Where monsters lurked (a Slovenia travelogue, Maribor, July 2019)

After the wonders of Ptuj, we decided to spend our last night in Slovenia in Maribor. When we’d been doing research, A— found this place called the Vinag. The name conjured all sorts of associations for me, likely 9% of them uncouth and wrong, but in the end it is a wine cellar. And when we say wine cellar, what we really mean is a sprawling affair, which occupies tunnels carved into the bedrock beneath the city and extending out into the countryside.

We got back to Maribor with time to spare for the very last tour. So we decided to see yet another royal residence while we were waiting.

The Maribor regional museum, much like the Korant Carnival display at the castle in Ptuj, was unexpectedly delightful. Well-curated, it housed artifacts going back past Roman times.

• 

• 

To put the findings into context, they’d created this lovely display, which anchored artifacts in a global context, connecting these treasures with peoples and events of which almost everyone passing through would have at least a passing knowledge. It was the first time I had seen this device, and loved it instantly.

Among the simply adorned pottery and bronze pieces was a life size diorama of were life size dioramas of what dwellings in a settlement would have looked like in ancient times. Able to walk through it, a guest can experience a typical one room dwelling / work space, which would have dominated settlements of the age.

We were the only ones in the museum, and once we transitioned out of the display part of the collection, and into the castle, which was really more of a palace, our constant shadow, a nice cute museum attendant, began giving us a proper tour.

The building had all the trappings of what one might associate with a castle-palace, but two things stood out to me during the experience among the rest: the weapons room and where Hitler had roamed the halls.

I’ve lived in Italy where, all around, remnants, memories, tales and evidence of World War II are abundant. I’ve been to other plazas, and other palaces where mad men strutted and surveyed their newly claimed territory and people. But here was somehow more incongruous. I remember walking through Maribor’s elaborated adorned corridor to a grand central staircase, wide enough to park a school bus. Everywhere gilded ornaments and fixtures glowed, and the walls a soft pink. And war and violence and murder had dwelled here. 

Pretty things are, of course, not protected from such ugliness. Wealth, appearance and prestige ultimately don’t bear any special cloaks or mantles. No special dispensations. They are just as vulnerable as everything else.

So it shouldn’t been such an uncomfortable juxtaposition, but it still made me pause and reflect in a space that, despite the craftsmanship and opulence, I would have not thought about twice. 

ASIDE: such spaces make me uncomfortable. My utilitarian heart has a hard time with egregious displays of wealth and power. I often wonder at what cost this grandeur comes. It highlights the layers of economic hierarchy and lays value on the owners and occupants of rich beautiful and expensive places over the dwellings in which the majority reside, and everything in between and the outliers. But this is one telling. Life, I know, is more complicated than that.

We were spat out back where we began. We had just enough time to get back to the starting point for Vinag, which would continue, at one barricaded door in the tangle of tunnels, the tale of WWII.

Author’s note: Apologies for the lack of photographs. I obsessed over the pottery, then explored the rest of the museum feeling too awkward to take photos. With the attendant constantly watching us, I also had this feeling that maybe it was disrespectful in that moment.

Ptuj: a journey to medieval times (a Slovenia travelogue, July 2019)

After a delicious breakfast prepared by Andrea, which included homemade pumpernickel bread and eggs from their chickens, R— and I took off for the fabled town of Ptuj. According to the guidebook, Ptuj is the quintessence of a medieval town in Eastern Europe. Strategically located along the Drava River, it started as a settlement along an ancient trade route. Inhabited by Stone Age Baltic tribes, it was later settled by the Celts, and of course Rome took interest at the turn of the millennium.  Ptuj developed over years of various rulerships, and was subjected to marauding architectural styles.

We arrived fairly early in the day, when the town was still quiet and many of the shops were closed, save for the coffee shops near the town tower and the Orpheus monument. 

Driving into the historic center is restricted, so we parked in a car park just outside the walls. After speaking with the one person who spoke a little English in the office building next to the parking lot, we were assured that we were parked in the right place and did the right thing to pay. Worries aside, we were ready for a medieval adventure. 

We trudged up the hill, and through some massive public works projects ongoing to put in drainage to the ancient streets, which probably also accompanied electrical upgrades and whatnot, we final gained entrance to the town.

