Slovenia Drive
Crossing into countries that were for so much of my life behind the Iron Curtain still gives me pause--a momentary uneasiness and sense of isolation that comes with leaving the West behind. These visits leave us totally dependent on the English-language skills of godless former Communists, sickle-wielding babushkas and zealot commissars. The Slavic language barrier we have encountered in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia is certainly higher than is the German barrier for us; crossing into Hungary presented an even more formidable language challenge. But those initial thoughts and feelings soon go below the surface.
A few weekends ago we drove a stretch of highway between Maribor and Ljubljana, Slovenia, to see the Slovenian Alps, closing our day by crossing back into Austria. We had bought a Slovenian highway tax sticker--the alternative to toll booths--for the car windshield just before we arrived at the border. Soon after crossing, we saw several police checks for vehicles without stickers, including an officer standing in the highway median with a pair of binoculars. We soon thereafter drove into a rest plaza and stopped in a large parking lot to have the lunch we had packed. A moment later a van with a Polish license plate pulled up next to us, and seconds later we saw a young man and woman come around the side of the vehicle and tell the occupants--two young couples--to get out. At that point we noticed the guns on the hips of the two who had approached the van and realized they were plain-clothes police. While they sent the driver off to the service station to purchase a tax sticker, they searched the van, including the women's purses and all the luggage--untrammeled by such a triviality as a warrant. They were, we presume, looking for drugs. Nothing found, they fined the driver, who had returned, sticker in hand, and then they glanced at us, sitting in our car. Thoughts of an imminent passport check, unintelligible interrogation before a commissar, and a body-cavity search took away my appetite. But the police just ambled away. Lunch over, we continued on; as the highway stretched into central Slovenia, the mountains became low and green, much like the scenery along the West Virginia Turnpike. Life here felt a bit more familiar.
It was not long before we felt like we were home again, though in an idyllic setting unlike any in Grinzing. Near Ljubljana we turned west for Austria, and the mountains became much higher and more rugged and dramatic--counterpointing the comfort of re-entering a country where, for another year, we belong. We passed the night at a family-run guesthouse on the edge of the Klopeiner See, one of Austria's many glacial lakes. Our room, rich in dark wood from floor to ceiling, looked made for a family vacation: master bedroom, separate kids' bedroom with bunkbeds, and a large bathroom. Our terrace, with its rail covered in cascading begonias, looked out on an acre of deep green meadow, a few horses, and lots of sleepy cows, most reclined on their knees in evening prayer. We strolled to the edge of the lake, where the water looked pure and clear all 6-8' to the bottom. The one restaurant in town that was open that evening was hosting a wedding and thus was closed to us. After walking a good ways and then driving around for awhile and finding nothing, we pulled into a service station and bought a few candy bars. Those, plus a few cookies and crackers left over from lunch and a bottle of wine we had brought along, made our dinner. I thought of the cows and horses sleeping peacefully in the darkness below our window...and then oh so vaguely of meat recipes. Up early Sunday morning, we enjoyed a big breakfast. We were home in time for a large lunch.
Ljubljana
Two weeks after that drive, we took the train from Vienna to Ljubljana, much of the time galloping along beside the same highway we had driven previously, until we got to the capital city. So many of the cities we have visited in this region have been wholly or partially rebuilt as a result of bombing in World War II. Ljubljana, however, looks relatively modern, not from war's urban renewal but as a result of rebuilding after a major earthquake in the late 19th century--a seismic event that shook the vowels loose from the street signs and left only unpronounceable jumbles of consonants. A 12th-century castle tower rises on a hill above the city, and our walk up to its base gave us views across to the Austrian border and its sheer stone Alps, their crests under a ragged blanket of snow. The scene in its entirety--castle on a hill, river and city lying below--was a visual echo of many another picturesque setting we have visited in this part of the world, including Salzburg and Prague.
Our hotel could have been in any city in the States, but Ljubljana's menus...not so much. The tourist literature on the city notes proudly the abundance of horse dishes--not on the dessert or drinks listings--and we saw everything from horse liver sausage to items like Bucket o' Pony. We opted for pork entrees. I had scanned hotel reviews, as usual, before selecting our place to stay; only one looked as if it would be quiet, clean, and comfortable: the Slon. The hotel in this lovely city turned out to be almost annoyingly modern, with a large, carpeted entry behind glass and brass doors, veneered walls, comfortable lobby seating areas, and sleek elevators that glided instead of clunked between floors, as elevators have been wont to do in most of our lodgings in Europe. Except for the variety of languages we heard, we might have mistaken our quarters for a hotel in Indianapolis or Peoria. Despite the hotel website's claims of quiet, our sleep was interrupted about hourly all through the night with groups of drunks strolling through the streets singing off-key and shouting, a reprise of our nights in Krakow.
