Monday 9th July
So the sun Rose on the Monday morning and signalled the
start of out last morning in Slovenia. I will not pretend I wasn’t
disappointed, by the afternoon I would be back on my site cleaning up caravans
after dirty holidays makers had gone home. OK so the majority o f my customers
are clean but you know I still had to go back to work. And I had become quite
fond of Slovenia.
Camp Site Check out was painless and we even managed to
acquire two free bananas from the hotel breakfast bar. I only wish that the
breakfast had paper cups next to the coffee as I was dying to have a nice cup
of Slovenian coffee again, but alas this was not meant to be. I would have to
be contented with my banana and can of coke.
Apparently Slovenia is one of the smallest countries in
Eastern Europe and has one of the highest numbers of castles (or Grads) per
square kilometre or something like that. Heading back to Italy early we wanted
to visit some of the famous castles which are supposedly dotted around
Slovenia. We decided on going to the Predjama Castle, simply because it was the
first one we passed and that was enough reasons for us really. The Grad was
first mentioned in 1274. The Grad was built in a natural Arch of the rock in
order to make it even more difficult to attack. After the 16 KM of winding
country lanes, that go up and down the mountain side, to get to it from the avtocesta
(Slovenian motorway to you and me) I think any would be attacker would be far
too knackered to be in any fit state to attack the place. I’d of thought the
owners would have liked to have their Grad close to the motorway junction, I
know I would.
Legend has it that the owner of the Grad, Knight Erazem Lueger,
fled to there after he’d upset a few people. It is said that he killed some
important guy in another army, because this bloke had slagged off one of his
friends. Finding safety in Predjama, Lueger just had to wait, and see what his
enemies would do next. Turns out they came after him and held the Grad under
siege for a year and a day (quite poetic). During this time the attacking army
had no idea that there was a secret tunnel out of the Grad which led to a local
village so that fresh supplies could be sought. Lueger would taunt his
attackers by throwing fresh cherries at them, a little bit of a waste I feel. Anyway
this couldn’t go on forever. The attacking forces bribed one of Lueger's
servants into telling them when he would be using the little boy’s room. From
what I understand the toilet facilities in those days were a little different
and that this was the only part of the Grad which wasn’t impenetrable. One
quick shot with a canal and Lueger was literally caught with his trousers down.
I’m sure that there is more to the story then that but those are the funny bits
I understand.
Ok the Castle was impressive on the rocks but we had no time
to explore it properly. We had also run out of time to go and see some of the
caves which apparently are the biggest in Europe. From what I hear there are
tones of caves around here so I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on them, after
all a cave is just a big hole underground isn’t it. The highlight of our drive
home I felt was going through all the little villages dotted along the
hillside. My favourite being Zagon, because I think it sound funny. As you can
tell the town name signs are displayed much more prettily there than they are
in the UK, so it obviously deserved a picture.
 |
| Zagon SO should be the Capital! |
The rest of the Slovenian side of our journey was
uneventful, the mountains that had ‘embraced us’ for the last 48 hours
disappeared and before we knew it we had crossed the border and found ourselves
back in the flats of north eastern Italy. I was almost dozing off when we
noticed a sign for Prosecco.
For those of you not familiar, Prosecco is a dry sparkling
white wine which is the Italian version of Champagne. I must admit, I’ve become
fond of a glass of Prosecco every now and again but drinking it from a plastic
glass which the clubs here only use doesn’t quite fit with the image I’d like
to portray. Anyway we drove through Prosecco hoping to find a little sign we
could have our pictures taken with. Alas it wasn’t to be and we settles for
seeing a homemade sign directing us to a vineyard and a check in on Face book
(ooh how it has changed our lives).
OK I’ve blabbered on about rubbish for as long as I can now.
The rest of our journey consisted of watching the KM decrease on the autostrada
(Italian motorway) and passing the signs of towns with funny names. My personal
favourite is ‘Barry’ and I will be spending a day there, or at least an hour
there at some point before I leave Italy.
I’ve REALLY enjoyed Slovenia (best place yet so far) so here
are a few things I’ve learnt or noticed whilst being there:
- Bridges can be close together
- Wifi here is cheaper and better than Italy
- They have some really cool grafiti
- Sometimes, 1 mattress just isn't enough
- Bicycle hire here is cheaper than Italy
- Some toilets here us a ‘tap’ flush method instead of the button. It means if you have a really big ‘deposit’ for the toilet you can choose to leave the tap on longer and so preventing floaters. I think this idea should be spread worldwide immediately!
- Slovenian Wine tastes good
- Zagon Is my favourite
- You dont always need a map to find places, but it does help
- Slovenian Beer tastes good
- Balkan mixed grill is an acquired taste (I know I originally said I liked it but the morning after I’ve had second thoughts
- Slovenian for thank you is hvala
- Slovenian urine smells much the same as Italian urine, which smells much the same as French urine, which smells incrediblely like English urine
- Next time I come I will bring a razor!
- Slovenian for your welcome is prosim
- Slovenia is underrated
- I want to come back!
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