We wandered through the empty streets, past the church with the pink walls interrupted by a delicate white relief, and winded our way up to the castle. Finally, Slovenia had beaten us, broken us down to get past our castle reserve. We were ready to step within the castle walls.

You study these things in grade school, but to be at that elevated position, and have unfettered views of the valley before you, one can appreciate the strategic importance of the position. 

Instead of cobbles, it seems that baby boulders lined the path. Slick with time and the passage of feet, it reminded me of the roughness of the trails in the Julian Alps. 

Upon entering through a rather wide entrance through a wall that was roughly, upon distant reflection, six feet thick, we were confronted with an amalgam. We had only gained entrance to the outer wall.  There was still the inner wall to wander around, and through which to find entrance to the castle itself. This outer wall had, in one section, a hodge-podge of architectural artifacts from other inhabitants of the strategic post, include a piece of Roman marble. It always gives me pause to see these things. It is not uncommon for the newer inhabitants of a place to reuse the materials of the previous dwellers. Sometimes it’s a matter of convenience; sometimes it’s an egregious display of dominance. This instance seemed to be more of a nod to the past. The pieces carefully chosen and placed. If I were a romantic, I would think it’s a sign of respect.

The castle itself is a rambling disjointed affair constructed over different stylistic periods, and culminating in a U-shape structure with a courtyard in the middle. Several outbuilding dotted the property. In one of them, we found a most excellent display of costumes used during carnival season.

These costumes made me think of my boyfriend immediately. Placards in Slovenian and in English explained the symbolism behind each costume. There are the fairies and the bear. There is the devil and the cockerel. The costumes harken back to ancient Slavic pagan rites of Spring, celebrations of fertility channeled from a far away past. I loved that section of the castle, and the fact that the curators had devoted so much time and space to developing that display.

Meanwhile, all of the light stone of the castle was busy radiating heat as the day wore on. Soon, we were covered with sweat, and needed to pause at the cafe to cool down.

The limited offerings included wine, champagne, and, of course, gin and tonics.

There is something delicious about having a cocktail at 11 in the morning, sitting beneath an umbrella, and soaking in the radiating heat of the day as a tepid breeze stirs every so often, and that is literally the only thing you have to worry about in that moment. There is no place to go. There is no schedule, to which you need to adhere. It is simple bliss.

After this lovely pause, we roamed the castle proper, strolled through the rooms, bore witness to some other life at some other time. Every so often we would pop out of a suite of rooms to a balcony, and once again be confronted with the heat of the day, and the visit reaching far enough into the distance such that the land blended in with the sky in a grey haze.

We were glad to have visited Ptuj. It was remarkably quiet, and while there were other non-natives there (my code for tourists), we felt as if we had the place to ourselves. It was the perfect balance of being and doing.

storm over maribor (a Slovenia travelogue)

R— drove us out of the city, and onto the highway in the direction of Maribor. By the time we arrived, it was the late afternoon, and clouds had condensed in the sky, sooty black and full of rain and violence.  

I love a good rainstorm. We don’t get much in the way of thunder and lightening in San Diego, so whenever I have the opportunity to experience cracks and low rumbles of thunder, and the sudden flash of lightening cutting through the sky, I am pure delight.

It is even more magical when you’re in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, in a deserted plaza, with some food and a craft gin and tonic in front of you.

Just in the distance, there is a monument to the people who lost their lives in the plague. The monument is newer, from the late 1700’s, but the wound is from 100 years before that. The buildings have at least a hundred years of patina on them. The hand-cut stone blocks lining the plaza are empty, except for a few passersby and a homeless man. 

The sky darkens further, blooms like a bruise. R— and I decided maybe we should find where we were staying for the night. A small farmhouse, which is outside of the city.

Of course, the sky began to wail just as we were trying to find our way to an out of the way place. Literally over the river and through the woods. Back on a narrow road carved into a swell of hill, away from well lit and civilized places, leaves spindled from trees and came down on the road and the car almost in equal proportions to the rain. Doubt trickled into our hearts. A house out in the middle of narrow, dark and stormy night, in the forest. It could be the beginnings of a harrowing tale. 

