Get confused between Slovenia and Slovakia? 
Don't worry, so does George W Bush.. he has been known to make comments about the wrong countries to their ministers. The answer is... Slovakia is south of Poland and split from the Czech Republic in the early 90s. Slovenia is a little powerhouse country between Italy, Croatia and Austria, looks like Austria quite a bit. These first pics are from its capital, Ljubljana. Yep, I spelled that right. The dragon is a dominant symbol in the town.... this shot is from the Dragon Bridge.My first full day here was a Sunday so I got to see the weekly flea swap... people take over tables lining the
river promenade and it makes for terrific people watching. The stuff was actually fun to see too. 
Here is an old fashioned iron.. you would put hot coals in it to iron. The scary thing is that when I was in Tanzania in 1998, I saw one of the camp guys ironing my underwear with a similar iron. Sad but true. And I was seriously tempted to buy those accordians.
Here is Saso, the gent who runs the wine tasting store, Enoteca, in downtown Ljubljana. The Pughs and Munshis recommended stopping here after a trip they took here last year and it was great ! Not only did I try some great Slovenian wine by the glass, but got to meet a couple from Portola Valley, CA.... the woman knows my doctor ....small world!
I try to climb stairs whenever possible... here are the stairs to the top of the clock tower on the castel hill.
Here is an old fashioned iron.. you would put hot coals in it to iron. The scary thing is that when I was in Tanzania in 1998, I saw one of the camp guys ironing my underwear with a similar iron. Sad but true. And I was seriously tempted to buy those accordians.
Here is Saso, the gent who runs the wine tasting store, Enoteca, in downtown Ljubljana. The Pughs and Munshis recommended stopping here after a trip they took here last year and it was great ! Not only did I try some great Slovenian wine by the glass, but got to meet a couple from Portola Valley, CA.... the woman knows my doctor ....small world!
I try to climb stairs whenever possible... here are the stairs to the top of the clock tower on the castel hill.
After a day in the city , I rented a car and drove north to the Julian Alps, the northwest corner of Slovenia.. its where the Alps end bordering Italy and Austria , and is named for Julius Caesar. The first stop was Lake Bled, famous for the monestary sitting in the middle of the lake. I walked around the lake (about 3 miles) and heard the bells of the monestary ringing the whole time... later I read that its considered lucky to ring the bell if you take a boat out to the island and climb 100 stairs to the bell tower.
The boats are very charming... the story goes that a town was granted exclusively rights by Maria Teresa when she owned the world to provide boat connections around the lake. Here is a guy trying to flag me down for a 10 Euro ride to the island.
The boats are very charming... the story goes that a town was granted exclusively rights by Maria Teresa when she owned the world to provide boat connections around the lake. Here is a guy trying to flag me down for a 10 Euro ride to the island.
Of course I found a Golden walking around the lake... what , you think I am an amateur at Golden Retriever stalking? Marshall Tito,the soli
cialist leader of Yugoslavia (with Truman's blessing, since he was Communism-Lite and was a great buffer to the USSR), took over a former royal palace on Lake Bled and used it for a retreat, including to host folks like world leaders. I had lunch on the patio - its now a fancy pants hotel. I ducked upstairs to use their internet and found this groovy painting.
The next day dawned really rainy... thunderstorms actually.... which was a bummer since I was heading up and over a mountain pass that has 50 switchbacks and stunning views of the mountains. The bad weather turned out to be good, though, in that I had few fellow tourists and got to slow down and spend time with my fellow sheep as they wandered up the windy road. Here is my bud, Curly.
It finally cleared after I passed the summit.... made for some amazing views of the Alps.
The sun was just poking through on this picture.
This area of Slovenia has been a watershed for 1000 years... the latest being WWI and WWII. If you turn your head to the left, you can see metal ladder rungs bolted into the hill... this was across from a fort used to keep Turks out 500 years ago, and Italians out in 1915.
This beautiful valley was the scene of carnage 1915 and 1916. The German and Italian troops had battlelines up on the top of these ridges... nerve gas, trench warfare and brutal winter conditions. General Rommel of Germany cut his teeth here - he used a Blitzkrieg method of overwhelming the Italians that helped turn the favor towards Germany after a 2 year standoff... and he used it at the beginning of WWII.
cialist leader of Yugoslavia (with Truman's blessing, since he was Communism-Lite and was a great buffer to the USSR), took over a former royal palace on Lake Bled and used it for a retreat, including to host folks like world leaders. I had lunch on the patio - its now a fancy pants hotel. I ducked upstairs to use their internet and found this groovy painting.
The next day dawned really rainy... thunderstorms actually.... which was a bummer since I was heading up and over a mountain pass that has 50 switchbacks and stunning views of the mountains. The bad weather turned out to be good, though, in that I had few fellow tourists and got to slow down and spend time with my fellow sheep as they wandered up the windy road. Here is my bud, Curly.
It finally cleared after I passed the summit.... made for some amazing views of the Alps.
The sun was just poking through on this picture.
This area of Slovenia has been a watershed for 1000 years... the latest being WWI and WWII. If you turn your head to the left, you can see metal ladder rungs bolted into the hill... this was across from a fort used to keep Turks out 500 years ago, and Italians out in 1915.
This beautiful valley was the scene of carnage 1915 and 1916. The German and Italian troops had battlelines up on the top of these ridges... nerve gas, trench warfare and brutal winter conditions. General Rommel of Germany cut his teeth here - he used a Blitzkrieg method of overwhelming the Italians that helped turn the favor towards Germany after a 2 year standoff... and he used it at the beginning of WWII.
2 comments:
so that's how our undies got crease-free in the middle of the savanna!
orange pants? I will have a look this afternoon, but here in Mallorca is not very common... your pics bring me nice souvenirs from Ljubljana, where I studied for 2 months!
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