We spent Saturday afternoon sipping beer along the river and walking up the hill to the castle grounds for views of the city and the mountains. Sunday morning, before it was time to head to the train station, we strolled by the shops and restaurants along the river. The Ljubljanica is narrow, channeled through the heart of the city by high stone levees, along which are terrace after terrace of restaurants arrayed with flower boxes tumbling red-orange begonia blossoms. That morning, however, there were also endless rows of vendor tables and stands; many were selling local crafts and wares: jellies, glassware, honey, wine, wood carvings, candles, toys, clothing. One stretch offered a flea market, with tables displaying the contents from Slovenia's attics and estate sales. Along with old medicine bottles, rusty coffee grinders, clothing irons, huge old keys to castle dungeons and such, we found memorabilia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: army hats and insignia and signs. Mixed among them were reminders of the time before the Communist era--the occupation of Slovenia during World War II, first by Italy and then by Germany: uniform buttons, swastika pins, and currency from that era. But no commissars and no sickle-wielding babushkas, nor any jack-booted police checking for highway tax stickers and chomping pony burgers.
Filler
-- The highlight of the past month was a visit from Momnbob: Mariazell, the Danube Valley, the Musikverein concert, the Sunday brunch at the art history museum.... The only low point, aside from a knee injury for Momnbob, was the dinner cruise on the Danube. Dull, cheap buffet food (for example, two huge trays of pressed broccoli in gelatin), sway-belly musicians singing offkey, and bright interior lights that canceled the view of the shores from the dining area drove us to sit outside, on the back of the boat, in the smoking zone, where the lovely city shone along with the stars.
-- And, just completed, a visit from my old college roommate, Russ, who now lives in Berlin. We had not seen each other for more than 40 years. We spent most of three days just talking solid, with little touring of Vienna, since he had visited the city on a couple of other occasions. He did insist on going back to the Sacher Hotel for its famous torte, since he'd told them 30 years ago--anticipating Arnold--that he would be back.
-- We made a visit on a recent weekend with our English friend Scarlett to the 1st-century Roman settlement of Carnuntum in the countryside east of Vienna. Well documented, well labeled, and well restored, the ruins are in sharp contrast to those I have seen in Italy. Here it is almost as if the ruins themselves have been destroyed by reconstruction and restoration done for convenience of pedestrian tourists and the ready purveying of information. We went from Carnuntum to Schlosshof, a country estate of Prince Eugen--who helped rescue Vienna from the Turks in 1683. It is a minimally restored version of the Vienna Hofburg palace in a farm setting, with more flies.
-- The best hamburger in Vienna, we believe, is to be found at an outdoor cafe adjacent to the zoo at Schönbrunn: the "Hapsburger."
Crossing into countries that were for so much of my life behind the Iron Curtain still gives me pause--a momentary uneasiness and sense of isolation that comes with leaving the West behind. These visits leave us totally dependent on the English-language skills of godless former Communists, sickle-wielding babushkas and zealot commissars. The Slavic language barrier we have encountered in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia is certainly higher than is the German barrier for us; crossing into Hungary presented an even more formidable language challenge. But those initial thoughts and feelings soon go below the surface.
A few weekends ago we drove a stretch of highway between Maribor and Ljubljana, Slovenia, to see the Slovenian Alps, closing our day by crossing back into Austria. We had bought a Slovenian highway tax sticker--the alternative to toll booths--for the car windshield just before we arrived at the border. Soon after crossing, we saw several police checks for vehicles without stickers, including an officer standing in the highway median with a pair of binoculars. We soon thereafter drove into a rest plaza and stopped in a large parking lot to have the lunch we had packed. A moment later a van with a Polish license plate pulled up next to us, and seconds later we saw a young man and woman come around the side of the vehicle and tell the occupants--two young couples--to get out. At that point we noticed the guns on the hips of the two who had approached the van and realized they were plain-clothes police. While they sent the driver off to the service station to purchase a tax sticker, they searched the van, including the women's purses and all the luggage--untrammeled by such a triviality as a warrant. They were, we presume, looking for drugs. Nothing found, they fined the driver, who had returned, sticker in hand, and then they glanced at us, sitting in our car. Thoughts of an imminent passport check, unintelligible interrogation before a commissar, and a body-cavity search took away my appetite. But the police just ambled away. Lunch over, we continued on; as the highway stretched into central Slovenia, the mountains became low and green, much like the scenery along the West Virginia Turnpike. Life here felt a bit more familiar.
