Introduction to Patrick and Ann’s Excellent Adventure

My grandmother’s parents were from Slovenia but my grandmother never got a chance to visit there. She told stories that her mother had told her about living on a farm and about having to hide in a hay wagon to avoid detection by a Turkish tax inspector. If I remember correctly, Nana used to talk about how the family’s spread was taken over by the Communists after World War II and turned into a day care centre.

For the anniversary of her 92nd birthday (19 January), our second birthday without her, I wanted to bring Nana to Slovenia and leave some of her ashes in her ancestral homeland. I was about 2 months late on my plan, but Nana would definitely say “better late than never.”

Unlike most of my travels so far, this trip was special in that it was with my youngest brother Patrick. Peter stayed home, perhaps wisely fearing too much Scanlan family togetherness. For Patrick and me, the trip was bittersweet since our other brother, Shane, wasn’t able to attend. But we made the best of it and had quite a full time traveling together for nearly two weeks.

Since I am the older, bossy sibling, I took up the mantle of Trip Planner (TM). Looking at the map, flying into Venice was the obvious choice since it was close to Slovenia and a fantastic destination in its own right. I’ve always wanted to see Venice and, given its sinking location, it seemed like I should do it sooner rather than later.

This is a story in five parts:

• Part One: Venice, Days 1-3


• Part Two: Ljubljana, Days 4-6


• Part Three: Ukanc, Days 7-10


• Part Four: Bled, Days 11-12


• Part Five: Venice, Days 13-15

Enjoy!

Part One - Venice: Days 1-3

Because of Aer Lingus’ every-other-day flight schedule to Venice, I arrived the day before Patrick. I was very nervous about arriving alone, after dark, in a place where I don’t know the language. (Yes, I know, everyone speaks English but bitter experience has taught me that the signage mightn’t be in English.)

I emailed the hotel and received detailed instructions on how to get to the Alloggi Agli Artisti. In the departures lounge of Dublin Airport, I studied these directions and the map with all the intensity of a general planning a battle. I compared the directions to the travel information in my Lonely Planet guide book and was starting to feel a little more confident and a little less anxious about my ability to get from Point A to Point B.

After an uneventful flight of just over two hours, we arrived at Marco Polo airport. As I’d expected, it was dark and chilly. We were herded off of the plane and onto a little articulated bus that zipped us over to the terminal. The immigration check was quick and by the time I set foot in the baggage area, the flight’s baggage was just starting to arrive. I’d purchased a special bag just for the trip, one of those enormous rucksacks that are the favoured luggage of college students and hard-core campers everywhere.

My bag arrived in no time, but my hurley was nowhere to be seen. Yeah, I’d insisted on bringing my hurley so I could practice roll-lifts, which my trainer showed me how to do the day before my holiday started. Besides, you never know when a big stick is going to come in handy. In Dublin airport, the baggage check-in person asked me to remove my hurley from my rucksack and checked it as a separate item.

So, there I was, standing at the luggage counter window, trying to explain to a puzzled woman who spoke great English but was understandably not au fait with GAA, that my hurley was missing. “It’s sort of like a hockey stick, but flatter at the end, like a giant wooden spoon.” I was saved when about a couple of luggage handlers brought it over to me.

Rucksack on my bag and hurley in my hand, I walked through a gauntlet of customs police and a too-friendly German sheperd police dog to the outer arrivals area of Marco Polo airport. I have nothing but good things to say about MP. It’s big, sleek, modern, clean, and spacious. The signage is fantastic, particularly for getting you to the section where they sell transportation tickets. The whole airport is very well designed and it’s obvious that they thought carefully about how best to get people out of the airport and into Venice or Padua or wherever the next destination is.

My directions from the wonderful Giacomo at the hotel told me to take the bus to Pizzalle Roma, the last place in Venice where cars are allowed. Then I was instructed to take the N-1 vaporetti (boat-bus) to the Ferrovia stop, which is at the Saint Lucia train station. My guide book, however, told me that it was possible to take a special water bus to the Saint Lucia train station.

I knew I should take the bus, but damn it, I was in Venice and I wanted to take a boat. The ticket window was for both bus tickets and boat tickets, so I figured if I told the woman I needed to get to Ferrovia, she would tell me the best way to do that. (By the way, I love that word, Ferrovia. Say it – it really is a lovely word. Fer-O-Vee-aaaah.) The woman charged me 2 euro for a bus ticket and sent me out the door to bus stand #1.

I felt something was odd, as I’d expected the ticket to cost 3 euro. Outside, I could see from the electronic board that bus stand #2 was for Pizzalle Roma. A nagging voice in my head reminded me that there was another train station in Venice, on the mainland. Mestre. Sure enough, that’s what my ticket was for. If I got on that bus, I’d end up miles and miles away from where I needed to be.

I waited for the Pizzalle Roma bus and when it arrived, I told the driver I’d been sold the wrong ticket. He made sure I wanted to go to Pizzalle Roma and I assured him that was my intended destination. He looked at my Mestre ticket and then waved me onto the bus with a shrug. I was heartily relieved that I’d avoided making such a stupid traveling mistake.

The bus set off for Venice, traveling past industrial waste grounds and car dealerships. Airports around the world seem to be located in similar areas. We drove down a long bridge, about 6 km, that reminded me of driving to Key West. The bus pulled into Pizzalle Roma and before I knew it, I was standing alone in a scrubby square trying to figure out where to go. Well, I wasn’t literally alone. There were other people around but I didn’t know anyone and wasn’t quite sure where I was going.

