausage. He did give me a weird look though, so I'm guessing that the whole "bear sausage" thing is just something that they tell tourists - either that, or it's common knowledge that all of the sausage there contains bear, and he was afraid I'd yak on his shoes.

The next morning, we decided to get a bit of an earlier start for our next field trip. Unfortunately, on the way to the car, we encountered a flea market, and the boss just had to check out all of the old crap. Luckily, we didn't have much cash with us, so she wasn't able to buy anything. Once I dragged her away from the market, we drove about 40 minutes southwest (instead of the previous day's trip to the northwest) to visit a unique castle called Predjama grad.

First mention of the castle comes from writings from 1274, when the gothic style castle was constructed by the Patriarch of Aquileia, in nearby northeastern Italy. The castle was constructed in the mouth of a cave for protection. At some point, it was acquired by the Knights of Adelsberg, the royal family from nearby Postojna. They expanded the castle, and... stick with me, because here's where the story gets interesting.

The castle became known as the seat of the knight Erasmus of Lueg, lord of the castle in the 15th century. He was the son of the imperial governor of Trieste, Nikolaj Lueger. Erasmus came into conflict with the Habsburgs when he killed the commander of the imperial army, Marshall Pappenheim, who had offended the honor of Erasmus's deceased friend. 

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III was a relative of Pappenheim, and the first Habsburg to serve as Holy Roman Emperor. Erasmus started attacking Habsburg estates and towns in the area, repeatedly being chased back to Predjama Castle. Emperor Frederick III eventually tired of having his family's estates attacked, and sent the governor of Trieste to lay siege to the castle. The siege was largely ineffective, due to the castle's location inside a cave. The governor decided to starve Erasmus out of the castle, but had no success, as Erasmus would sneak out of the castle through the extensive cave system and bring supplies back into the castle. According to an unfounded legend, the castle only fell when Erasmus was betrayed by one of his men, and was shot by a single cannonball while he was in the privy.

Regardless of the veracity of the colorful stories, a very unique castle, in a gorgeous location.

After touring the castle, it was still quite early, so we decided to keep exploring, and ended up in Italy, in the port city of Trieste. We wandered (in the car) toward the waterfront, and got out and started exploring. We took a couple of wrong turns, and then found ourselves in the middle of a street festival, with all kinds of booths selling local foods and wares. We wandered around for a bit, then continued exploring. We walked through a section where people had set up tables to sell antiques, and the family collector ended up finding a little ceramic house that she couldn't live without. I've really gotta stop taking her past markets where they sell old stuff!

We both needed to eat, so we wandered through the streets looking for restaurants. We were exploring during the middle of the afternoon, so all of the restaurants were closed. We ended up back at the first market we'd encountered, and ate at the booths there.

During our wandering, we'd encountered a grocery store, and had wanted to buy some of the stuff that we really enjoyed when we lived in Rome, but we didn't want to carry it around with us, so we went back to the car and looked at the GPS for a grocery store on the way out of town. We plugged it into the GPS and started driving... only to encounter another store that we had to stop at before we left the port area. Turns out, there's an Eataly in Trieste!

Eataly is a specialized grocery store that carries all kinds of Italian products - we've enjoyed going in there wherever we've found one - Chicago, NYC, London. Turns out, it's just not that big a deal when you're actually in Italy. We were able (for the first time ever) to leave the store without buying anything!

We followed our GPS to a Eurospar... the markets we'd shopped at in Rome were from the same chain, but were called Despar. Turns out, Eurospar is the same chain, but lots bigger than a Despar. We bought entirely too much stuff at the grocery store, including specific flavors of drinks that I've been unable to find outside of Italy.

Another hour and a half in the car, and we were back in Ljubljana. I dropped the boss off at the little restricted parking area, then drove up the hill to park the car.

The next morning, we woke up and started driving pretty early; we'd only planned on splitting the drive in half on the way there, and the wife had to work the next day. We ended up getting home around 6:30 or 7:00. The drive was pretty though - we spent a few minutes looking at this alp from several different angles:

Some of our friends from Austin (who came over here to visit), the husband is an engineer. We frequently pass under a specific bridge when we drive south from Frankfurt, and this specific bridge has become known (to us) as "The Speck Bridge." It was exceptionally photogenic that evening...

We're coming up on Christmas Market season, and have a couple of sets of visitors coming to town... so watch this space!