Slovenian Summer #5: IOSOT in the Heat

Monday. Blisters were now on the top as well as the bottom of my feet, with some painful broken skin. To make things worse, I was determined to wear my skirt, meaning that I donned Sunday’s sandals again – and predictably, almost as soon as I began to walk one of my worst blisters burst. Oh, the pain! I went to IOSOT, tested my German – which is not easy when it’s German with a strong American accent… As will happen in Vienna, as soon as the conference starts, all coherent narrative leaves my recollections.

I tried to ask two ladies sitting at the post office desk in the university where I would find a post box, only to end up with no idea but three further sets of international air mail stamps. Huh?

It was hot, 38°, inside with no air conditioning. In recognition of this fact, I decided to skip the first papers of the afternoon (which had no real relevance to me) and have a long lunch by the river in the shade.

I ate again at Pizzeria Ljubljanski Dvor, this time opting for the Bavarska pizza. I felt a bit pathetic, with my “table for one, please”, but thought I’d better get over it before I launched north alone. I felt terribly official, lounging around with my IOSOT bag and conference badge, looking up at Ljubljana Castle. Though Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” in Slovenian emanating from the bar opposite was a bit surreal. This soon changed to Samba. Then a string of hits by Italian favourite Eros Ramazotti.

The pizza arrived, and they weren’t kidding when they promised garlic. Yikes. I dug in, as the bar continued its Italian theme by sticking Andrea Bocelli’s Cieli di Toscana on the CD Player. I decided it wouldn’t be too bad to stick around for a while, perhaps in the manner of a siesta! Mad dogs and Englishmen and all that – and I’m neither.

I decided to go back for the Qumran papers taking up the last half of the afternoon, which started at 16.40. This gave me an excellent opportunity to return to St Nicholas’s Church (closed during our regular lunch break). Even better – the choir was rehearsing for the IOSOT German-speakers’ event at night (pictures of the church interior with said choir in action are here, on the IOSOT site). They sounded wonderful, and I sat down to listen. The church is very baroque, plastered with frescoes, but without clashing colours or too bold patterns in the marble, so it is not overpowering. It was also cool.

The pews were odd – they sat on a 50cm high platform and leaned back, in blocks of fifteen-or-so pews. Sort of like a one-horse open church.

I decided it was time to leave for the 16.40 session, but I was so absorbed with the choir, who were running over an alto part at the time, that I forgot that the pews were not on ground level. I dropped like a rock, before staggering about a bit, desperately trying to locate my misplaced balance. The non-alto portion of the choir dissolved into laughter, to the consternation of the altos and the frustration of the choir director, which only made the other singers laugh harder. Once he realised that they were reacting to something rather than merely failing to take the task seriously, he looked angrily up into the organ loft, then realising that he was about to look my way, and still being a wee bit off-balance, I did something ridiculous but instinctive – I hit the deck. This made the choir collapse again. I made my exit.

Despite all this hilarity, I made it back to the Law Faculty for the papers. When I gave up for the day, I sought Alissa and Narges to tell them I was disappearing with the room key (back to the room, so it was okay), then detoured via a supermarket for a litre of pineapple juice and some snacks for tea. Mmm.

Tuesday dawned. With papers of some relevance all afternoon, I missed the first part of the morning in order to pack. It was hot again, so once I had had a shower, I went looking for cool spots. Unfortunately the door on the ground floor of the hostel, which had given us some promising breezes, was closed. Happily, I found a tiny local supermarket with air conditioning and decided to hang out there for a while. When, after a good 25 minutes, I was cool enough to proceed, I realised that the only exit was through the checkout, and after being there so long I felt I had to buy something. So this is how I ended up with another litre of pineapple juice – it was either that or salami. But there comes a point when water doesn’t cut it, and you need some kind of extra sustenance, so I was glad to have the pineapple juice all the same.

I continued to the university via the Bible exhibition put on for IOSOT and the Slovenian Year of the Bible, at St Jozef’s church. It was mostly facsimile, but beautifully presented and there was a display of some of the earliest Slovenian language Bibles and liturgical objects. Also, there was a modern Slovenian artist’s (I wish I had written down her name) interpretation of the way of the cross and crucifixion. She sees events mostly as the interplay of light and colour so her paintings were atmospheric and impressionistic.