After passing through the arch of trees made angry by the storm, and making two sharp turns we had arrived. It was dark so the manner of the house was impossible to tell. Was it well-kept, or the kind of place bodies could disappear? Or both?

The husband met us, showed us to our room and explained the house rules. He and his wife were trying to build a sustainable farm, as close to being off the grid as possible.

At night, in the quiet of the house and the onslaught of the storm, it was not that comfortable. We even questioned staying, but the next morning, it was charming and inspiring.

Impressions of Ljubljana (a Slovenia travelogue, July 2019)

Ljubjana is part pearl and part dirty sea monster. It has beautiful neoclasisical architecture, cobbled streets and bridges arching, like body builders, solid and strong, over the waters of the Ljubljanica River, which meanders through the city. The historic city center is closed to cars; only bicycles and pedestrians roam there, with some minor exceptions.  

We parked the rental in a hotel just outside of the pedestrian area and shlupped our bags and sweaty selves to our hotel in the heart of the historic area. They had a shuttle available, but going on foot was a way to dip our proverbial toes into the environs and get a taste for the energy of the city. 

The lauded castle, which everyone insisted we visit, remained unseen by us. For one reason or another we were 100% resistant to going. We spent our time walking and admiring the buildings, markets and graffiti, which covered a surprising amount of the city. 

There were gobs of graffiti in half forgotten corners, behind all of the history and elegance, up the hill overlooking the city where the retaining walls were slowly giving way to gravity. The scaffolding orchestrated over the stairs leading up the hill was in a state of decay such that the planks were slick and soft, blanketed in green. It wasn’t inconceivable that one day the whole thing might collapse, hill and all. 

The graffiti was just as abundant in the more polished areas. Stencils, flyers applied with flour paste, thick black lines-garish and vibrant-against the lighter backdrop of the building. 

We strolled into shops, looking for gifts for our loved ones that wouldn’t break our backs to carry as we continued our way across the country. 

There was particular care in Slovenia for the little ones. There were many children’s stores, and many of those stores carried Waldorf toys. These bobbles were crafted from natural materials, like wood, hand-dyed organic fabrics, or leather. 

We stumbled into one store, which spent most of its time as a school. All the wears for sale were created by the special education students, and the proceeds went to support the school. They provided vocational classes to the kids to teach skills like wood working, textile crafting, and graphic arts. We loved the story and the concept. It was so beautiful to see such support and enablement. 

Just as lovely were the random conversations we had in the arts and crafts market, which was conducted strictly outside. Semi-permenant tables, some of them covered with a little roof, wagon-like, lined one of the exterior walls of the inside market, and also lined up under the arcade on the opposite side of the street. Made in China items were few. My favorite conversation happened with an illustrator, who talked about growing up in nearby Maribor, about the cost of living and about horror films.

It was soon time to leave Ljubljana. We only spent one night there, barely 24 hours. It’s hard to know a city in that amount of time. Instead, you are left with impressions. I prefer the style of travel where you settle into a place for a little longer, but still, I was grateful to have visited the beautiful little capital. I was also ready for the next part of our adventure, which resided in the north eastern part of Slovenia.

Lbubljana post script
Oh, yes. And the best gelato.

when the end (A Slovenia travelogue, July 2019)

Over the course of three days, R— and I hiked over 30 miles, got lost once and had a greater combined elevation gain than I experienced hiking Mount Whitney. Even though we had huts to stay in each of the nights, a warm meal guaranteed for us, a certain destination, even though we had all of these things combined with the gorgeous landscape filled with turquoise and black sapphire pools of glacial water, shaggy pines, and wild flowers so colorful rainbows are pale ghosts in comparison, I was knackered.

We slogged down the slope, crisscrossing the cable car, which supplies the last lodge we stayed at, as the trail descended. Lake Bohinj loomed closer and closer, until our adventure in the mountains seemed so distant as to be tucked behind a door. Forgotten in a closet. 

anticipating the descent

Despite the growing fatigue, we did decide to stop at the Savica Slap. Savica is a mythical waterfall that tumbles into a turquoise pool of water. Legends say that the heartsick can bath in its waters and forget the loves that poisoned their hearts. Just kidding. I’m sure there are tons of legends about the waterfall, and it was pretty, but to us it was a place mobbed by other tourists vying for an exclusive view of the waters around all the other stupid heads in their way. People weren’t shy about pushing others out of the way to get to the gate, which locks away the waterfall from the prying destructive hands of man.