It was not long before we felt like we were home again, though in an idyllic setting unlike any in Grinzing. Near Ljubljana we turned west for Austria, and the mountains became much higher and more rugged and dramatic--counterpointing the comfort of re-entering a country where, for another year, we belong. We passed the night at a family-run guesthouse on the edge of the Klopeiner See, one of Austria's many glacial lakes. Our room, rich in dark wood from floor to ceiling, looked made for a family vacation: master bedroom, separate kids' bedroom with bunkbeds, and a large bathroom. Our terrace, with its rail covered in cascading begonias, looked out on an acre of deep green meadow, a few horses, and lots of sleepy cows, most reclined on their knees in evening prayer. We strolled to the edge of the lake, where the water looked pure and clear all 6-8' to the bottom. The one restaurant in town that was open that evening was hosting a wedding and thus was closed to us. After walking a good ways and then driving around for awhile and finding nothing, we pulled into a service station and bought a few candy bars. Those, plus a few cookies and crackers left over from lunch and a bottle of wine we had brought along, made our dinner. I thought of the cows and horses sleeping peacefully in the darkness below our window...and then oh so vaguely of meat recipes. Up early Sunday morning, we enjoyed a big breakfast. We were home in time for a large lunch.
Ljubljana
Two weeks after that drive, we took the train from Vienna to Ljubljana, much of the time galloping along beside the same highway we had driven previously, until we got to the capital city. So many of the cities we have visited in this region have been wholly or partially rebuilt as a result of bombing in World War II. Ljubljana, however, looks relatively modern, not from war's urban renewal but as a result of rebuilding after a major earthquake in the late 19th century--a seismic event that shook the vowels loose from the street signs and left only unpronounceable jumbles of consonants. A 12th-century castle tower rises on a hill above the city, and our walk up to its base gave us views across to the Austrian border and its sheer stone Alps, their crests under a ragged blanket of snow. The scene in its entirety--castle on a hill, river and city lying below--was a visual echo of many another picturesque setting we have visited in this part of the world, including Salzburg and Prague.
Our hotel could have been in any city in the States, but Ljubljana's menus...not so much. The tourist literature on the city notes proudly the abundance of horse dishes--not on the dessert or drinks listings--and we saw everything from horse liver sausage to items like Bucket o' Pony. We opted for pork entrees. I had scanned hotel reviews, as usual, before selecting our place to stay; only one looked as if it would be quiet, clean, and comfortable: the Slon. The hotel in this lovely city turned out to be almost annoyingly modern, with a large, carpeted entry behind glass and brass doors, veneered walls, comfortable lobby seating areas, and sleek elevators that glided instead of clunked between floors, as elevators have been wont to do in most of our lodgings in Europe. Except for the variety of languages we heard, we might have mistaken our quarters for a hotel in Indianapolis or Peoria. Despite the hotel website's claims of quiet, our sleep was interrupted about hourly all through the night with groups of drunks strolling through the streets singing off-key and shouting, a reprise of our nights in Krakow.
We spent Saturday afternoon sipping beer along the river and walking up the hill to the castle grounds for views of the city and the mountains. Sunday morning, before it was time to head to the train station, we strolled by the shops and restaurants along the river. The Ljubljanica is narrow, channeled through the heart of the city by high stone levees, along which are terrace after terrace of restaurants arrayed with flower boxes tumbling red-orange begonia blossoms. That morning, however, there were also endless rows of vendor tables and stands; many were selling local crafts and wares: jellies, glassware, honey, wine, wood carvings, candles, toys, clothing. One stretch offered a flea market, with tables displaying the contents from Slovenia's attics and estate sales. Along with old medicine bottles, rusty coffee grinders, clothing irons, huge old keys to castle dungeons and such, we found memorabilia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: army hats and insignia and signs. Mixed among them were reminders of the time before the Communist era--the occupation of Slovenia during World War II, first by Italy and then by Germany: uniform buttons, swastika pins, and currency from that era. But no commissars and no sickle-wielding babushkas, nor any jack-booted police checking for highway tax stickers and chomping pony burgers.