Thankful to be no longer clad in sandals, I hobbled up to the market and got some random fruity-type lunch. I was happy to take it easy after yesterday’s pizzastravaganza. It was really too hot for the papers, but some were interesting nonetheless, and we all traipsed along the river to find food afterwards.

We stopped at an Italian-sounding café (Caffe Romeo), but it turned out to be a Mexican restaurant! Alissa was concerned that all the burritos appeared to include a fair amount of cabbage and zucchini (that’s courgette to the more British among us). I ordered beef nachos, and needed help!

By the time our quesadillas and “Quesada” (which we’re pretty sure was actually a tostada) arrived, I think I was almost full. But it was all excellent, and a surprise! Here’s Alissa looking happy about it all:

Before bed, I had a shower, but waking up at 1 am after only dozing, I needed another to get off to sleep again. Then I had another at 3.30, and woke again at 4.30 despairing of ever sleeping again. But before I was forced to jump under another icy downpour, I walked around our floor and found an open window, with an acceptable breeze. I stood there for almost an hour, thinking about my time in Slovenia and the fun I had had with Narges and Alissa, overlooking Ljubljana at dawn and watching the silhouette of the Alps emerge to the north.

I lay back down to catch a couple of hours more sleep before leaving Slovenia. I gazed up at the grafitti once more. Farewell, Marjeta and Tomasz, I hope it all worked out.

As I was drifting off, I noticed another, more recent scrawl in the same hand.

"Marjeta [hearts] Ivan"...

Ah.

Read on: Mozart in Munich #1: Through the Alps

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

Slovenian Summer #3: Caves, Castles and Crushed Digits

Bastille Day! Apparently the French Revolution has some kind of great significance to the Slovenians – it’s everywhere – but we hadn’t quite worked out why. Rather than sticking around to represent the Auld Alliance in any resulting festivities, however, I had plans – cave and castle plans.

Things began to go wrong in a typical Kathleen way. The gift I had bought Meg at Lake Bled already began to fall apart. I had a short-lived panic – where were the bus tickets we had bought the day before? A frantic search ensued, until I had to give up and go down to breakfast. I cringed as I walked towards Alissa and Narges, ready to admit my stupidity.
“Did I have all the bus tickets?” I asked.
“No, I have all of them,” replied Alissa, and I felt relieved and even more stupid. They were very nice about it, though Alissa expressed her concern that I was guardian of the room keys for the day.

We walked up to the bus station, Narges again making her case for fruit trees everywhere. I suggested she should become an advocate and make speeches to councils around Scotland, possibly hooking up with garden centres in a move that would surely make her rich. She seemed to think it was too much work.

We got the bus without incident. I enjoyed this driver’s radio station, including U2, though I hoped his choice of song – “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” – did not reflect his sense of direction. We were on a schedule. The music continued. I suspected Anastacia was not traditional Slovene folk music. It seemed this driver’s tastes in music are more mainstream and – somewhat mercifully – less Eurovision-worthy.

Today, we saw more flat land with lumpy bumpy wooded hills which looked remarkably like the carse of Stirling.

Coming into the town of Postojna, I spotted (to my surprise) that the residents of a block of flats had painted their windows in an interesting manner.

When we stepped off the bus, I began instantly to feel the heat. It occurs to me in hindsight that perhaps it may not have been the best day to dress head to toe in black (though my nifty cover-up allowed me to get in touch with my inner Austro-Hungarian). We wandered into the tourist information and were told that the only way to Predjama Castle was a taxi, €30 with the driver sticking around for an hour or so. Fair enough, we thought, and headed out to the caves. The sign said less than a kilometre (so I was pretty confident we could make the 10am tour in just over ten minutes), but it was a bit of a trek in the heat, as it turned out, given my heat-absorbing ensemble and the unfortunate fact that the supposedly equally spaced signs read 500m, 200m, 100m… Narges entertained us with another impassioned plea, that what Postojna really needed were fruit trees along this road. Then when we hit what was meant to be the entrance to the caves, we found ourselves at the car park and there was a further sign to the caves reading “300m”. So past the array of souvenir stands we marched, and arrived at the ticket window at 10.03 to discover we were too late. But we bought combined tickets for the cave and the castle and waited for the 11am tour. Meanwhile we sat in the shade, until drums sounded in the square above us and Narges bolted up the stairs, with a joyful cry of, “It sounds Middle Eastern!” We followed.