• 

• 

the romantic view and what it really looks like

It was a threshold in many ways. Between the worlds of the nature trails, sparsely populated, and that of the many, occupied by machines and machinations, roadways, electricity, WiFi, and all the other trappings we embrace day by day. So, it was at Savica Slap that we said goodbye to the mountains and landscape of the Julian Alps, and descended into lands populated by people and cars and cell phones.

It was a gentle reentry, since Lake Bohinj itself is another sort of paradise.

My feet ached as we trekked further afield into this new world. Buildings occupied broad meadows, but did not smother them. Some of the magic of the mountains lingered here, and here were more incredibly hued waters, the tributaries of Lake Bohinj and the Lake itself. People sunned themselves in this world. Here they lived half in and half out of the water, like a creature from folklore from ancient times when such things were heartily embraced. 

sunbathers

As we made our slow way to the ferry, purchased our tickets, and waited for the boat with the glass-ceiling, we traced the ridge line with our gaze, starting at Stara Fuzina, where we had been just a few days ago. We went north there, then headed west along that ridge line, all the way over there to that speck, where the cable car provides a visible link from the mountains to the valley.

way off in the distance, we were there

All that way on our feet, with our packs and our companionship. We were not setting any records, except for ourselves. The accomplishment was a very personal one, and I could feel it in my feet, which had done the trek in minimalist sneakers, since my ankle would not tolerate the pressure of my normal boot. I could feel it in R’s amazement as she took in what we had done.

As we readied our goodbyes to this beautiful place, it was hard to think about what was coming next, which was the capital of Ljubljana.

Maybe exhaustion is the sign of a good trip. I’m writing this coming off a two and a half week trip to Colombia, and feel a different kind of travel fatigue, which is also the result of a packed itinerary. More than fatigue, though, I think a good trip is one that challenges you. You may end in the same place you started, but in some small ways you’re altered by the experience, be it through understanding, new-found knowledge of some tiny corner of the world, or new knowledge of yourself.

A thousand shining lights (a Slovenian travelogue, July 2019)

Magic exists. R— and I found it in abundance in the Julian Alps.

Griega, a guide in the region, put together a trek for us that traversed the mountains surrounding Lake Bohinj. We didn’t have much time, and had to condense a four-day experience into three days. It wasn’t enough time, but it gave us a taste of the Julian Alps, with its dramatic valleys, alpine lakes, and dense clusters of vegetation, which hummed with life. Flowers adorned the slopes. Jewels amidst the green.

After a huge and delicious breakfast at the Old Bled Inn, R— drove us to the starting point. Griega let us park at his house. Made of wood, Two stories tall, and surrounded by wild flowers and shaggy unkempt tall grasses, it resided by a creek. Toys dotted the landscape, and a swing hung from the tree by the creek.

“I want to live here.” We both thought it, probably both said it.

From Griega’s house, we donned our backpacks and hiked up the road to the trailhead.

The way to the trailhead was smooth pavement and broad views, but as soon as we turned off onto the trail itself, the trees embraced us and the path beneath our feet turned to a limestone rubble polished smooth by countless feet passing over them. The forest was dense with ferns, dark hallows, and thick canopies of green. Sable-winged moths and iridescent dark-blue damsel flies landed on the stones at our feet then flitted ahead of us in a kind of dance. Half-eaten mice decayed in the hollows on the path here and there.

It was quiet, and the air was pure.

Walking is such a simple thing, one foot in front of the other, but when you’re walking in solitude, surrounded by nature, away from cars and WiFi and technology, away from grocery stores and coffee shops and restaurants, away from music and advertisements and shows, when it’s just you and the land beneath your feet, and the vegetation rising up around you, simple becomes a communion. With yourself. The now version, the primitive version, and that version who is always in the state of becoming. It’s also a communion with the life pulsing all around you.

You walk in magic.

For other posts about our trek through the Julian Alps, check the post called “wrong turn gone right” and also “575: relics of war”.