Filler
-- The highlight of the past month was a visit from Momnbob: Mariazell, the Danube Valley, the Musikverein concert, the Sunday brunch at the art history museum.... The only low point, aside from a knee injury for Momnbob, was the dinner cruise on the Danube. Dull, cheap buffet food (for example, two huge trays of pressed broccoli in gelatin), sway-belly musicians singing offkey, and bright interior lights that canceled the view of the shores from the dining area drove us to sit outside, on the back of the boat, in the smoking zone, where the lovely city shone along with the stars.
-- And, just completed, a visit from my old college roommate, Russ, who now lives in Berlin. We had not seen each other for more than 40 years. We spent most of three days just talking solid, with little touring of Vienna, since he had visited the city on a couple of other occasions. He did insist on going back to the Sacher Hotel for its famous torte, since he'd told them 30 years ago--anticipating Arnold--that he would be back.
-- We made a visit on a recent weekend with our English friend Scarlett to the 1st-century Roman settlement of Carnuntum in the countryside east of Vienna. Well documented, well labeled, and well restored, the ruins are in sharp contrast to those I have seen in Italy. Here it is almost as if the ruins themselves have been destroyed by reconstruction and restoration done for convenience of pedestrian tourists and the ready purveying of information. We went from Carnuntum to Schlosshof, a country estate of Prince Eugen--who helped rescue Vienna from the Turks in 1683. It is a minimally restored version of the Vienna Hofburg palace in a farm setting, with more flies.
-- The best hamburger in Vienna, we believe, is to be found at an outdoor cafe adjacent to the zoo at Schönbrunn: the "Hapsburger."
-- In my walk to the fitness center at the Embassy I regularly pass a construction site; some of its pod offices and stacks of materials occasionally encroach on the sidewalk and even into the street. One day a 6-foot-deep trench in the sidewalk left only about a 1-foot edge against a wall for pedestrians to pass. There was no caution tape, and there were no bars or orange cones for warnings. Another day, a huge crane swung a pallet of drywall sheets directly over the heads of pedestrians as it unloaded a truck.
-- On a hillside in the country, as we drove through southern Austria, a smiling elderly man pushed a wheel chair up a hill. Sitting in the chair was a terrier mix--tongue out, eyes aglow--who also appeared to be smiling.
-- In downtown Vienna, in heavy traffic a young man on a bicycle meandered slowly along, his left arm and index finger fully extended at a driver in a BMW behind him. The driver would repeatedly surge and brake, as if trying to make the bicyclist believe he was about to run him down. This went on for about a block before I lost sight of them, and may still be going on.
-- A large yellow Ottakringer beer truck with a huge sign on the back reading "Fahrt Mit Beer" (Go with Beer).
-- With the return of chilly weather, the shorts, sandals, and black socks are back in Wien's dresser drawers until spring. Vienna held its first Oktoberfest this year. In a huge tent picnic tables were placed so close to each other that we had to step sideways between them to get seats in the thick cloud of cigarette smoke. Beer came in liter mugs, and a succession of regional bands took turns on the stage, inviting rhythmic clapping, dancing on the tables, and singing along. Uniformed officers with breathalyzers strolled through the crowd, with "Alkohol Kontrol" armbands, offering an intoxication check to anyone who wanted it. A good time was had by us and Momnbob--all of us having drunk too much to want to bother with the Kontrol. And we were not driving, anyway.
-- On a hillside in the country, as we drove through southern Austria, a smiling elderly man pushed a wheel chair up a hill. Sitting in the chair was a terrier mix--tongue out, eyes aglow--who also appeared to be smiling.
-- In downtown Vienna, in heavy traffic a young man on a bicycle meandered slowly along, his left arm and index finger fully extended at a driver in a BMW behind him. The driver would repeatedly surge and brake, as if trying to make the bicyclist believe he was about to run him down. This went on for about a block before I lost sight of them, and may still be going on.
-- A large yellow Ottakringer beer truck with a huge sign on the back reading "Fahrt Mit Beer" (Go with Beer).
-- With the return of chilly weather, the shorts, sandals, and black socks are back in Wien's dresser drawers until spring. Vienna held its first Oktoberfest this year. In a huge tent picnic tables were placed so close to each other that we had to step sideways between them to get seats in the thick cloud of cigarette smoke. Beer came in liter mugs, and a succession of regional bands took turns on the stage, inviting rhythmic clapping, dancing on the tables, and singing along. Uniformed officers with breathalyzers strolled through the crowd, with "Alkohol Kontrol" armbands, offering an intoxication check to anyone who wanted it. A good time was had by us and Momnbob--all of us having drunk too much to want to bother with the Kontrol. And we were not driving, anyway.
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