To Piran

Small notices at the breakfast tables read Vi preghiamo..., we request you (to clear the table). Ah yes, Italian is the second language here. The humidity in the morning so oppressive that breakfast was an ordeal. Even the milk for the cereal was hot, there was no cold milk. My hanky was soaked by the end of the 10 minute walk to the station. I had a bit of respite in the air-conditioned station, then sweltered again in the bus until it got moving.

I was spending a few days on Slovenia's 43 km of coastline, heading south from Koper. At Izola I alighted, found a town map and located the youth hostel. Unfortunately it was full up, with students it seemed. What to do? Press on to Piran, near the end of the Slovenian littoral, I decided. The bus went through Lucija and Portorož and terminated just outside the old city, which is a pedestrian-mostly precinct due to the narrow peninsula that Piran occupies.

When I got off I realised that I had lost my floppy hat, probably in the bus station or on the bus. It was worth little but I would miss the little shade it gave me. And I didn't want to go looking for a replacement this late in the trip. In a bad mood I found the Val hostel in the old city where I was told that there was no problem staying Thursday and Friday but they were full on Saturday. Of course! It is Independence Day on Monday and the end of a long weekend. Oh well, might as well take two nights and figure something out later. I looked at the other two youth hostels in Piran but they didn't look as appealing. At the Maona tourist agency I explained my predicament and the man there said that I could rent a little room just around the corner with self-catering facilities for 22€, pretty much the same price as the hostel. Sure why not, so I left a deposit. I wondered what the drawbacks would be.

Shopping, that's the thing to do when down, ha ha. I got an ice cream and a cold bottle of Coke at the Mercator supermarket. Then I spotted a coffee shop. Ah, maybe I can get some potica, a Slovenian nut roll with walnut and spice filling, mentioned as a must-try by my guide book. "Do you have any potica," I asked, stressing the first syllable and using a hard c. "What?" "Potica." "Ah no, listen: po-TI-tsa." "Ok, do you have any?" "Sorry no, maybe at a supermarket?" And so it was, I later found some there. Sigh, so I'd been pronouncing the Slavic c wrong in my head all the time. I should have paid attention to the language section of the guide book where it said c = ts.

Lunch was however a delight. I found the highly rated Pri Mari restaurant mentioned by the guide and had a lovely risotto nero. The people at the next table seemed to be enjoying their fish. The proprietors were pleased that we relished their cooking. It was like being in Italy again.

Even the locals seemed to be suffering; I could see their skin glistening, so I took refuge in the hostel, where thankfully they had turned on the air-conditioning. In the evening, when the heat had eased somewhat, I ventured out and walked to Portorož. The guide said 20 minutes, but it seemed more because of the diversions along the way. About halfway the coastal promenade goes through the Bernadin resort complex. Mainly older folks stay here. Mostly Slovenians with a smattering of tourists from elsewhere, e.g. Germans and Italians,

Portorož is a pretty swank place, with luxury hotels. This is the Slovenian riviera after all. Even the dinner I had, a ražnjići, was one of the more expensive meals I'd had in Slovenia. It was well-prepared though.

When I got back to Piran, there was an outdoor concert in progress to kick off the long weekend. The civic buildings were floodlit which allowed me to get some good shots.

Divača (Škocjan Caves)

I went back up the karst today. This was intentional. After studying the accommodation situation near Škocjan Caves and the transport timetables, I had decided that the best way to see the caves would be as a day trip from Koper, despite the expense of a train ticket to backtrack.

While waiting for the train, I studied the bus timetable for the crossing to Italy. I would be coming back here after seeing the rest of the coast. It seemed that they went every two hours on Italian Working Days. I hoped that the following Tuesday was a IWD and not some holiday I didn't know about.

Slovenian trains are modern and comfortable. I found it interesting that the authorities seem to have sanctioned spray paint artists to decorate some carriages.

One drawback of backpacking in Slovenia is that unless you have your own transport, some attractions are hard to get to because they are kilometres away from the nearest transport stop. And being a small country, services can be infrequent. So anything under 5km I was willing to walk.