I took a deep breath, hoisted my pack and blundered off in the direction of the canal. I decided taking the vaporetti was the best way to go, so I bought a 24-hour pass, figuring I could use the ticket the next day in my explorations. When I shoved the ticket into the yellow validation machine, nothing happened. I tried it a couple of times, but the machine appeared to be broken. I pocketed the ticket, figuring that if stopped I’d be able to explain what had happened.

I followed the signs for the N1 vaporetti and got onto what I thought was the boat. I stood in a corner waiting for the boat to undock. When the actual boat arrived, I realised that I’d confused what was essentially a bus shelter with the boat. I stood in the middle part of the boat, feeling the chill winds and looking out at the dark water and shapes of buildings. I could hear maritime noises and it felt like I was in a spy movie. I kept expecting a bum to shamble up to me, whisper something nonsensical in Italian and drop a packet of classified documents into my purse.

My boat trip only lasted 2 minutes, since Ferrovia was the next stop. I followed Giacomo’s excellent directions and arrived at the hotel in no time, ready for dinner and a good long sleep to fortify me for my next day of exploring.

Explorations

The next morning, I was out early for a pre-breakfast walk. It is exactly like the pictures. I don’t think I’ve ever visited a place that compared so closely with my expectations. Canals, bridges, cobbled streets – it’s all the way it is on the postcards and in the travel books.




What struck me most thought was that Venice is a place with domestic needs and duties. It’s not just a holiday palace or a movie set. It’s a real working city with the demands of any city anywhere. It’s not Disneyland, where I imagine they go to great lengths to hude the garbage collections and the goods deliveries.

Within a few minutes, I saw a recycling boat, a boat carrying crates of Moet, a police boat, an ambulance boat, and a boat carrying construction materials. My perception of boats, with the exception of fishing boats, is that they are the playthings of the rich. Oh sure, I know that right now there are thousands of enormous cargo ships traversing the oceans. But when I think of small boats, I tend to think of sail boats and yachts, hobby boats for well-off sailors. In Venice, small boats are beasts of burden, carrying everything from fresh fruit and kegs of beer to toilet paper and two-by-fours.

Everyone talks about how expensive Venice is and I can’t disagree. You can find reasonably priced meals, but the minimum going rate for a 500 ml bottle of diet Coke is 2 euro, a good 70 cent more expensive than Ireland. The difference is that in Ireland, it’s hard sometimes to understand why things are so much more expensive. In Venice, after five minutes of looking around, you understand the price of things.

A supply boat pulls up to a dock. The supplies are unloaded and if your shop or restaurant is right on the canal, then getting the supplies into your business is relatively easy. If, on the other hand, your shop is in a picturesque little square tucked away in a quiet corner of Venice, your supplies are loaded onto a handcart. Someone has to then take that handcart and wheel it to your establishment. If there are several canals between your business and the boat dock, then the poor delivery person has to get that cart up and down the steps of the bridges, one bumping step at a time. So, you can see how the labour/delivery costs gets added into the price of goods.

(This is not to say that there isn’t tourist pricing in effect in some areas. For example, there is no reason why that bottle of diet coke should cost 2.50 or 3 euro in the San Marco area except that thirsty tourists, bedazzled by the splendor of the Basilica, will pay more for things because they either don’t know any better, aren’t thinking clearly, or can’t be arsed to shop around.)

On my first day in Venice, I steered clear of San Marco, figuring I should save that for when Patrick was there. Since our plan was to spend the next night in Venice, go to Slovenia for 10 days, and then return to Venice for 2 days, I didn’t feel like I had to cram in Venice. I knew that I would be returning so I could just relax and enjoy walking around and soaking in the sights.

One of the most important tenets, I think, of being a tourist is to recognise and seize opportunities. During one of my ambles, I needed to find a toilet, so I ducked into a hotel near Rialto. I blew past the front desk, acting like I knew where I was going and belonged there. (That’s another key skill, by the way.) On the way to the bathroom, I saw signs for a panoramic terrace. I decided to check it out and was rewarded some quiet time on a lovely little terrace overlooking the canal and Rialto.





I did take care of a couple pieces of business. Between my parents and my father-in-law, we’d been given 300 euro to use in our trip. Patrick and I decided we’d use it in Slovenia, mostly to rent a car for a day trip/adventure from Ljubljana. I wanted to get the euro converted into Slovenian tolars (SIT) in Venice because I hate arriving into a country without at least a little of the official cash on hand. I found a currency exchange near Rialto, handed over my euro and walked out with 60,000 SIT. As Patrick later remarked, it was like our very own Slovenian rap video.

The other thing I did was purchase our tickets for the train to Ljubljana. The EC Casanova goes direct, takes about four hours and is meant to cost around 30 euro. The ticket seller informed me that I could have a special rate of 15 euro, but I wouldn’t be able to change the tickets. Fair enough – it’s not like our plans were going to change.

I met a very jet-lagged Patrick at Marco Polo airport in the afternoon. He’d flown from Atlanta to Detroit, then from Detroit to Amsterdam. I think he had about a four hour layover in Amsterdam before flying to Venice. It was 4 pm in Venice, but it was 10 am in Patrick’s head and he’d been mostly awake for about 30 hours. He’d hoped to be able to sleep on the transatlantic flight, but the guy behind Patrick somehow kept poking him in the ribs with his feet. I’m not sure of the logistics of this, only that Patrick was not very amused.