The music turned out to be from a music and dance troupe from Izmir in Turkey who played Turkish music and were dancing impressively, given the heat and the many layers of their costumes. I was suddenly glad we had to wait.

After chatting with one of the dancers, Narges’s ears pricked up when we began to queue with a large Israeli tour group. “I’m going to ask if they are from Jerusalem!” As I envied her multiple languages, a bilingual conversation ensued with a woman from Tel Aviv which, for someone who generally studies the dead-language part of Hebrew, was absolutely fascinating She told us that it was supposed to be very cold in the cave, which delighted me and worried Narges in her tank top, who didn’t have anything to put over it. The Israeli woman laughed and said, “I hope you will not become ch’ isha Lot” – like Lot’s wife – “She was a pillar of salt, you a pillar of ice!” I was surprised how much of that conversation I understood while listening, though the entirety of my contribution in Hebrew was a well-placed Toda when she ushered me ahead through the closing masses to rejoin Narges and Alissa.

Signs inside warned of 8° temperatures, which on reflection was a slight exaggeration for the purposes of flogging €3 coat rentals, if I may be so cynical. We boarded a train – cute! – and headed for a couple of kilometres underground, where we disembarked and congregated below the relevant language signs. Then we walked up… and up… and up… our tour guide called our eventual rendezvous point “the mountain” and it didn’t seem unjustified! She seemed a bit gruff at first, barking at poor tourists at the rear, “Come along! We do not have all day!” but she warmed up after that.

Postojna Cave was discovered in 1818 and opened to the public in 1819, so the tourist-exploitation theme is long-running. You can still see the build up of soot on some stalagmites deposited by generations of early tourists. The cave finally acquired an electricity supply in 1880 – well in advance of Ljubljana!

We proceeded through the “beautiful caves” – my favourite was the “Spaghetti Gallery” which has thousands of thin, pure white limestone stalactites suspended from the ceiling. While we were route-marching – or I was, as I kept getting stuck behind wandering people with video cameras and was struggling to catch up – through the Red Cave, the lights went out twice. Slightly nervewracking when several kilometres underground.

We did however survive to see the “human fish,” teeny lizard-like amphibians who live in the river that carved the cave, and can survive 10-12 years without food. And I thought my metabolism was slow!

Ran into the same lady from outside, who seemed less enchanted to encounter me again. “Where is your friend?” she asked.
“I lost her somewhere,” I replied, then with a feeble attempt at humour, “Maybe she turned into a pillar of ice!” I was rewarded with a blank look. I’m sure it would be funnier in Hebrew. Really.

We all piled back on the train, and as we speeded back through a tunnel, there was sudden manic laughter from Narges and Alissa a few seats in front of me, which was quite creepy in its echoing. We never got to the bottom of that, as they forgot why by the time we left Postojna.

Outside I was waning, and realised I wasn’t drinking enough. Outside we failed to find a taxi, but taking Alissa’s sensible lead, we trailed back into town and into the tourist information again, to find that the town has only three taxis, and two were booked up. The third was scheduled to do one more trip at 2pm – meaning we would have to give up Piran. We discussed and decided to be positive, given that we already has castle tickets and a way to get there. We bought some fruit – mmm, grapes – and walked back to the caves for pickup!

Then something delightful happened. Narges found a walnut tree! Asking the people, sitting in their garden if she could pick a couple, she returned to share the delights of fresh walnut, very welcome after all we had heard about them.

When we arrived back at the car park, Narges and Alissa ran up to the touristy area for lunch supplies, and I parked myself at the entrance, just to make sure the taxi didn’t go without us, you understand.

While I sat, I overheard (okay, eavesdropped on) a Slovenian driver and two Argentinean cyclists saying goodbye, the Argentinean man praising the Slovenian on how much help he was, and the Slovenian being typically laid-back and self-effacing. They asked a party of passing Swedes to take a photo of them all together, and the Slovenian said, “You know where he’s from? He’s from Argentina. They cycled here!”
The Swede with the camera paused. “All the way?”

