Ljubljana

Fifty | Garden | Ninety | Pics | Twenty-Five

19 July 2022

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One of the weirder bands I really enjoy did a heavy metal rewrite of The Sound of Music, which was, of course, filmed in Salzburg. That band's name is Laibach, which is coincidentally the old Deutsch name of the city we slept in last name now better known by the local Slovene variant, Ljubljana. The creek nearby they call the Ljubljanica, but it's really just a Bach, or small creek. It flows by a large hill upon which men built a settlement before history here started to be recorded. Celts, Romans (who called it Aemona), Germans and Slavs all moved here in succession and by the middle ages there was a castle on the hill. Eventually dams were added and the creek deepened and diverted to flow on both sides of the hill and form a moat. Still the city was repeatedly conquered by Venetians, Hapsburgs, Huns, French, Italians, Nazis, etc. And destroyed twice by large earthquakes. After spending most of the twentieth century united with Slavs to the south and east it has so far spent the twenty-first united with the European Union to the west and north. It's actually a Slovenija border dispute on land and sea with Croatia that's keeping that country outside of Schengen even though they will join the Eurozone at the end of the year.

Last night we arrived in this lovely little city after driving across Austria through the afternoon. On A11/E61 there is a long tunnel connecting the countries so one crosses the border underground. It's interesting that while one crosses this Alpine tunnel at roughly the same latitude as Gotthard it's not such a dramatic change in climate and flora. Perhaps that's because we're still in the Black Sea watershed here, whereas there one crosses from the North Sea watershed into the Mediterranean. And both countries are in Schengen, so there was no border check just a tollbooth for the tunnel. Paula was so happy to be out of the car she ran off in the parking garage which caused us a bit of stress after checking in to our hotel. We dined at the nostalgic and excellent Sarajevo 84 restaurant which featured Olympic memorabilia and cusine from around the former Yugoslavia. After an evening walk around the city and drinks at the hotel's rooftop bar we turned in early to get rested for the next day's fun.

Are you a real person?

Paula and I started off today bright and early with a run around the old moat. Just like Wrocław there's a nice green area next to the moat. As we drove into town yesterday Iwona pointed out half a dozen thinks that were "like Poland!" It would be interesting to know if these are Slavic cultural peculiarities or former Soviet ones. If only there was a Slavic country that hadn't undergone Soviet occupation. After breakfast we spent the morning working and then it was off to see the castle.