the Slo road

We're eating dinner at a restaurant in Ljubljana called 'Marley and Me.' It's good. Perhaps not authentically Slovenian, but quite fresh and honest. It's teeny tiny and not too crowded (so that three out of the six tables stand empty on a cool, wet Wednesday evening) and the host/partner/owner of the place feels inclined to chat. So I ask him -- is it because of the book? Did you name it because you had a dog named Marley?
Well not really. I have a business partner who is "Marley" and when we opened this place (three years ago) it was called the Lunch Cafe and people got really confused. They kept asking if we only served lunch. So we started calling it Marley and Me, just for fun and then the name stuck.

Then he asks us -- how did you find us?  -- and I think he's talking about the restaurant, but soon it's clear that he's talking about something else. Slovenia. I mean, people outside -- they never heard of Slovenia.

Now that's a nation with an inferiority complex! And I understand it, because I live in a flyover state. Abroad, I assume no one has ever heard of Wisconsin. In the States, I assume no one has ever traveled there.

Still, it's hard to explain why we are here: oh, someone mentioned that it was cheap and relatively undiscovered. That sounds so... insulting (even though if you said that about Wisconsin, I'd be tickled). Or this -- we were listening to this guy talk about biking here and he said it reminded him of Italy only without the crowds. Or another true statement that I'd be reluctant to put out there -- we were looking for some place less popular that France or Italy or even Croatia.

Instead, I assure him that everyone knows of Slovenia and we'd heard such good things about it that we wanted to spend our (precious!) vacation time  here. That's mostly true as well. All but the part about recognizing Slovenia. Many people, in fact, confuse it with Slovakia.


I did not tell him, though, that we came very close to skipping Ljubljana altogether. It's the capital of Slovenia and though not large (pop. 300,000), it's large enough. But, you really have to drive by it to get to the mountains and it seemed cruel not to even stop for a night. So I found a bed and breakfast just outside the city and now here we are. For one night.


But let's go back a little in time, because the first part of the day -- the getting here -- was surely as beautiful as the being here.

So, breakfast, still in Portoroz:






And by 11, we're heading north and east: to Ljubljana.

If we take the highway, it's a nothing trip. 100 kilometers and you're there.  And we did start off on the highway, just to get us in the right direction. But if I ever needed a reason to get off, it was given to me early on, as I drove through the first tunnel cutting into the mountains (Slovenia is all mountains; there is no flat anything -- it's up and down, no matter where you go). I'm mildly claustrophobic and I HATE driving through long tunnels, especially when I am doing the driving. HATE it. I honestly would have pulled over halfway through and had Ed take the wheel, but there wasn't a place to stop. [We had one more tunnel experience driving into Ljubljana and Ed had a wonderful time teasing me about it as I plunged into the narrow, awful darkness and I vowed hereafter to study the map and identify all the long tunnels so that we can either avoid them or I can hand over the driving to him -- though that, too is problematic, because I think he drives too fast. Can you understand why I love public transportation?]

So we get off the highway. And honestly, we do prefer the small local roads, even here in Slovenia, where they do not mark them at all by name or number, so that you have to know the name of the next village and the one after, or else you're sunk.

Follow along as I post a few photos. It was a far far longer drive than the highway one, but my oh my, was it worth it!


Away from the coast, we get off the highway and pick up the secondary road. It's relatively quiet and it's easy to pull over to take in the views.





And to detour into a tiny village. This is Crni Kal:





We imagine that an artist had a passion for this tiny hamlet or, in the alternative, someone had some extra stimulus money for it, because a great number of homes have the most delightful markers in front of them. They're big carvings: nearly the size of me. And quite beautiful. I instantly think that, on my retirement, I ought to do such carvings back home and sell them for a hefty profit. Or, in the alternative, just carve one out for the farmhouse. It can't be terribly hard, can it? Can it?? I have the Polish peasant hands to do it, after all! I pick this one:






...even as Ed would probably pick this one:






...though maybe, given our advanced ages, we should compromise on this one:





I put it on my list of art forms to learn in the years when I have abundant free time.

Back to the hamlet. It has a lovely church spire -- though I have to say, it was especially lovely because it was the first one we came across up close and personal on this day. There would be many others.






The hamlet is mostly refreshed and the houses looked quite updated. But there are some older homes as well. Like this one:






Okay. can't dally too long. We continue on the lovely rural road. Up one mountain, down on the other side. Until I see a turn off for Lipica. If there is a running theme through this trip it is that of the linden tree -- Lipa in Polish and Slovene, too, and this particular village is a variation on that name and indeed, there are quite a number of tall, tall linden trees along the road as it dips into the valleys...





...and yes, they are in full bloom!





...but Lipica is recognizable not only for the Lipa tree. It is the village where the Spanish white horse was brought in many centuries ago for breeding purposes. For the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. And you will still find the stud farm here, for the Lipizzan horses that dance and prance to the delight of so many who come to watch -- in Vienna. (The Lipizzan name is an Italian variation on Lipica because this village was, until 1947, part of Italy and before that -- part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire -- you remember: confusing, shifting borders!)