The taxi arrived as Alissa and Narges arrived back with a burger (Narges) and a pizza (for Alissa and I). Alissa, being an angel, also brought more water and a diet coke, though she made me promise to drink all the water before the coke. We, and lunch, piled into the taxi with two Israeli women not with the tour group but here for the IOSOT conference and a man from NE England, who must have wondered what had possessed him to get in a taxi with all these people babbling about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

We made our way to the castle via an exceptionally windy road (i.e. lots of turns and bends, not the four winds), then when we all disembarked, the three of us did what probably few tourists do and spent the first five minutes of our precious hour wolfing down pizza and bottles of water before walking to the castle entrance. Narges spotted some more walnuts en route and restocked.

We walked across a somewhat unstable drawbridge to the castle entrance, my photographing of which was cut short by Alissa yelling back, “Kathleen, it’s cool in here!” and I bolted.

A nice Slovenian girl took our tickets and asked where we were from – Scotland now our standard sensible answer – and chatted with Narges and Alissa before exclaiming, “Ah! I love the Scottish accent! RRRRR!” There wasn’t a whole lot I could say to that.

The castle was indeed exciting, being built into a cliff, with a secret passage behind it and a jousting area in the front. Thrilling! Not to mention the obligatory decorative antlers. Unfortunately the tour route signs took us up a number of steep staircases, so I knew there was no way to get back down them that would make me happy. But the things we do in the name of education.

Predjama had some very pretty rooms filled with furniture that – I must admit – I could imagine turning up at McGregor’s auction in St Andrews. Allison would have approved. Alissa and I were independently intrigued to find Charles Edward Stuart – Bonnie Prince Charlie – gazing down from a portrait…

…and slightly disappointed to find, from the plaque at the bottom, that it was the strikingly similar-looking Count Jozef Windischgraetz.

We saw the toilet where Erazem (the Slovenian Robin Hood, if your believe the stories, though I’m not sure Robin Hood was ever a robber baron hiding in a castle) was finally killed. He was betrayed by a servant who told his enemies that he could be targeted “where even the king must go alone” and shone a light to be helpful.

At this point, Narges had to be dissuaded from disappearing over the side of the lofty balcony to reach some berries she had spotted. Of course, Alissa turned up with her “Go, Narges, go!” and undid all my good work. Bad influence, that one.

We found a shop – of course – and Narges and Alissa tried Slovenian brandy. Narges made an interesting noise, and Alissa settled on a bottle to take back to Matt, which may partly make up for the fact that we went to a cave without him.

Coming back to the taxi, Narges found some crab apples just out of reach. Alissa volunteered to jump up from a high point and succeeded in getting one, which made Narges even happier! While they found the WC, I went on to the taxi, which is how I found myself having a conversation with the English guy about the relative merits of Scottish castles in the middle of Slovenia. Stirling was naturally the victor, with us in agreement that both Caerlaverock and Castle Stalker were pretty cool.

We were ferried back into town in perfect time for the bus back to Ljubjana, and having abandoned Piran we found ourselves with a little bit of afternoon left, so decided to detour through the centre proper, which we had barely glimpsed in our national touring. I looked at the map, and following my finger waved vaguely (I was tired) in the direction of some Art Nouveau (but I still had my instincts), we weaved down beside the very pink Church of the Annunciation.

Finding an ice cream café, we sat down. I found my chair too far away and reached down to pull it forward. Unfortunately the seat lifted up, so when I sat down again I trapped my finger in the mechanism and sat on it. Ow. I briefly thought it was broken, but when the initial pain subsided a little I could move it. I was distracted, however, by Alissa’s noises of approval at the pistachio ice cream, and decided to have one scoop. Excellent! The wedding march blared out of the church. We carried on eating.

After, we found ourselves on the main square, Prešernov trg, with its stature of Franc Prešeren, Slovenia’s national poet.

He lived a tragic life, his great love Julija Primic rejecting him multiple times before dying, his best friend dying of pneumonia after an unfortunate swim in the river, and he died young himself, but he wrote some very upbeat poetry, one of which, “A Toast”, is Slovenia’s national anthem.

Around this square were some of the Art Nouveau buildings by Jože Plečnik, including my favourite, the Central Merkur building.

Plečnik was lured back from Prague (where he also designed a bunch of stuff) by the prospect of a professorship in his native city and the opportunity to redesign the centre of the city in a period of regeneration. So many of Ljubljana's public buildings are seriously Art Nouveau.