At Divača I couldn't find the walking trail claimed by the guide book to be signposted from the station. So I walked alongside the country road to the caves complex. There was no shade but I was more worried about careless drivers sideswiping pedestrians. Anyway I got there in 45 minutes, so it would have been about 3km away. I was in time to join the 12 noon session.

The Škocjan Caves are much more spacious than the Postojna ones, and much less well lit as a result so I only got one picture of the inside. You will find better pictures at the Wikipedia article.

The guide explained the fascinating history of the cave's discovery and its geology. The Reka River disappears into this cave and flows underground for 34km before emerging as one of the sources of the Timavo, a very short 2 km river north of Trieste, in Italian territory, that empties into the Adriatic. Of course, the river had been there long before the nations of Italy and Yugoslavia came into being.

It certainly deserves its inscription in the UNESCO World Heritage list.

This is the cave opening where we emerged, many metres below the entry level. We took a small funicular up to the entry hall.

I took lunch in the cafeteria. I had a schnitzel, but no contorno accompanied. But at least there was bread. It was enough for a warm day. After that I visited a couple of open-air museums in the nearby village of Škocjan. There were displays about farming life in this region in the past and the discovery of the cave.

I asked the staff about the walking path back to Divača and they showed me the way. It was a stony path, but at least there was some shade and it was a welcome change from walking along an uninteresting country road. I emerged at a village near Divača and realised where I had missed the turn going out. I was indignant at my guide book and was mentally composing a complaint letter about false information, when I noticed at the station platform a small plaque bearing a map that I had missed. Sigh.

Back at Koper, between the train station and the hostel, there were not one, but two discount supermarkets side by side, both German in origin. One was a Hofer, the Slovenian brand for Aldi and their competitor was a Lidl. Same concept as the Aldis at home, similar layouts, and even similar Chinese-made knick-knacks. I tried one of the 70% dark chocolate bars and it was quite good.

There was a Harvey Norman in the shopping centre. It looked just like the ones at home, with sections for whitegoods, bedding, electronics, etc. I later learnt that HN is in Slovenia due to the owner's marriage connections.

I had spotted an Interspar self-service cafeteria in the centre and decided to dine there, inspite of having to eat earlier because of the opening hours. With the help of the Slovenian glossary in the guide book, I managed to make sense of the bill of fare posted at the entrance. So now I could read the tags on the dishes in the bain marie. I'm such a genius, I am, heh heh heh.

Well, you can guess that I was headed for a pratfall. When I got to the serving counter, all the dishes were different. Either the bill of fare was out of date or I had been translating the lunch menu. Fortunately the person ahead of me had just received what looked like crumbed chicken and potato puree. So I indicated (in Italian I seem to recall) that I wanted the same. I then got some salad from the self-serve bar and a bottle of beer. It was quite a good dinner for 4€43 so that was the bright spot.

Koper

Breakfast cost 5€ extra, but I didn't mind because it was plentiful and filling, with frankfurters and eggs available. Since the train wasn't due until 1023, I watched a bit of TV and checked my email in the lounge. Even so, I had time to kill at the station. As the line approaches the coast it has to lose a lot of altitude in a short distance. So there is an impressive zigzag section where you can see where the train was a few minutes ago higher up.

The area around Koper's combined train and bus station is flat, boring and treeless industrial land outside the old city. It was several hundred metres walk to the Motel Port and I was glad I had my floppy hat against the midday sun. I eventually found it in the upper floors of a port facility building that housed shipping companies, retailers and such. Nearby, container trucks were noisily arriving at and departing from the docks. That explained the name of the motel/hostel. There was a bar in the next block so it could get noisy at night. But the dorms were airy, bright and clean. I had a whole dorm to myself while I was there.

Even by 1830, it was still too warm for my taste. I was back on the Adriatic coast so skies were clear and the sunshine brilliant. It was close to the peak of summer after all. I found the way into the old city more or less by luck and explored all the squares and narrow streets mentioned in the guide. This is the Praetorian Palace in the principal square.