We went back to the hotel, where Patrick was able to have a shower and feel a bit more human. I wouldn’t let him nap though. We watched a little Italian television and then headed out to get dinner. We got quite lost, wandering the twisty alleyways in search of a pizza place recommended in Lonely Planet. In the dark, it’s very difficult to see where the narrow walkways lead. As a result, it sometimes looks like people are bursting out of nowhere or walking into brick walls.

In the end, we did find the pizza place and then quite easily found our way back to the hotel. Patrick toughed it out until 9 pm and slept through the night, which is best (albeit hardest) way to tackle jetlag.

Goodbye Venice, Hello Ljubljana

After breakfast, we packed our rucksacks and checked out of the room. Since our trip was broken into discrete chunks, Patrick and I devised a scheme for who would pay for which lodging instead of splitting everything in half at each place. The end result was the same, but the mechanics were a bit easier. It was my job to pay for the first hotel in Venice, which I did with cash when we were checking out.

Patrick: Why didn’t you just pay with a credit card?

Me: Well, I used Peter’s credit card for the booking, but I’d rather just pay cash unless I have no choice but to pay online.

When I mentioned Peter’s credit card, the hotel desk clerk looked up sharply and gave me this sly, knowing smile. I was puzzled about this until later when Patrick said that she probably thought I was having an affair. This was such an alien concept to me. I mean, Patrick and I have been siblings for twenty-eight years. I barely think of him as a man – he’s my little brother.

We had a low-key day in Venice, just killing time until our train left in the afternoon. Patrick wanted a travel journal, so we made that our morning’s goal. My trusty Lonely Planet guide recommended an art store as having everything you could ever want, so we made that our first stop. When we went into the small shop, which also doubled as a photocopying and Internet place, it was hard to believe it was the same shop the guidebook boasted about.

The shop had art supplies, but it didn’t have sketchbooks. Or at least it had nothing visible. We tried to explain to the guy what we were looking for, but he didn’t speak English. We finally shrugged, thanked him, and left. The guidebook also recommended a couple of places that sold marbled paper (which sounds really difficult to write on, if you ask me), so we went to one of those – Legatoria Polliero. (One of the great games when you don’t speak the language is to make up the meaning of names. I decided that Legatoria Polliero meant “the Legal Chicken.”)

It was a great place – stacked haphazardly with journals, notebooks, picture frames, photograph albums and other hand-made paper-based goods. The owner was a grumpy-ish old man who didn’t speak English. Patrick selected a journal and a pencil, which the man very carefully and precisely wrapped. Patrick was so taken with the place that he said he wanted to beg the man to take him on as an apprentice.

In the afternoon, we caught our train to Ljubljana. It was a nice, modern train. No antiquated carriages with those horribly awkward little rooms although the seating was in groups of four around a table. I’m not sure I understand the rationale behind this decision, unless the bias is for social groups and sociable traveling. I much prefer bus-style, straight-ahead-in-pairs seating.

Patrick and I had facing window seats, so we kept crunching each other’s toes, which I guess is better than fighting over the arm rest. After the second or third stop, a guy got on and sat next to me. I did my best to politely ignore him, which is how I tend to treat strangers on these sorts of forced-close-quarters situations.

I read my book and tried not to listen to the obnoxious music of the guy behind me. I’ll need to rant about this on my other blog sometime, but it mystifies me that even with headphones, you often have to listen to other people’s music when you’re traveling via public transportation.

We had an uneventful trip, arriving into Ljubljana around 7.30 at night. It was dark and starting to rain. We found a cash machine so we could get some tolar. I was able to take out money from my Irish account without difficulty, but Patrick first didn’t know how much money he wanted to take out and then was having trouble getting his US-issued bank card to work properly.

This is where we had our first sibling spat. I got edgy, standing in front of a cash station in a potentially questionable part of town, with 35-pound rucksacks on our backs. In my paranoid mind, we might as well just issue written invitations to all the muggers in town. In Patrick’s head, he didn’t want to be cashless. I was annoyed with Patrick because I felt like he should have figured out how much he needed BEFORE we got to the cash machine and that his disorganization and technical difficulties were putting us in unnecessary potential danger.

I stepped over the line when I canceled his ATM transaction and told him we’d worry about it tomorrow and that I had plenty of cash to cover dinner. (It was my job to pay for lodging in Ljubljana, so he didn’t have to worry about that either.) This seizing of Patrick’s autonomy and reenactment of childhood roles (Bossy Old Sister vs. Incapable Baby Brother) understandably upset Patrick although I think he was a bit too sharp in expressing his feelings about the situation, which happened as we tromped the five blocks to the hostel I’d booked for us.

By the time we got to the hostel, I was ready to give up the trip as a bad job. I think I was also in the blood-sugar red zone, which certainly wasn’t helping matters. We got to the hostel and tried to check in only to find out that we didn’t have reservations.

Desk Attendant: I have no record of your reservation.
Me: I booked online. Room 107. Then I called in with the credit card. This was about a month ago.
DA: No, I don’t see any record of that here.
Me (temper barely in check): Here’s my e-mail confirmation.
DA (compares print-out to the computer): This is for 4 March through 7 March. Today is 3 March. Your reservation doesn’t start until tomorrow.
Me (wiping egg off my face): Right. Do you have any beds for tonight? Doesn’t have to be a double.
DA: Sorry, I don’t even have half a bed for tonight. The whole place is booked solid.