We took photos on the Triple Bridge, with us in various combinations – you just have to – before proceeding down the river. There are some stalls and riverside cafes along the banks, but with so many willow trees hanging around it feels relaxed… and there are some lovely buildings.

We sat at a fountain, getting splashed for a while, Alissa with her feet in the fountain, then went on the prowl for food.

We sat by the river in the shade, listening to music from the bridge behind us. Narges ordered a pizza, thinking that the regular size sounded reasonable and the smallest one too cheap to be filling. The result was huge! With her leftovers and a willingness to share, she nearly became the Bird Woman of Ljubljana, until we begged her to stop – the pigeons were gathering all around us in a sort of alarmingly Hitchcockian way. We laughed, though, when a vigilant sparrow stole some pizza crust from right under the beak of a particularly mean looking pigeon.

Narges then said, with real conviction, "You know, I’m pretty sure your finger will drop off," which caught my attention and she went into great detail before she noticed that Alissa and I looked alarmed and said "Sorry, did I say finger? I meant your nail."

After we paid the incredibly enthusiastic waiter – “cashorcard” delivered as a single word in a bored monotone – we crossed the Triple Bridge again and looked around Joze Plečnik’s Market Colonnade (an real masterpiece) where we found a cool drinking fountain, a welcome development.

We came across the rehearsal of the choirs for Beethoven’s Ninth the following evening, at the opening ceremony for IOSOT, where we met one of St Mary’s own lecturers, also presenting at the conference. Then it was back to the hostel, and collapsement.

Goodnight, Marjeta and Tomasz.

Read On: Slovenian Summer #4: Lounging About in Laid-Back Ljubljana

Slovenian Summer #2: From Bed to Bled (and back again)

On Friday 13th (eek), the three of us decided to travel up to Lake Bled, in the Julian Alps, which has a reputation as one of the most beautiful lakes in Europe.

We dragged ourselves out of bed, surprisingly early, for breakfast. En route, we found some computers with an internet connection. The day before we left, I found myself in a Roundel office with Mariam, under the desk of our friend Danny, rooting around in his belongings for his black shoes, so he didn’t have to wear brown ones when we went to the opera in Munich the next week (that’s right – the opera. Coming soon…). This first morning in Slovenia, I had received an email from Danny.
“So Kathleen you've probably already left, but I was thinking that in addition to my shoes, you might bring me my little bag of aspirin--I am running a little low. Thanks.” Grrr.

Breakfast – mmm. Baloney (we think, and is indeterminability not one of the defining characteristics of luncheon meat, if that’s not an oxymoron?), cheese and doughy bread. Muesli that turned the milk chocolately… weird. The kiwi and banana squash (and whose idea was that?) was bright green and had the appearance of a radioactive waste product.
Wander… wander… bus tickets (kept returning to the same woman with more questions and for toilet tokens)

Then we found ice cream! Great gelato. I had yoghurt and cherry. We hadn’t been in the country twelve hours, and had barely finished breakfast, but it seemed like a good idea.

I went into the train station to try to find some water, and stumbled into the tourist information, returning with armfuls of leaflets tailormade for each of our interests. Am clearly taking after my mother.

We had discussed how antisocial the heat made us all feel, so sure enough, having got on the bus, we all sat separately. It was a relatively empty bus – should not have been a problem. Once we were moving I looked over and saw that poor Alissa was now accompanied by a small, very orange (shirted) man. That’s her problem – she’s too personable. On the bus – oooh, air conditioning! While getting her to check that my carefully reapplied sun cream was rubbed in, I said to Narges – “Hey, we’re world travellers!”
“Don’t you love it?” she replied.

Suddenly… mountains!

Slovenia is very interesting, and laid back. There are wide boulevards that can cope with far more traffic than they seem to have, it has a Eastern European language that is accented like Italian, the landscape leaving Ljubljana had the steep wooded hills of Perthshire, the cliffs of Stirling, the high stoney valleys of Patagonia, with just a touch of China’s younger hills. Then we left the city into a lush, flat plain of cornfields! But then we see a church with a Baroque steeple before a scene that is unmistakeably alpine. Love Slovenia. Love it!

