Slovenian Summer #4: Lounging Around in Laid-back Ljubljana

We tried to visit St Nicholas’s Church, but of course we had forgotten it was Sunday, and turned up during the service. It looked pretty though, with huge heavy bronze doors. We walked in a circuit around it before making a beeline for the castle funicular. There were beautiful views from the castle – apparently you can see one third of Slovenia from up there on a clear day, and I think it was a clear day!

We nosed around for a bit, though there was not overmuch to do or see, alas, and still very hot.
There was a small exhibition of “small paintings” which I just loved!

We investigated the tower, though after braving the castle steps I was in no hurry to clamber up there and have to come down again! But as I prepared to deposit myself under a shady tree, Alissa called me over, announcing the presence of a chapel in the lower levels. As we were about to descend, we ran into Grant again, who recommended the subterranean coolness of the chapel. I was glad to find that a fellow northerner was not enjoying the heat much either. It was indeed cooler in the chapel, and very pretty, though plastering church ceilings with boring family crests always seems like a waste of a good fresco to me. There were some beautiful curving Art Nouveau pews.

The German inscription on the ceiling dated the renovation to 1747, but clearly it has been restored since. I sat there for a while as Narges and Alissa tackled the tower – apparently the views were well worth it. Alissa promised me pictures. In the meantime, I found a bench, sadly without shade as there was no room in it, and wrote a couple of postcards, even putting stamps on them! When they returned, Narges spotted a dragon fruit tree and was keen to try some, even with Alissa’s warning that she hadn’t liked them much.

After the tower, we were all ready to descend, so we boarded the glass carriage again and watched the ground come up to meet us. We walked back along the market colonnade via the market itself (where Alissa called me a “bad influence” – the cheek!). Narges bargained for a necklace, while we meekly paid up at the glassware stall.

Shopping wore us out enough to need lunch, and found a café where Alissa got some exciting-looking bruschetta and I had what was, based on price, apparently destined to be a modest pizza, but was of course larger than normal. Narges’s eyes lit up when she saw the large bottle of Tabasco sauce our waitress brought – Narges is the kind of person who eats with the sandwich in one hand and the bottle of Tabasco in the other. She then decided that after said sandwich was the perfect time to try the dragon fruit. Borrowing my knife, off which, thanks to Alissa’s brilliant napkin suggestion, she got the cheese, she sliced through the spiny outer shell to the fruit within. None of us were all that sure what she should do next, so she reverted to the walnut method since they look kind of similar. Having liberated some wiggly-looking white flesh from the fruit, she popped it into her mouth, chewed nonchalantly, then froze with an expression of horror. Next thing we knew she had disappeared around the corner, arms flailing. When at length she returned, she downed my water and managed to kill the taste with two particularly Tabasco-laden slices of my leftover pizza. We did not speak of dragon fruit again.

After lunch we all split up for the afternoon. I announced that I was going in search of impressionists and modern art. Since I had a map with the modern art museum on it, however, I didn’t expect to have to search very hard. I pointed myself directly at the National Gallery, and proceeded to wander every street west of Presernov trg trying to find it. I came across Plečnik’s library first – I didn’t venture in for the tour, but I had a good ogle at the lobby. I had already lost all sense of direction, it seems, as I next went north (I thought) and came across the Illyrian monument (to the west). Huh. I roamed the wide boulevards, none turning out to be the one I thought it was for more than twelve seconds, and directed (correctly I hope) a couple a Spanish tourists, in Spanish, who did not seem to have good instincts about people, thinking as they did that I (a) was Slovenian and (b) had a sense of direction. Clearly misguided. Hopefully not by me. I passed the Ursuline Church, where I resisted the temptation to duck into the Slovenian Schoolhouse Museum. Passing the opera house, which is currently a hollow shell due to a renovation project, I eventually arrived at the National Gallery, as the digital display on a nearby office building announced that it was 32°… ugh.