Koper's other name is Capodistria which reveals its Italian origin when teased apart as Capo d'Istria (Head of Istria). It once had a sizable Italian community but most left when the area was given to Yugoslavia in the aftermath of WWII. I daresay many moved across the border to Trieste which was given to Italy. However the Italian influence lingers in the region in the street language, bilingual signs, and fortunately for me, the cuisine. In 2007 Koper celebrated a 50th anniversary.

I found the La Storia restaurant, where I had the eponymous gnocchi with chicken, rugola and only half a cherry tomato! And tomatoes are a mainstay of Italian cuisine. Were they very expensive in Slovenia? But the dish was good. Like being back in Italy. Service was slow because the place was understaffed but I didn't mind because I had a good view of the marina area.

I got a gelato (what else?) for desert on the Leather Maker's street. It was much cooler on the walk back. There wasn't any truck traffic at that hour but lots of merrymakers at the drinking establishment downstairs.

The RAI3 channel was showing Il Commissario Rex. It was an episode I had seen before. Rex got kidnapped (or should we say, dognapped) by the baddie.

Postojna

Fortunately I didn't roll off the bunk and crush somebody during the night. And there had been comfortable breezes coming through the window.

Stopped by the markets and picked up 1 kg of cherries and some apricots. Ok, I was greedy but the cherries were quite good and it took all day to finish them. The apricots were undistinguished. I decided not to lunch in Ljubljana but caught the 1210 train south. One hour later I was in Postojna. The hostel was easy to find and it was a downhill walk. They at first thought I wanted a regular room until I mentioned dorms. It looked like they were in the process of becoming more of a hotel. While wandering around town, I realised that I could visit the caves, the reason for my stopover, in the evening and be able to leave first thing in the morning, saving some time.

It was an easy walk out of town to the limestone caves in the cool of the late afternoon. They were opened to tourism in the early 19th century, when this area was ruled by Austria. After paying for admission, we were taken to the starting point for our walk in a small train. The air was at a constant, cool temperature of 16 or 17C. There is a lot of damp, so visitors have to wear jackets, and those who do not come prepared can rent one.

The caves are exactly as you would expect, miles and miles of passages decorated with stalactites and stalagmites. I was in karst country again.

You realise that a different time scale operates here when you hear the guide explain that it can take a hundred years to add a couple of cm to a pillar. The right hand formation joined up within living memory. And a careless tourist could damage it in seconds.

Finally we ended up our tour in this large chamber. In the past it had been used for concerts but that practice had been abandoned due to the high humidity, also because the substantial human traffic had been damaging the caves.

Back in the open, I walked back to town and took dinner at the Pizzerija Minutka. One of their house specials, Ponev Minutka (Minutka Pan) comprising turkey with vegetables in wine sauce was quite good and I easily finished it all.

Back in the dorm I discovered that the other lodger was a Portuguese masters student on a week's summer course on geoconservation. He told me that Tasmania was in the forefront of this field. Interesting.

Passing through Ljubljana

The 0954 bus got me into Ljubljana about 1130. It's a small country. I had a bed booked at the Celica for a night. This time they put me in a 3 person room. I'm in the top bunk. A couple had the double bunk below. No safety rail on my bunk. I hoped I wouldn't roll out of my bunk at night and crush the couple.

The hostel had self-service laundry facilities so I decided to get a clean set of clothing. Took me a couple of hours but it was worth it. I had time; the only thing left to see was Ljubljana Castle in the evening. Here's a boat chugging down a tranquil Ljubljanica late in the afternoon.

I took the cable car up the hill from here. It is possible to walk up the access road, but I decided that I would walk down afterwards.

When I got to the castle, I found that to have a view from the clock tower over Ljubljana, you needed to pay admission to the Virtual Museum to be able to look out of the outward facing windows. Ljubljana doesn't have a great skyline so I declined to enter. I thought it was very clever and commercial of them though. But I'll show one picture I took from outside the castle walls.