The throngs of Lake Bled (a Slovenia travelogue, July 2019)

Bled. A picture perfect place, with a deep blue lake and a charming monastery, originating in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 17th, occupying the island at the heart of it. On the bluff over looking the lake resides the castle, lording over the region with a 360 view.

This is, I imagine, what most people will come across when they research Slovenia. It is a crown jewel of tourism, and splashed around all over the internet. Do a search for Slovenia, and inevitably dozens of photos of Bled and its monastery will appear. Portraits of perfection only tell part of the story, though. Most of the time, these portraits are zoomed in far enough to cut out all of the things that would disrupt the notion of perfection.

Upon entering the region, R— and I immediately found ourselves in a traffic jam. Full on nose to bumper jammy-jam. We shared this jam not with other vehicles, but with tourist buses. I immediately acquired a sour taste for Bled.

It wasn’t fair to the city, especially as it has been inhabited since the 600s, and has charmed the armor off many a ruler. I tried to imagine it as it had been, before people like me, in all our various forms, and needs and desires for a particular experience, came and through our constant presence birthed the heavy and dominating presence of tourism infrastructure.

It was a difficult task, given the high-rise hotels, endless tour busses, and thick crush of people speaking everything but Slovenian.

There was no real getting away from the crowds, so we contented ourselves with a stroll around the lake, dodging bodies as we gazed into the sometimes sapphire, sometimes aquamarine, and sometimes cobalt hued water of the lake.

Blue, you see, is an insufficient description for these waters, and for most of the rivers and streams and lakes we encountered in Slovenia.

A storm condensed the sky overhead into a thick tangle of clouds.

We stopped at a lake side restaurant, which brimmed with people. Here I discovered that gin and tonics were very much all the rage in Slovenia. My first G&T was also my best one, the one that induced a “chasing the dragon” scenario for me.

Dressed with dried ginger, rosemary, and orange, it was delectable. Spicy, fragrant, smooth. Not overly sweet, nor bitter. The only minor detraction was that the gin hailed from someplace near the Black Sea rather than Slovenia.

After eating and drinking, we retreated from the crowds to the solitude of our attic room at Old Bled House.

This place reeked of charm. Thick stone walls, hand-planed beams of wood. Wood glowing everywhere. The Inn was located on what is purported to be the original road bissecting the original heart of Bled.

Old farmhouses built in the old style lined the narrow, single-lane road. The living spaces, working spaces, granaries, livestock areas all bled together into a harmonious jumble. Plots were overgrown with rose brambles, nettles and other neglected, prolific greenery. Around the corner was a mysterious display of dozens of pairs of shoes lined up on pegs, hanging upside down to dry. It took me a moment to realize that the place was used by one of the adventure outfits in Bled, and they were drying wetsuit booties in the idyllic countryside, near a dilapidated farmhouse.

These are the types of places I love. They aren’t inaccessible to an outsider, but they’re not bombarded by the hordes either. You can glimpse into the past and piece together how it connects with the present. The layers are all here, ready to be discovered.

The Road to Lake Bled (a Slovenia Travelogue, July 2019)

The real magic of Slovenia doesn’t necessarily exist alongside the main roads and the superstar attractions, although I really need to go back for some caving. But let’s not get distracted. The magic of Slovenia is in its landscape, in its little tucked away places perched on mountainsides and nestled into valleys. 

We took the way of magic to get to Bled, although R– might call it the way of death.

The road could be described as a total of 1.5 lanes wide, which was supposed to accommodate both directions of traffic. It had few turnouts, and frequent constraints, like walls of rocks, or tree trunks, or buildings. It snaked along a mountain, and up and over it. 

I do mean snaked. Sidewinder style, all here and there.

We passed by houses and barns, some perfectly kept and some disheveled, slouched and splintered. Soft and thorny at the same time.

R— did not like this road, but over time grew more and more at ease with its turns and curves and diminishing lanes and passing cyclists and squeezing by trucks and shaking her head in astonishment as other people overtook her on blind curves and uttering “someone’s gonna get killed” at the display of disregard.

It happens that the people we encountered on this road liked to go fast.