The Desk Attendant was fantastically helpful though. She gave us a map and marked the location of the nearest hostel, which looked like it was about a half mile away. I asked about a closer hotel and there was one just at the end of the street. So, off we trudged, with one of us trying desperately to salvage the tattered shreds of her Organizing Queen title. How could I possibly have let that happen? I had visions of us trekking for ages to get to the other hostel only to find that either they didn’t have any beds or they only had beds in a 32-bed dormitory room. Ugh. The best I could hope for was that the hotel would have available and affordable rooms.

Patrick and I also had a bit of patching up to do. This proved to be relatively straightforward and easy. Patrick, you see, is a much better person than I am. He graciously accepted my apology and proffered apologies of his own. We arrived at the Park Hotel with the ignominious incident well behind us.

The Park Hotel saved the day, coming through with a double room for a reasonable 72 euro total (and they accepted euro notes, so we didn’t have to dip into our tolar fund). The room was a bit odd, with the two single beds long-wise against one wall. Patrick said he felt like he was back in his college dorm room. We had everything we needed at the Park – beds, ensuite bathroom, and cable television. The only thing we were missing was dinner, which we got for carryout from a nearby kebab restaurant.

It took me about an hour of mulling it over to realise what had happened. In my original itinerary, I had us getting off the train in Postjona, spending the night there, and then touring the cave before catching a bus or train into Ljubljana. But then the lodging options in Postjona seemed a bit thin on the ground and it looked like a better option was to go there as a day trip. So I changed the logistics of our itinerary, but it never occurred to me to then extend the hostel stay in Ljubljana. I guess I thought the hostel would just magically know that I’d changed our plans. Duh.

After dinner, Patrick went to check out the local nightlife and I went to sleep. In the morning, I learned that he’d met a guy who was desperate to meet an American woman, preferably one in her 40s or 50s. It seems like Patrick had talked to this guy for about 5 minutes before the guy was handing over his email address and asking Pat to find him a girlfriend.

Part Two: Ljubljana – Days 4 – 6

Searching for Ancestors

We had a few errands to take care of before we could set out on the centerpiece adventure of our trip. After breakfast, we set out to find Patrick a suitable cash machine and also to pick up a good map of the country. Our Aunt Lois had done a bit of detective work (i.e. she called a Great Aunt in California, which I think is sort of like an Aunt-escalation plan) to locate the name of Nana’s family’s village. My dad sent it in an email and it looked like this: Hrovaca.

I’d been unable to find it on a map but had found a short reference to it on the Slovenian Tourism web site. While Patrick handled his cash machine business, I went into the Tourist Information Centre where the most delightful young man helped me figure out where we wanted to go.

The first problem was that I was pronouncing the name all wrong, so wrong that poor David the kindly TIC worker had no clue what I was saying or how to spell it. The second problem was that I was remembering the spelling wrong: Hrovoca. And the third problem is that I didn’t have the email with me. I told David that I’d found reference to the place on tourism web site, that some famous writer guy was from there, and that I was pretty sure it was near Ribnica.

Patrick joined me in the TIC after his successful cash machine mission. I’d hoped he’d have the email, but he didn’t have it wit him. David tried searching the web site for my butchered spelling of the town but was coming up blank. He let me come around behind the counter and look up my email. Of course, I’d deleted the email but my dad’s blog saved the day. David was quite personable and chatted with me about a cycling trip he took in Ireland. He particularly enjoyed County Cork.

After I’d unearthed the name of the place we wanted to visit, David immediately realized what the problem was. The town isn’t Hrovaca at all. It’s Hrovača. The č makes all the difference. It also turns out that the town isn’t really on a map because it’s considered like a suburb of Ribnica. We bought a nice wire-bound driving atlas and a Slovenian phrase book, then said our good-byes and thanks to David.

As we were walking out the door, he told us that he’d learned a tiny bit of Irish on his travels. Grinning like an imp, he said “I know it’s not very nice, but it’s póg mahone. That’s it. That’s the Irish I know.” I had to laugh because it was clear he had been saving it up, not sure whether or not to use it since it is a bit rude. He was a fun guy and I know Nana would have loved him.

Patrick and I then walked nearly 3 miles in the rain to the hotel where we had to collect our rental car. I’d booked it online because it was cheap and hadn’t realized what a trek we would have. Under different circumstances, it probably wouldn’t have been a bad walk, but the weather was pretty bad.

When we got to the hotel, the rental car guy explained all of the rental details to us. He actually said things like "The deductible is 250 euro. That means if you get drunk and crash the car, you only have to pay 250 euro." He also told us that either of us could drive the car. I told him that we weren’t married and he said that didn’t matter. (In the States, it’s typical that either spouse can drive a rental car without having to pay the extra driver fee. But even then, they usually want to at least see said spouse’s license.) After going through the contract, he took us outside, introduced us to our little Fiat Punto, and gave Patrick a thorough tutorial on the car’s controls and the laws in Slovenia. (The big ones were no right turns on red and you have to drive with your lights on all the time.)

We drove to the hotel, checked out, and got on the road for Hrovača. I was navigating and Patrick was driving and we weren’t doing too badly although we did have a couple of dicey moments. The problem was that the road signs weren’t really labeled (like M-50 or N-11 or I-77). They just listed destination cities. So, when you don’t know where Maribor is or how to quickly find it on a map, it’s difficult to make a quick decision on whether or not the road to Maribor is for you or if you should hold out for the road to Zagreb.