There are a lot of roadside shrines. At least, I hoped they were shrines and not memorials.
Everyone seems to cycle here. There are lots of cycle paths, cyclists on all the roads. I can see why. They are allowed on all the pedestrian areas, and it’s certainly better than walking everywhere in this heat. Ugh.

The music on the bus radio ranged from polka to swing to what really, really sounded like a Welsh male voice choir. And why not? Then there was some Latin-sounding Slovenian language music. Ooh, catchy.

Off through the regional centre of Kranj – taking many photos, with varying success. The cameras came out at the first sign of the picturesque town centre on the hill opposite. I maintain I was inspired by Narges who had hers out first, though she caught me looking guilty while holding mine. “I think we just downgraded from world traveller to tourist,” I admitted.

Stopped to wonder how Slovenians feel about living in a place of such natural beauty and splendour. Then I remembered where I’m from. Ah. I began to catch on.

A few more miles and we would be in Austria! Was reflecting upon this, gazing down at a spectacular wooded gorge, of which we couldn’t see the bottom for the overlapping trees, when I realised we weren’t moving. At the end of the bridge were roadworks. Oy!

Later… much later… we had our first sighting of the last town before our turnoff to Bled, then the bus took a sharp and unexpected detour off the road and down what appeared to be the access road for a road building project. And a dead end. Then we careened down a gravelling path, a steep downward track to the left of the “stop” barrier, under a diminutive underpass (everybody breathe in), and rejoin the main road, a detour from which appeared to be totally unnecessary.

Narges and I spent must of this exchanging concerned looks, and assumed everyone else would be too, but when we looked around while heading towards what appeared to be a precipice, none of the other passengers were batting an eyelid. Alissa was reading the guidebook. Ah well. I was enjoying the Slovenian roads, and this is an unrivalled insight into Slovenia’s most exciting industry. Gift horse, mouth, etc.

We arrived in Bled – couldn’t quite see the lake, but we though downhill was a safe bet. Spotted a gift shop en route – strictly essentials, of course. I needed a bottle of water – it amused me that it said “Voda Voda” – Slovenian for “Water Water” – on it. At fifty cents, it must be the cheapest European tourist trap bottle of water ever! Also made my first postcard purchases of the trip (though I will admit that I have yet to post some of them).

We walked down to the lake – ooh, they’re not kidding about it being pretty – and found the gondolas that run out to the island. Took many pictures of the gondolas, the view, ourselves, each other and ducks in various exciting combinations. Narges pointed out that the big rock seemed made for that castle.

Decided we couldn’t wait for lunch till after the island trip, so went on a food search. Sadly, the first couple of attempts produced only ice cream and alcohol, so we searched on. Several places served decent, reasonably priced dinner menus, but all we wanted was a sandwich! Then we found sandwiches that were tasty – mine was cheese, cream cheese, prosciutto and olive spread for €1.90 – could it be that Bled is perhaps not the tourist money pit it is made out to be? After lunch – and some exceptionally clean public toilets – we headed back to the lake and cheerfully hopped on a boat for the island, and waited. And waited. We had to wait for ten people so he could go. The three who had got on the boat with us eventually decided to try another day, so we were left to watch the ducks and fish in the remarkably clear turquoise water.

A guy in another boat was sleeping, in the absence of customers.

Alissa decided he had the right idea.

We heard that there was a tour group of 25 coming, so at least two of the boats would depart soon. However, the promised 15 mins passed and still no sign. But lo! A steady, if slightly pathetic, stream of tourists began to arrive – then we had ten! Moving Alissa from one side to another (and who could ask for a higher calling than “ballast”?), we departed, our boat driver (as Alissa called him – we mocked, but what does one call the head bloke who rows a gondola – and let me apologise now for these parentheses? I suppose he might be called a “gondolier,” but that merely highlights the ridiculousness of the title) yelling, “Barka! To the island?” and “Last chance!” to anyone who seemed tourist like.

A few took him up on the offer, and as Narges considerately moved across the boat next to me, we collided with a spiky bush which took her place. Lucky escape!

The island approached.

Were the people on our boat speaking Swiss German? They sounded like they were stringing random syllables and identifiable German words together in a definite Scottish accent.
We proceeded, narrowly avoiding a swimmer, to the island. Hoping to make the most of our short, allocated time – 30 mins – we ascended the steep steps to the church.

Tourists much? ;)

Once up there, we goggled at the view some more, then began to descend.