So I see the signpost for Lipica and I say -- let's detour to it! (Ever since I was a kid and saw the Disney film in the 1960s - the Miracle of the White Stallions, I've been rather in awe of these horses. I saw them rehearse once in Vienna many many decades ago, but I never, well, touched one!)

We take the detour and my oh my, is it a detour worth taking! You drive past acre after ace of paddock -- sweet meadow grasses, with the occasional oak for shade... And grazing there, you'll soon spot the horses.





They're born dark brown and as they mature, they turn white.





Breathtakingly beautiful. And not shy. Here's one being exercised:







And here's one coming up to the fence for a rub:






Ed, too, cannot resist.






It's an utterly enchanting moment. No one else around. Just you and the horses and the oaks, grasses and lindens...






Completely, utterly unforgettable.







We retrace our steps and return to the road meandering onwards toward Ljubljana. Past hamlets with houses with tiled rooftops and chimneys and occasionally, a stork in a chimney...






And then the clouds begin to roll in. Truly, some dramatic photos are a matter of talent, and some are accidentally well executed, and then some are just a question of being at the right place at the right time and knowing when to stop and take out the camera. This one belongs to the last group:






And now we are pulling into the little town by the raging river (just outside of Ljubljana) -- the place where I booked us a room -- at the Dvor Tacen b&b and cafe. I have little doubt that it will be the gem of our entire trip here. It's very simple on the outside, but beautifully maintained (and quite inexpensive if you book early). Definitely a cut above what we typically wind up with given our budget (in Slovenia: not to exceed $100, taxes and breakfast included).






And then the clouds burst and the rains came down.

The room is so lovely, so quiet, so comfortable -- why leave? So we linger. And linger. And by 6, the rains let up and still we linger...

...until I force myself to say -- it's not raining hard anymore and the b&b has umbrellas and we really should visit Ljubljana.

It's a 25 minute ride by city bus and we choose to go that way only to avoid meandering through a place that takes seriously the idea that the heart of a city should be car free.

The Old Town isn't expansive, but it is very pretty and we spend a bit of time there, especially along the river bank...






But not too long, not too leisurely because there is still at least the threat of rain (though some don't mind that at all)...










...and besides, we want to eat dinner and the last bus back to our b&b by the river leaves a few minutes after 9 (and I could do a whole paragraph on how high tech public transportation here is -- people use Smart Phones to pay and each stop has a display indicating how many minutes until the next bus arrives).


So we eat our meal at the Marley & Me and we chat to the proprietor (finally a person who, in addition to Slovenian, Italian and German, also happens to speak English very very well) and then it's time to head back, along the wet streets of a very pretty little city...





(...one that, just the tiniest bit reminds me of Poland.)

salt

Our host here is into gardening. There are the roses out front. And the small veggie patch just below the house. And the massive lavender bushes. And the tiny pears. Oddly in season now.






His wife, I think, is more the food prep person. The home made jams are hers, I believe. The breakfast buffet -- again, hers. (Here's my selection.)





But I'm working with a patchwork of information. Our communications are so limited in Slovenia!

For example: we wanted to buy some nuts. On days like this, when we do not eat lunch (mostly because Ed will have eaten copious amounts at breakfast and so he isn't hungry for a long, long time), we rely on nuts to keep us happy until dinnertime. Here and at home, we are big nut eaters.

Setting out on a salt adventure (more on this is in a bit), we pass our local supermarket (in Portoroz, there are three supermarkets and they are all part of the same chain). We check the nuts there. Not too exciting. We'll come back if we can't do better.

After the salt hike, we try the bigger branch of the same supermarket. But it's closed! Why? The posted hours say 8 - 20. We're nowhere near 20 o'clock! I ask a guy leaning against his car:
Do you speak English?
Ne.
I do my gesture talk (with a lot of pointing and proper voice inflections): that store, closed?
Da.
Why? Well, I knew this is going to be a stretch. How could he possibly respond to "why"... So I give him some options: fete? holiday?
Da, dopust.

I checked all the summer festivals, celebrations ete etc -- what did I miss? What possible holiday could there be on June 25? One that closes stores, but doesn't really put people on the waterfront, like, say, Sunday did? (Later, the Internet tells me that it's Statehood Day - a celebration of Slovenia's Independence from Yugoslavia, not to be confused with Independence Day, which is in December, celebrating, well, sort of the same thing.)

Another man joins us by this first guy's car.
English? He asks.
Close enough -- yes...
He whips out a box from his pocket and opens it, revealing a very ornamented gold watch. Euro, okay?
I was so tempted to ask "how much" -- just because I wanted to know what he thought he could get from just whipping it out from his pocket like that, but our communications were so poor that I let it go.
No, I said, as Ed chuckled at the side. 