We made a stop at a petrol station to get some snacks and also picked up a couple of coffees. The station had a café-bar attached to it. Yep, in Slovenia, you can stop on the side of the road, fill up on petrol, and have a couple of beers before heading off onto the twisty mountain roads. Speaking of which, the 1.2 liter Fiat Punto is not the car you want to have on those twisty mountain roads. (Especially the one we were on, which allowed passing even though it was only one lane in each direction and it was, you know, twisty and mountainous.)

It took us about 2 hours to get down to Ribnica. We drove through the town centre, but didn’t see any signs for Hrovača. So we went a few miles outside town then drove back into the centre to ask for directions. We went into a supermarket and I asked the butcher (who was a big roly-poly man who completely looked like a butcher) in Slovenian if he spoke English. He looked puzzled for a moment and then grabbed another supermarket worker and shoved her at us, saying something in Slovenian.

I showed her the map and pointed to a sticky note on which David, our TIC hero, had written Hrovača. She nodded and took us outside, where she proceeded to give us directions in German. (This sort of linguistic bait-and-switch happened a couple of times during our travels, which wasn’t too bad because I have just enough German to understand basic commands and directions. At least enough to head in the right direction or complete simple transactions.)

We were less than half a mile away from Hrovača, so we got there in about 2 minutes. It was a nice little collection of houses and other buildings, all grouped very close to each other. I looked for a day care centre, but didn’t see one. I have no idea which might have belonged to my grandmother’s grandparents.



We drove through the town, then turned around and drove back through it. We parked the car near the church and had a wander through the graveyard.


It was very cold and blustery and I despaired of how we would ever locate any of the people on my grandmother’s family tree. There was no caretaker or directory and I’d guess the cemetery had at least 500 graves. We wandered through the first few rows and then Patrick noticed a headstone with my grandmother’s maiden name: Prelesnik. We spent the next 30 or 45 minutes searching for names and taking pictures.




We walked back to the main road and left a bit of Nana in a field. It didn’t seem right to leave her in the cemetery (weird, I know, her being dead and all) so we left her in a spot with a view of the distant hills.



Having completed our chief mission, we got back in the car and decided, since we were more than half-way there anyway, to go check out Croatia. At the border, we had to go through 4 separate checks – 2 by Slovenian officials and 2 by Croatian officials. The last guy came out of the little guard hut and told Patrick to open the boot. Patrick popped the release button and sat there, waiting for the guy to look in the trunk. Then the guy bellowed “OPEN!” and you could see Patrick flinch, no doubt envisioning the hardships of months in a Croatian work-prison for defying a customs official.

The guy poked our bags, felt up my hurley, and then declared us free to go. We drove across the border with vague plans to maybe drive to the next large town on the map, Delnica, and then head straight back. The Croatian countryside was gorgeous if a bit desolate. The road, narrow to the point of one lane in some places, wound along the path of a river, so we had river on one side and mountains on the other. It reminded me a little of driving in Scotland, only the roads in Scotland were in much better shape.

When we’d driven for 30 minutes and hadn’t found Delnica nor seen any signs for Delnica, we decided to turn around and give up Delnica for a bad job. It was starting to get late and our goal was to be back in Ljubljana safe and sound before nightfall. We did stop the car and walk around in little in the border town, Brod na Kupi, but it was a complete ghost town. Both the restaurant and the hotel were closed. I went into the shop but I didn’t have the right money. The shop keeper said I could change money in the police station around the corner, but there really wasn’t any reason to do that.

Our return trip into Slovenia was nothing – 4 sets of officials waving us along and our drive back to Ljubljana was uneventful. We arrived at Hostel Celica just before it got really dark, so our entire mission was a big success.

I’m Too F***ing Old To Stay In a Hostel

I selected Hostel Celica based on a recommendation in Lonely Planet. For an EU-accession state, Ljubljana’s hotel rooms aren’t all that cheap. Maybe it’s a capital-city thing. In any case, it seemed like the price for a double room in a hostel in Ljubljana was about the price for a double room in a B&B anywhere else in Slovenia. So I resigned myself to having to live like a backpacking 20-something.

Hostel Celica wasn’t a bad choice. Architecturally and historically, it’s a fascinating place. In its past life as part of an Austro-Hungarian military complex, it was a prison. Then it was taken over by squatters after the Yugoslav Army abandoned it and now it’s a hip and happening hostel. Almost too hip and happening.

On the ground floor, there’s an airy café and darker and more atmospheric Turkish hookah/water pipe bar. The water pipe bar is all cushions on a raised wooden floor and low-slung tables. Anyone can visit the café and bar, but you need a key to get up to the first floor where there are 20 renovated prison cells.

Teams of artists and architects designed each cell, so they are all completely different although I am pretty sure the dimensions are exactly the same. Each cell has two doors – an outer solid door and an inner prison bars door. (The doors are right up against each other, like a screen door and a regular door. It’s not like you have to go through an airlock to get into your room.) One of the house rules is that during the day, you can only lock your barred door. This is because they give tours of the hostel. There is a lot of peeking into other people’s cells as they are locking and unlocking the barred door.