There is a large courtyard and underneath, in the tunnels of the castle, there was a photo exhibition on the recent history of the city, including pictures from WWII, accompanied by stories of hardship.

This is the vehicular entrance to the castle. The venue is used for cultural events judging from the notices.

Here's a view of the pathway.

I decided to settle for a sub sandwich from the local franchise of Subway. The smallgoods meat was mediocre but edible. Since it only cost me 4€40 I decided to treat myself to a melon gelato.

And that was my Sunday in Ljubljana before heading towards the coast. At the hostel, one of the three computer terminals had gone bung so there was a queue. No matter, I didn't have any urgent email to send, so computer access could wait.

Stara Fužina

In the morning I went to the post office and mailed off the strawberry flavoured, er stained, Croatia guide to the niece in case she wanted to explore other parts of the country herself. Good, one less thing to carry.

This is the Hotel Jezero (Lake) from the small park opposite. Incidentally Zlatorog which we encountered yesterday means Golden Horn. The Zlat is the same as that in Zlatni Rat back in Croatia on Brač and means Golden.

I crossed the stone bridge and watched the tourists and ducks for a while.

Then I dallied around the outlet of the lake where white water rafting enthusiasts were practicing. Finally I made up my mind to visit Mostnica Gorge, just beyond Stara Fužina as it didn't look far.

I passed some handsome dairy cows out to pasture.

At the entrance to the attraction I decided that what I'd seen so far didn't look interesting and too similar to Vintgar Gorge, so I turned back and came down to the main road another way. I couldn't see Srednja Vas, the next village up the road, it was few more km. Also storm clouds were starting to gather so I decided to give it a miss.

This is a traditional double sided hayrack used in Slovenia, the hay is hung on the sides to dry before storage.

I reached the Restaurant Triglav just off the road back before the skies opened up. The menu looked good so I decided to lunch there. The menu of the day, roast pork with potatoes, was very good, as was the desert of fig and currant roll. I could taste liqueur in the fruits.

I have to admit that I did very little the rest of the day; I napped away the afternoon in the pension. In the evening I came out to take a few more pictures.

This is a species of duck I had not seen at close range before.

Perhaps because of the nap, or the coffee, I stayed up a bit watching the German channels on the TV. My lame excuse was that I had to start adjusting to the timezone jump going east in a couple of weeks. Anyway, all I had to do the next day was head back to Ljubljana to mop up any sights I had not visited yet.

Geologic time

To have an inkling how insignificant a human is in the universe it suffices to ponder on geologic time. Imagine a film of the history of the earth, one frame per year. That's a speed-up of about 789 million times. In this film, the earth was born some 5.7 years ago. Multicelled organisms appeared just over a year ago. Mammals are about 2 months old. A configuration of the continents that we would perceive as similar to our map of the world is about a month old. Modern humans appeared about 2 hours ago (just about the length of a feature film). The industrial age is the last 10 seconds of the film, and a human lifetime is about 3 seconds.


In this film, the seemingly static lakes and gorges are but transient features. Vintgar Gorge was created about 15 minutes ago when a river flow changed its course after the last ice age. And Lake Bohinj, being a glacial feature too would be around the same age.


In this film the earth has 5 or 6 more years to live. By then the sun will have exhausted all its hydrogen, switched to burning helium, and expanded to engulf the Earth. Effectively this is the end of life on Earth, assuming we haven't killed ourselves off or escaped elsewhere before then. The universe is supremely indifferent as to whether we go down in a big mess in the next couple of seconds, or grow out of our predator ways and stay till the end of the film, and just maybe into the next one. If humanity never leaves this pale blue dot, then the only things left of us in the galaxy will be the unmanned spacecraft that have left the solar system and our radio signals. It all gets wiped out in the end. If we survive it will be because we care; the universe doesn't.


I marvel that some minuscule pieces of the universe called people have attained awareness of the cosmic picture. Yet I'm a little sad if only for the sake of curiosity that I won't know how the human story continues, even though the end for the planet is known. I can only hope that humanity prevails.