After what seemed like hours, R— needed a break from the grueling work of being 100% attentive with her hands clutched around the steering wheel and her feet dancing between the clutch, brake, and gas. We found the one turnoff area that seemed to exist along the roadside (aside from this one truck stop-maybe-sometimes-winter-haven where a bunch of tough looking folks clustered around a table selling cheese and the mountain top had been decimated for vast swathes of parking and a mega lodge).

We didn’t stop there, but instead chose a gravel turnoff of a decent size as the road started to descend down the mountain. The trees were so dense, the only view we had was of them.

Aside from the occasional car passing by, it was quiet. Even though it was just alongside the road, little oasis and huge swathes of life lived there. Bugs, and dainty flowers, and grasses, and of course the trees. In between stretches, I nabbed photos of some of the creatures I saw, and marveled at the perfect design of the flowers.

• 

• 

• 

Soon we folded ourselves back into the contraption of going places, and went. Down the mountain, through the turns. Lake Bled was close, and soon we were stuck in the thick of its traffic.

A Detour to Šmartno (Slovenia Travelogue, July 2019)

Why go the expeditious way when you can take the long, scenic and sometimes treacherous way?

After breakfast, R— and I said goodbye to our sweet little rest stop of Portgruaro, and headed into Slovenia.

Travel Tip

When you’re driving in another country, you should know what the
rules of the road are. If that seems too daunting, then at least stop at
the first gas station and ask a local what are the things that will, 100%,
get you pulled over.

The transition from Italy to Slovenia was, shall we say, unceremonial.

“Was that it?”

I looked behind us. “I think so.”

Altogether: “Hello, Slovenia!”

We stopped at a gas station to get our bearings and some water. We were immediately greeted by the fact that smoking was very popular here, as were motorcycles and tough looking people.

One of the men hanging out and having a smoke sauntered up to us and started speaking. 

“Sorry, we don’t understand.”

He switched to English, and said we needed a sticker for the window, otherwise we’d be pulled over. “They sell them inside.”

We thanked him profusely, and added a road sticker to our shopping list.

Stickers or other types of unique markings are less common in the United States, and usually limited to specific toll roads. We would have had no way of knowing that a sticker was required for driving anywhere in Slovenia. Nevermind those mysterious signs at the border mentioning the “Vineta”. 

Once we got back on the freeway, we immediately decided it was too boring and decided to take an alternate route. That squiggly road should do the trick, and drop us into Lake Bled from the South side. That’s what we were there for, after all. To see Slovenia. To experience a different place. R— drove while I navigated from her phone.

[ASIDE:  Having the use of your cell phone in a foreign country is a veritable godsend. We navigated, 100% of the way, from R’s phone, and made some impromptu travel decisions because of the info available on it. The international roaming on my standard plan is disgustingly expensive, so I limited myself to WiFi at the hotels and other public hotspots, but loved the convenience of her phone.]

And thus began our adventure.

The first errant turn was thanks to a road sign adorned with a cluster of grapes. We followed the direction of its arrow towards the foothills that were skirted by vast tracks of lush green farmland. We wound through single-track roads and only got a little lost.  

After popping back out to the road we had been on, newly acquired dust on the car, a more purposeful direction was chosen towards the small medieval village of Šmartno. Our path flirted with the brilliant emerald and turquoise waters of the Soča River.

This is another instance of “don’t be too eager to get somewhere that you don’t enjoy where you are”, which I suffer from more often than is seemly for a traveler.

The river was like a thing crafted by divinity. The crystalline water revealed its depths, and hid them in turns; but the hue was always vibrant, and made stark against the brilliant bone of the rocks, and the dark shadows made by the forests standing at its edge. I captured not one photo of it. The blur of color was burned into me, though.

On the other side of the ridge line from Soča, lay Šmartno.

This hilltop village, with its stony walls, and homes in various states of renovation, overlooked vineyards where crickets and other manner of exoskeletal creatures made their mad and buzzing sounds. Songs, some would say. Maybe even the song of Summer.

• 

• 

• 

The light colored stone of the village downloaded the sun, and amplified its heat in that small space. Heat resonated. It amplified and grew, like a mum blossom. Thick. Full.