And there are times when I just want to correct Slovenians at their own language. Take ice cream flavors. I study them carefully, especially the red fruit ones as they tend to be my favorite. I see one with the label of "jagoda." Every Pole knows that jagoda means blueberry. 
 Ed, look, blueberry ice cream! (It looks a tad pink, but hey, maybe their blueberries are of a washed out variety).  But wait, what's that? There is a picture of a strawberry next to the label. I want to tell the vendor -- you've got the wrong picture on the jagoda, because you see, I happen to know what jagoda means. But that seems like far too many words for me to spill out to a guy who speaks almost no English so I say nothing. And later, when I research it all on the Internet, I see that in Slovene, jagoda means strawberry! They use borownica for blueberry, which is just too wrong, since every Pole knows that borowka, which surely sounds like an impish little version of borownica, is actually a cranberry.  Shockingly, raspberry in Slovene is malina -- exactly the same as in Polish!

So now you know how to say all the red berry fruits in Slovenian, how cool is that!


As long as I am on the topic of ice cream, let me post three pictures, taken in the afternoon, within five minutes of each other.











Perhaps an explanation is in order: if Ed and I only get one ice cream between the two of us, we pick pistachio (if available); we share a love of that. So the first two pics are the shared cone. Not satisfied with just one shared scoop, Ed gets another, at the next stand -- coconut. His favorite. (Odd, I know. I attribute his love of it to a childhood filled with Almond Joys.) And there you have it.
 

I  do have one more comment on foods in the early part of the day: we finally stopped by a bakery to see what a Slovenian might buy there. Like in France, you pick up bread and pastry in one fell swoop  (most places in Europe, Poland included, separate the sale of bread from the sale of pastry, but here, it's all under the same roof).

In the pastry display case I see the cherry and apple cakes that are oh so very much like something I would find in Poland.




I detect an Austrian influence on pastry in both countries.

And then I see that they also have mille feuille pastry (aka Napoleons)! An Ed favorite! But the portion here is huge: the sign says  200 grams -- that's nearly half a pound of pastry! We pass on it.


Alright -- enough on our early day food issues. Let's get to the salt: Historically, Slovenia was a major producer of sea salt, harvested from the salt flats just south of Portoroz (the flats actually separate Slovenia from Croatia). When, in the middle of the twentieth century, salt was produced in less labor intensive ways elsewhere, the salt fields here fell into disrepair.

Along come the foodies of this world, putting specialty salt, like the one from here, on the table again. And so the salt flats are being fixed and salt production -- the old fashioned way, with wooden rakes and drying beds -- is again returning to Slovenia. Fancy salt. Not the kind that you spill on your driveway to de-ice it, but rather, the kind you sprinkle daintily on your tuna carpaccio, maybe with arugula leaves underneath.

I see on the map that the salt flats are a good hiking distance from Portoroz. The long path along the shore can't be more than five kilometers. And my oh my is it a beautiful, sunny day! (There is absolutely no manipulation of color/tone/brightness in the photo below.)





The walk takes us past a marina and you can't get Ed to pass by big boats without a pause...





The man loves vessels and he loves his boat stories from the past and I listen to them now, on this warm, warm day, strolling (not running!) along the coast of the Adriatic.



Slovenia to the right, Croatia to the left


We actually find here, south of Prortoroz, a pretty (if small) almost-beach of big pebble rock and we vow to return to it later in the day, but it is a vow that's tossed freely and then neglected, as are so many when you travel: you fall in love with something and you can't quite let go without promising yourself, your hosts, the world, that you will return. But you don't return. Mostly, you move on.



near the salt fields -- the lesser marina.


It is ridiculously warm and the path along the coast offers no shade. By the time we reach the entrance to the salt flats, we've had it with the heat and the sun. Which is a shame, as the flats are without shade and therefore warm and sunny.

But they don't show off their true worth right now. Had this been a normal summer, we would have seen mounds of drying salt. The spring rains stalled everything. We see the set up for salt harvesting, but nothing is anywhere near the point where you can expect to walk home with freshly raked salt for the kitchen table.





There is an exhibition room out there, in the middle of all those salt fields and we watch a short documentary film on salt production. To tell you the truth, we would have watched anything,  even without the English subtitles, just to get us out of that warm warm air.

Had we come at dawn or dusk, we would have seen a great number of birds swoop down for breakfast/dinner at the marshes. As it were, I saw little of that. This one, stumbling along, looking for grub, not really being happy with what he found --- yes, I saw him.





And I saw these two humans, raking the salt beds.





And this one, navigating the marshes differently.






Then there are the bags of ready salt. Fewer this year, but still, you can find some here.












Our hike back to Portoroz is shorter and far more bucolic.

And it is here -- crossing the hill that takes us back to Portoroz, that I decide that my post-retirement life should  include plenty of rural photography. I love photographing people, but one day, someone will surely rip my camera out of my hands and bang it over my head. At that point I'll concentrate on rural photography,

I will be happy if I can just spend my days taking photos of grapes.






And lo! an accidental artichoke! So, of artichokes!





And lavender along with olive trees...






And chamomile and poppies...






And chickens, along with olive trees...






And baby olives on those olive tree branches...






And meadows with late spring flowers...






And olive trees, pure and simple.







In the meantime, I have just two more photos to post from this day: of our dinner, back at the fish place from our first night here:






And of Ed, because I caught him smiling.






And now it is so late that I'm sure to have missed typos and errors and I am so sorry if that's the case. It is, after all, the last post from the coast of the Mediterranean. I should present it with care.

Tomorrow, we head inland.