The airconditioned lobby of the National Gallery was a relief, but a short-lived one as their method was to blast cold air, which sinks, from the floor in a large building made entirely of glass. It was unbearable upstairs, in the temporary design exhibits, so I contented myself with the permanent collection, a relatively modest number of mostly Slovenian works in a former mansion better suited to the heat. The mediaeval to Renaissance collection was actually fun (not necessarily my favourite era), with dragons a theme. The first example was a carving of St George, posed like an action hero (though now spearless, so he looks like he’s gesturing the dragon to death. Mime – the deadly art). Second, which made me laugh, was St Margaret and the dragon, an impressively colourful, some might venture so far as “garish”, statue. St Margaret wears a gold dress with a bright blue robe, and while she gestures into the middle distance with a bored expression, she stands with one foot of the neck of a disgruntled dragon, bright green with a fire-engine-red tongue hanging out. The third, and my favourite, was a painting of a very indignant dragon, a nervous-looking horse, and an apologetic St George.

Next came the sculpture. I discovered a new sculptor, Franc Berneker, and was rejoicing to find that I liked something from before 1880 when I realised I had passed through to the next era, and the sculpture I was looking at dated from 1909. Ah well. Then there was the melancholy Cossack's Dream by Ivan Zajec.

The impressionists were all wonderful, and I heartily recommend a good look at the national gallery website, which has the entire permanent collection online. Some of the impressionist paintings can be seen here.

In the shop, I agonised over whether to buy the postcards or the book, then decided I really wanted the book. I met Alissa in the shop – she was amused about the sculpture of the fire after our investigations into the history of Ljubljana.

Next, I decided to look for somewhere shady to have a drink. I was tempted into the modern art museum, my next stop anyway, by the big “BAR” sign in red in the grounds. I began to suspect false hope when I was inside and I found that “bar” was scrawled across the walls in bright red. I think it was something to do with a conceptual citizen project, but who can be sure? The gallery was seriously cool, and seriously odd. I didn’t understand a thing, but it was wonderfully entertaining. I especially liked the work of art that took up an entire room – you walk across sand to get in, which is fashioned into a big desert island idea hosting a huge papier-mâché palm tree. On the wall above it reads, “This revolution is for display purposes only.” There is a large wooden frame in the middle of the room, and a massive pile of cardboard boxes. In another doorway there was suspended a cluster of paper-stuffed bin bags attached to a plank. The last entrance was three-quarters boarded up, with a ladder leading over the barrier. Excellent, but really, no clue.

Afterwards I walked across into Tivoli Park, where it was harder than you’d think to find a bench in the shade. I finally did, and sat there for a while to cool down.

When I ventured back to our rendezvous point in front of Franc Prešeren, I looked at the map before setting off to make sure I didn’t get turned around and lose myself again on the way back. It took me less than ten minutes to get back to Prešernov trg by the direct route. Oh dear.
I found Narges chatting to a nice but non-English-speaking man, and I joined them. We all looked at pictures in my National Gallery book for a while, a man rode by on a penny-farthing. Which was bizarre, but reminded me that it was another great feat of Scottish invention. My knowledge is haphazard but interesting.

We found a handy, slightly posher than usual café for tea, where I coveted Alissa’s garlic soup, though I knew I couldn’t handle hot liquids. We moved tables to get out of the setting sun, but of course it followed us!

At the IOSOT opening ceremony (IOSOT's own photographs of the event here, and worth a look), there was already a crowd gathered around the seating area. With the Prime Minister speaking and the whole affair going out live on national TV, the IOSOT conference was clearly a big deal for Slovenia. I wish Britain was so excited about biblical scholarship. Let’s face it, some biblical scholars aren’t all that excited about biblical scholarship. Speeches ensued, mostly in Slovenian, and I don’t think I’m being overly cruel if I say that, in some cases, “charisma” was not the word that came to mind. There was a special address entitled “The Transmission of Semitic Popular Names in Greek and Latin Linguistic Traditions”.
I was getting pretty tired by this point, after the previous couple of days and inadequate sleep, but thankfully before I was forced to gnaw my own arm off the Beethoven began.

It took me longer than usual to get into it, since I was pretty zonked and sitting up straight was becoming a challenge. It was, however, a wonderful experience, and the orchestra were excellent. The conductor was one of the most entertaining I’ve seen, and the bass was fabulous. The massed choir, from several countries, attacked the fourth movement with something akin to welly.

After they were done, we filed out and around St Nicholas’s, where we spotted a sign that seemed to capture the pre-Beethoven mood – “Let Me Out!”

It was far too hot to sleep, and I had to take a freezing shower at 3am just to nod off… ugh.

Read On: Slovenian Summer #5: IOSOT in the Heat