The steep white staircase was beautiful, but too much for a bathmophobe like myself. I quickly found a side platform, then some crumbling but short staircases with a handrail – somewhat bug-encrusted – much more to my liking. Down via a pavilion with a pretty Marian altar, from whence I spotted Narges, surrounded by sunbathing swimmers, dangling her feet off a jetty.

I shed my boots and socks and joined her for a few minutes, watching the Lake Bled minnow synchronised swimming team around our feet, until we had to rejoin our gondola.

Alissa slipped on the way, and I expressed concern that she not fall in and be eaten by fish – I thought sensitively. She showed me the scary-looking catfish that she had noticed while she was being all intrepid and we were cooling off… Eek.

On the way back across the lake, Alissa said that she loved Bled (as we all did) and that she should bring Matt there for their fifth anniversary next year. Scouting for attractive hotels by the lake, she then proceeded, in a very “I’ll have that one” kind of way, to ask the boat-driver (sorry), “What’s the name of that hotel?”
“Ah,” he said. “That’s the Villa Bled. It used to be Tito’s residence.”
And if that’s not an alarming insight into Alissa’s character I don’t know what is.

All day we had been ogling the Church of St Martin on the hill.

It’s very pretty. Once we got up there (a task that made me realise I needed some more Voda Voda) it was well worth the steps up. Modern frescoes adorned the interior, built in 1905, and it is probably one of my favourite churches ever.

We made our way back to the bus, Narges mentioning that she wished there were some fruit trees handy.

I had wondered how, in a language without any fixed accented syllables, you knew how to pronounce things, or if there is some kind of de facto stress pattern that creeps in. On the bus back, the driver acted like he didn’t know what a little girl sent ahead to ask for tickets was saying when asking for Kranj. She said “Kran” with a barely distinguishable “j” at the end. He eventually, after parental intervention, sort of grumpily said, “Oh, Kran-ye!” Now, I got first time, and I know about eight words of Slovenian. I recognised him as one of those belligerent and self-satisfied adults I would never have wanted to come across again, and it put me on edge. But then he did the same thing to multiple people. Eventuallty, we reached Kranj, and he pronounced it loudly and precisely… startling, when you’re sitting right behind him.

On the bus back, somewhere in the Julian Alps, we were stuck behind an old Renault Clio – the incarnation prior to mine – whose driving skills made me wonder if the national badge “SLO” wasn’t missing an ironic “W”.

On the way back,we stopped at a pavement café and attempted to decipher the menu. We discovered again that Czech is a very useful language, as Alissa managed the drinks, but had no clue about local specialities – luckily a personable young man with very spiky hair and glasses (in case any Rentheads wonder what happened to Mark) materialized to explain.

Then came my personality crisis. Mid-meal and mid-sentence, Narges blanked over my identity. “I’ve forgotten her name.” Great. Just great.
Then the personable young man popped up again. “So where are you from?” Pause. That’s a complicated question bearing in mind that my travel companions have lived in about forty-two countries. Alissa came up with an acceptable answer.
“We live in Scotland.” He clapped his hands together.
“Ah! England!” and disappeared.
“How did that make you feel?” Alissa asked me.
“I’m over it,” I moped. “I’m still stuck on Narges forgetting my name.”

Narges branched out and had two flatbreads sandwiching a great big beefburger-looking thing. It came with a variety of brightly coloured sauces – we all tried the red one (crushed red pepper) as Narges got her own version, the hottest they had. She claimed it wasn’t hot, which Alissa later confirmed, but you must forgive my initial skepticism as Narges’s tastebuds aren’t like other people’s – she devoured the accompanying hot chilli in one crunch. Alissa and I had burek – a sort of bread-y thing with meat filling.

One banana split and conversation about Tony Blair later (no, I didn’t start it), we were ready for bed.

Walking back, I suggested that the synchronized echoes of our weary feet were like a death march, but was immediately overruled as too Scottish and pessimistic. We decided to be Charlie’s Angels instead.

In the middle of the night, I sat up and WHACKED my head off the underside of Narges’s bed. Ow. I decided to sleep with my feet under there subsequently. Play nice, Marjeta and Tomasz.