We stopped at a place across the road from the village, a modern looking hotel and bistro, which had an outstanding deck from which to look over everything except the graveyard, which soared above all else and had the truest 360-degree view of the landscape.

At the bistro, the chef cobbled together a delightful little snack, and we sipped the best wine of the whole trip.

Anytime-anywhere-but-especially-while-traveling Tip

If you find something you love, that delights you and you want it, do not think, “I’ll just get some at the next place.” Unless it’s something mass produced, it rarely ever works out that the thing you are so enamored with actually exists at the next place, or any other place besides the one in which you encountered it. Enter “Chasing the Dragon”. So if you want it, just get it.

After settling our bill, we strolled back to the car for the next leg of the drive to Lake Bled, which would end up testing R’s limited on back country roads.

Pause in Portgruaro (a Slovenia Travelogue, July 2019)

R– (my sister-friend) and I had flirted with the idea of traveling together before, but outside of a lovely Christmas holiday in the mountains, we had always just talked about it. Until this year.

Enter a serendipity of timing, banked vacation days, a gap between grant deadlines and the resources to pull it off.

The first conception of an international girls trip may have been in late May. A couple of months to plan and execute an international trip was a bit of a stretch, but we both embraced the idea.

After winnowing our options to the Baltic nations or something in the Post-Eastern block flavor, photos of the Slovenian Alps made the choice for us. Reading more about the region only had us embracing the confirmation bias formed upon learning about the cheese and wine production.

This was it. The perfect first girls’ trip.

Research tricked us into thinking the cheapest option was to fly into Venice, rent a car for our journey, and fly out of Vienna. In the end, it turned out to not be cheaper at all, but so it goes. [TIP: One-way car rentals are always more expensive, and the web tool might not give you the real-deal price until you actually try to book the car.] What we lost in money, we made up for with a diverse trip packed with different landscapes, food and people. A rich cornucopia of experiences.

Fast-forward through research, plan construction and deconstruction and reconstruction, and bon voyages to our loved ones, and we were off.

Abundant leg room (read with sarcasm)

Since we arrived in Venice pretty late, we figured we’d be exhausted and wouldn’t want to drive for hours more. We planned a stop in a small town chosen strictly for the roofline of the main building in its town square.

magical rooflines

I mean, it’s gorgeous, right? I’ve never seen another facade like this one. As a bonus, a river ran through the town. The constant shushing of water, and the quaint water wheels and the mill houses outside our hotel only added to the ambiance.

Summer thunderstorms delayed our connecting flight from Frankfurt to Venice, so we arrived later than originally anticipated. This made our selection of Portgruaro more of a blessing. Unfortunately, the super late arrival narrowed our dinner choices down to alcohol and a light snack.

this totally counts as dinner

I’m not complaining. The aperol spritz, featured here, would become my drink of choice during the whole trip–at least, when I wasn’t drinking gin and tonics, which are a craze currently underway in Slovenia. And I will happily eat a pizzetta from a gas station in Italy over most US fast food options.

Not quite ready to sleep, we took the long (and dark) way back to the hotel. There we happened upon a curious sight.

• 

• 

the nightlife

I mean, really. You’re walking down a dark alley, following the sound of the river, because you know the river will lead you back to where you want to end up for the night, and then you run into this display.

It was shockingly delightful.

A duck in pearls.

A madly grinning ferret.

Clearly this sight could not be topped. After a quick stroll by the water wheels, we retired to rest up for more adventuring the next day.

And when I say adventuring, I really mean eating.

breakfast no.1

Mine was filled with pistachio cream and was delicious. Almost too sweet, but the coffee was there to balance out the sugar. R– had chocolate (I believe; I was too enamored with mine to remember). This was our first breakfast of the day, followed by an obscene amount of gullet-stuffing at the hotel’s breakfast buffet, which happened to be epic. The buffet, that is.

We did do a little more exploring of the city center on foot to ever so slightly offset our calorie intake.

remnants of a broken past

Portogruaro, to my outsider’s gaze, has so much charm and history. It has care and community.

I love the texture of places like this. The smell and the rhythms. The layers of time.

patched

I also love the things that are unique here. The bulging walls of the mill houses, which are set right in the middle of the river. And the ever-turning wheels.