Patrick and I were staying in Cell 107, which I’d selected because I was taken with the mural and I wanted to sleep on the top bunk. You can sort of see the top bunk in this picture here. What you can also see in that picture, or rather can't see, is a ladder. The ladder was a freestanding deal that wasn't the most stable ladder on the planet. It also didn't go up as high as the bunk. The pole that you see, went through the bunk, but it did not go up as high as the ceiling. It was also broken and unstable, since previous guests probably used it for leverage and balance when trying to get into the top bunk. Like most of the hostel, the room was designed for looks, not for practicality and usability.

I thought long and hard about the top bunk and decided that it would most likely be the cause of a broken limb in my near future. So I claimed the top bunk, dragged its mattress onto the floor and slept there for the duration of our stay. It actually wasn’t bad although I missed the up-high-thrill of the top bunk.

Besides my inability to get into the top bunk, there is the whole bathroom situation. I'm too old and weaned on comfort to find sharing a bathroom was 20+ other people a tenable situation. The hostel bathrooms were mostly clean, at least during the day. At night, they became a lot less clean and that's all I'm going to say about it. There was also the issue of getting to the bathroom – unlocking two sets of doors, relocking at least one door, walking the long, narrow prison hallway… It was all undeniably creepy.

Patrick is a nightlife kind of guy and we fell into an easy routine in our three nights at Hostel Celica. After our joint adventures were done for the day (usually after dinner), Patrick would go out for a beer or two or to spend some time and money at the casino. I'd retire to our cell and read until my eyeballs gave up. Then I'd fall asleep and Patrick would come in sometime after midnight saying "Hello, it's me. It's Patrick. It's me" because he knows about my propensity for waking in a panic and trying to hit perceived intruders with my hurley.

Caves, Castles, and Careening Through the Snow

On Sunday, we took the Fiat out to Postojna, which is about 40 kilometers from Ljubljana. It's the site of one of the most fantastic caves in Slovenia. Postojna Cave is immense and the entire system covers 21 kilometers although only the dry parts are accessible to the average visitor. Peter's father once derisively referred to a cave in Ireland (I think it might have been Ailwee) as being "too housebroken." Postojna Cave takes housebroken too a whole new level. It is, in fact, the Disneyland of caves.

The visit starts in an indoor waiting area where you can rent a heavy wool cape to wear while you're braving the wilds of the cold, dark cave. When it was time for the tour to start, we were ushered through the doorways and down the stairs to the waiting tram. The tram travels through about several kilometers of cave. It's a twisting route through breathtaking stalactites and stalagmites, each formation more beautiful than the last. The tram moves at a fair clip, which adds an extra chill to the subterranean air. The tram also goes through formations that seem like they have a bit of a low ceiling. Poor Patrick spent most of the ride ducking.

After about 15 minutes, the tram let us off in a staging area where we were directed to language-based waiting areas. We set off for the English area and then waited for our guide. The tour of the cave took about an hour and we moved through various areas of the cave with names like the Concert Hall, the Red Room, and the White Room. We also went over a narrow bridge that Russian prisoners built during WWI. After the tour, we got to see the human fish, a weird little white salamander that only lives in these caves. Then it was back on the tram to the exit area, where you can see the river that carved out the cave. The exit for the cave is the natural opening to the cave. I think the impact would be greater if they'd used it as the start of the tour.

As it had been for the whole of our trip in Ljubljana, it was raining as we drove to the 9 km to Predjama castle, whose location alone is worth the trip to see it. The castle is perched high on a rocky outcropping over a river. If that's not enough of a cool factor, the castle is built into the mouth of a cave into the mountain. The mountain is apparently full of caves and secret passage ways.



Lonely Planet had a great little story about Erazem Lueger, who lived in the castle during the 1500s. Erazem apparently sided with one royal over another and his attacks on the other side were taken quite seriously. The bad royal lay siege to Predjama Castle in an attempt to put a stop to Erazem's marauding. Only Erazem was a tricky, resourceful chap and he was able to use the caves and secret passages to come and go as he pleased, sometimes raining cherry blossoms down on the attackers just to taunt them with proof that he could leave the castle at will.

Erazem met a bad end though when one of his workers accepted a bribe from the bad royal. The worker explained where the toilet area was (back in the day, you pretty much just hung your bottom out the window and let fly) and sent out a prearranged signal when Erazem went to do his business. One well-aimed cannonball later and Erazem was history.

This is about all I know about Predjama Castle. Unfortunately, in the off-season, they don't really do tours of the castle although you can pay a couple of euro to have a look-see. The thing about castles is that they all look more or less the same and it’s the extra information about history, architecture and the personality of past inhabitants that you can get from a knowledgeable guide that can add to the touring experience.

We tromped around the castle until we'd seen it all. On our short walk from the castle to the car, the relentless rain changed to sleet. We didn't think much of it, figuring that the sleet wouldn't last for long. Sleet usually doesn't, after all. Patrick did a good job of keeping calm and driving appropriately for the weather, along some pretty twisty roads. When we got onto the highway in Postojna, there was at least an inch of white stuff on the ground. We were a bit unsure about whether or not it was snow or sleet. At a certain point, I guess it doesn't matter.

The ride back to Ljubljana was a bit treacherous. We saw cars spun out and saw people using their hands to try to clear tracks so they could merge onto the highway. In an hour, we got about 4 inches of snow. Patrick managed to get us back to the hostel without any major incidents, although we did nearly get stuck pulling into the hostel driveway.

When we collected our keys from the front desk, I asked the girl if the snow had been forecast on the radio. She told me yes, that they were expecting up to half a meter. (Which is about a foot and a half.) She said it had been forecast for a couple of days and that more snow was expected on Thursday or Friday. To Patrick and me, this was shocking news. We'd been quite happily operating along in our little news-and-weahter-insulated cocoon. We'd listened to the radio in the car, but since we don't speak Slovenian, we'd had no clue what was coming.