Read On: Slovenian Summer #3: Caves, Castles and Crushed Digits

Slovenian Summer #1: The Journey

At 5 am on Thursday the 12th of July, Matt and Alissa arrived on North Street to collect me. Alissa and I were headed for Ljubljana, the 2007 IOSOT (International Organisation for the Study of the Old Testament) conference for to attend. Matt took us to Dundee to begin the journey. Before we actually left the country, however, Alissa and I had to endure the bus trip that would NEVER END! It was just about bearable past Manchester, but we sat in roadworks for a while, which ended any stoicism I may otherwise have enjoyed.

We got our hilarity in, nevertheless. In Preston we saw a sign that read: “Lord’s Walk leading to Church Street” – which sounds like it should be one of those notice boards outside churches that sometimes make you cringe. We read the guidebook for a while and found the recurring theme of fire in Slovenian history. There are all these monuments as a thanksgiving for deliverance from fire, but it seems that Slovenia may have endured more than its fair share!
Alissa duelled with fast food on the train to Gatwick. “Great,” she exclaimed. “I’m a PhD student and I’m smarter than the ketchup packet”

We tormented an Australian guy on the train with our food – “You guys are killing me!” He sounded pained, too, but politely declined our offer of fries, leftover kettle chips and M&Ms.

On checking in, the lady at the desk alerted Alissa to the fact that her ticket requested a special meal. She looked blank. “You mean, kosher or something?” Now, my mind went first to vegetarian, then diabetic, then to halal or kosher, but one must not assume that everyone’s mind works the same way. Having assured the check in lady that the special meal was fine, we left the desk. Alissa turned to be conspiratorially. “I just wanted to see what would happen.” Sneaky. Sneaky, yet experimental. We rendezvoused with fellow St Marys student Narges, who had come over from Oxford to fly out with us, and proceeded to the plane. Lately I’ve been getting so sick of the whole process – the check-in, the queues at security, the hanging around, queuing to get on the plane, sitting on the tarmac for ages, then taxiing for what seems like an unnecessary amount of time. The good bit about the deadly bus journey was that by flight time, I was totally placid. I was too tired to care, basically.

Alissa may have ordered a kosher meal, but she turned out not to be smarter than it. The leaflet that came with it had stars all over it, and they made much of the “gastronomy” pun. Classy. I loved it. However, it was a small consolation that the flight crew didn’t seem to be smarter than the meal, either. The kosher certificate was only valid if the meal was delivered sealed, and since it arrived in a gold metal container, the plastic knife was rather inadequate. Eventually Alissa asked for help, and the steward tried to break in for a while before giving up and disappearing to the front of the plane. That was funny in itself, but when the package came back open, it became obvious that the cold contents should have been heated up – I mean, cold chicken risotto? Oh, how we giggled.

We were picked up at a really nice airport by a friendly guy from the conference team, who was slightly confused by our numbers but didn’t mind us all squishing into the back. My first impression of Slovenia was that it has beautiful roads – I love a good infrastructure. The airport is some distance north of Ljubljana, which is not very big for a capital city, so there were thousands of stars overhead, something I love but rarely get to see in the northern summer. I gazed at the atypically bright Ursa major. Speaking of big bears…. It was interesting listening to our “tour guide” talking to the Belgian bloke in the front. He seemed laid back, a trait which I was soon to associate with Slovenia and its people. He spoke of bears – and not the astral kind. Slovenia has so many bears that they actually export them (no, I didn’t ask the obvious question). Much of the country is forest. How come in Sweden these things don’t seem anything special but in Slovenia it’s so exotic?

We learned a lot through our sleepy eavesdropping. The country is 20, 000 sq Km in area. “And you can drive across the country in… well, say you… take westernmost to easternmost point, say… northeast to southwest…” but I never found out how long it would take – probably a matter of three or so hours – as I was distracted by a glimpse of our first Slovenian church, spotlit on a hill.

I waited, as we drove long, wide boulevards (litter-free) coming into Ljubuljana, for the city centre to begin. Then suddenly, we were crossing the Ljubljanica River! The beautiful villa-type buildings were the centre.

We had several failed attempts to get into the car park of the hostel, before we got in, got a room for three, then… bed! Lay back and noted the graffiti on the underside of Narges’s bed. “Marjeta and Tomasz 4 ever”

Welcome to Slovenia.

Read on: Slovenian Summer #2: From Bed to Bled (and back again)