Alone Day

After a good few days of family-togetherness, Patrick and I decided to spend our last day in Ljubljana alone. I got up early and shoveled out the car so that Patrick would be able to return it. Then I decided that I would spend a good chunk of my alone day at Klub Zlati, a sauna spa in Tivoli Park. I love a good sauna and it seemed like it would be a nice way to relax. The Lonely Planet listed opening hours as being Women only: 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. Tuesdays, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. Fridays and then various open hours other days of the week, usually from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. during weekdays and 10 a.m. to midnight during the weekend. It was a Monday, so off I went, arriving a little bit after 10.

The woman who was working the front desk told me that she spoke a little English and was able to sell me an entry ticket and a towel. She gave me a locker key and pointed me in the direction of the locker room. I went into the vast locker room, where only a single elderly lady was getting change. I changed into my tankini swimming suit and went in search of the sauna.

All of the signs were in Slovenian and I really had no idea where I was going. I ended up opening a door and walking into a waiting area, where a receptionist stood at a desk. I asked her where I was supposed to go. She explained to me that this was the massage place and that she really didn't work for the sauna club, but that she would help me find where I needed to go.

She led me back through the changing room and out a different door into a place that looked like a café. We were now directly in front of the place where I'd entered and my new guide had a long conversation in Slovenian. I can only imagine what they talked about because the first thing my guide said to me when she led me back into the sauna club was "No clothing is allowed in the sauna. Nothing. Not even bathing suits." She showed me around the club – a hot bath, a cold bath, a whirlpool, an outdoor pool, two Finnish saunas, and an infrared sauna whose lights were so bright the man inside looked like he was baking in an oven. The steam rooms were being repaired. The place was a bit odd – the equipment was old and had a bit of a Soviet-era feel to it.

The place was also full of men. Mostly big, mostly old, and uniformly completely naked men. I saw two older ladies in one of the Finnish saunas but that was it. I was easily, by at least 20 years, the youngest person in the place.

My guide finished the tour back in the locker room where I now had to make a very difficult choice. I'd already paid my tolar. Would I get nekkid and give it a go Continental-style or would I put my clothes back on and make a hasty retreat? The temptation to run away was nearly overwhelming. But I do so enjoy a good sauna. So I sucked it up, stripped down, and tried not to be too embarrassed about it.

I nearly forgot –the creepiest guy wasn't naked at all. He was an artist working on a mosaic on the wall over the whirlpool. The whirlpool was still in operation but his close proximity and innate creepiness guaranteed that I wouldn't be using it. So, instead, I got into the hot pool.

I didn't quite know where to go in the pool, so I just went into one of the corners where I could look out the window at the outdoor swimming pool. I watched as, at various intervals, a guy would leave the Finnish sauna, go outside and jump in the pool. One guy was outside for ages, trudging through the snow while the steam rose on his body.

I knew my corner had a big downside for me because it contained a big black dial. I had no idea what the dial did, but I knew it was only a matter of time before someone joined me in the pool and needed to do something with the dial. Sure enough, a guy got into the pool and after 10 minutes of standing in his own area, going through the a routine of stretching exercises, the guy came over and said something to me in Slovenian. I stepped aside, expecting him to do whatever to the dial and then move off, but apparently you have to be right on top of the dial to get any benefit from it.

I found another corner to stand in for a few minutes more and then I got out of the pool. My next stop was the Finnish sauna. I picked the one that clearly had two women in it, thinking that there was a woman's sauna and a men's sauna. I was wrong, but that was okay. The guys were so not interested in me. They were there to take care of themselves and to do their little health routines. I was probably the biggest pervert in the place (save the creepy artist man) as I just couldn't help but peek at packages.

After 15 minutes in the sauna, I decided my only course of action was to go outside and jump in the pool. It was FREEZING in the water, but it was also weird because when I got out of the water, it didn't feel cold at all in the air. I stood outside for while, admiring the snow on the trees and clear blue sky. When I went back into the sauna, it took me a few minutes to register the heat. I also had a strange drug-like experience of being able to see the heat and feel an absolute stillness and relaxation in my head.

I repeated my sauna routine two more times then had a nice shower and decided to call it a day. I was proud that I'd managed to get over my reluctance and self-consciousness. I also felt incredibly well-rested and calm.

I spent the balance of my alone day walking around Ljubljana. I had a trip up to the castle and a wander through the old town. It was a good way to spend my time and when I retired to my cell, I was very tired.

Part Three – Ukanc : Days 7-10

The Middle of Nowhere

When we were planning out trip, Patrick mentioned that he wanted to get some snowboarding in. He'd been really into the sport before he moved to Georgia and was looking forward to the opportunity to snowboard on some real mountains. I've got no interest in snowboarding and although I went skiing once and loved it, I felt like the risk of the alpine sports were too great to justify the rewards. I didn't want a second of bad judgment on the slopes to ruin my first full camogie season.

I did, however, feel that the rewards of horseback riding justified the risks. After researching the opportunities for snowboarding and horseback riding, I felt that the little town of Ukanc on Lake Bohinj offered Patrick and I the best opportunities for pursuing our activities. I also felt like since we'd be staying there for 4 nights, an apartment was the best lodging choice.

So we set out on the bus for the little town of Ukanc. I wasn’t even 100% sure that the town even existed. When I'd gone the day before we left to buy out bus tickets, I had an email from the apartment with the address. I told the ticket seller I wanted to go to Ukanc. She said there was no such place. I showed her the address:

Ukanc 85
Bohinj Jezero
Slovenia

She said "Oh, Bohinj Jezero" and sold me tickets there. I told her that my understanding was that the bus stopped at a hotel in Ukanc but she insisted I wanted Bohinj Jezero. I was so unnerved by this insistence that she couldn't sell me a ticket to where I wanted to go that I stopped into the tourist information centre in Ljubljana. Sadly, my good pal David wasn't working, but the woman there told me that maybe I could then get a local bus to Ukanc. She hadn't heard of the town either.

I don't like not knowing exactly where I'm going, so on the fine Tuesday morning when the Number 7 bus to Bohinj Jezero showed up, I asked the driver as he was helping us put out rucksacks into the belly of his bus:

Me: Do you go to Ukanc?
Driver: Ukanc? No. No Ukanc.
I looked at Patrick, eyes wide, panic starting to gnaw away at me.
Driver: Oh, oh, Ukanc! Yes! Yes Ukanc. Hotel Zlatarog. Last stop. Ukanc.

Then he laughed ruefully and shook his head at his own silliness in forgetting that his bus goes in fact go to Ukanc.

I already had enough anxiety about Ukanc before all of this bus nonsense started. When I booked our stay at the apartment I never received a confirmation from the proprietor that our booking had been successfully processed. So a week before the trip, I spent about 3 days trying to ring them without success. I finally emailed the proprietor and received a short email back, which essentially said "Your booking is good. I am in Switzerland. Will be back before your visit." I also emailed from Ljubljana to get clarification on where we were supposed to go and what time we'd be arriving because I had a vision of us arriving to a ghost town of an apartment building.

The bus trip was pleasant. The land got more and more rugged. We passed through Bled and saw the lake and the castle. We saw mountains, streams, trees, and lots of snow. In Ribčev Laz, the bus driver tried to turf us off the bus at Hotel Jezero. I guess he decided it wasn't worth arguing over one stop on the route.

It took about 15 minutes of driving on a curvy road through a deep dark forest to get from Ribčev Laz to Ukanc. We were dropped off in front of Hotel Zlatarog (the Golden Goat) and then walked the 100 meters to Alpik, where we were met by the cleaner. We got a note from the proprietor (had to go to Ljubljana urgently) and keys to apartment 1-A, which was perfect. It was on the first (i.e. second) floor of a lodge-like building. The apartment itself covered two floors with the bathroom, kitchen area and sitting room on the first floor and the bedroom upstairs. It was all wooden beams, white walls, and hardwood floors with functional yet comfortable furniture. The bathroom was fantastic – clean and marble with under-floor heating. I loved that bathroom, especially after 3 nights of roughing it in the jailhouse. We also had a porch with a great view of the mountains. (And all this for less per night than our cell cost – not bad, huh?)



Our first order of business, after unpacking our rucksacks, was to head into town to get provisions. When I say town, I mean Ribčev Laz. Ukanc is just barely a town. It has the hotel, a restaurant (which was closed for the off-season) and that's about it. I'm a bit surprised by this, since it's only 700 meters from Vogel, but it's also kind of nice to be in the wilderness.

It's kind of nice, but then, it's also kind of not. I have an incredibly conflicted relationship with the countryside. I start to get a little panicky when the land stretches between outposts of civilisation. I picture home invasion without the ability to save myself by running to the neighbour's house or to a public place. It's a completely irrational and unreasonable fear. I'm not afraid of nature, of wildlife, of weather. I'm afraid I'm going to be staying in the cabin that some crazed drifter with an axe decided would be just great to terrorize. I am always afraid of baddies. Always. Especially in the middle of nowhere.

Patrick and I walked the three and half miles to Ribčev Laz and I was feeling incredibly isolated and depressed. I was upset with myself for picking such isolated lodging. I had anxiety about how I was going to get myself to Studor, which was another 3 or 4 miles from Ribčev Laz. I saw days of isolation and fear stretched out in front of me.

I should also mention, at this point, how desperately I was missing Peter. He's spent the last week in February in Chicago, arriving back to Dublin the day I was leaving for Venice. I picked him up at the airport at 8 am and he dropped me off at the airport at 1 pm that very same day.

Missing Peter was a curse, but it was also a bit of a blessing. It made time pass much more slowly. The six days that I'd been gone felt like 6 weeks. I knew if I'd been taking this trip with Peter, the time would have flown and the trip would have felt like it had been 2 days instead of 2 weeks. That's the funny thing about time.

Back in Ribčev Laz, Patrick and I toured the Mercator grocery store with our list, hoping to assemble the right supplies to cook dinner for 4 nights. I'd brought some recipes for chili and lasagna, since they're easy-to-make comfort food that would really hit the spot after a day spent out in the cold. A great idea, to cook, but a difficult one to execute when you have no idea what the boxes and tins say. Sometimes, I'd get lucky and recognize the pictures on the tins. A kidney bean looks like a kidney bean in any language. Other times, I'd have to guess. This was especially true in the dairy aisle. I just grabbed, hoping that since the opaque container felt like it could contain ricotta cheese that it would contain ricotta cheese.

Patrick was a real trouper regarding the provisions. He'd brought his rucksack and was more than willing to haul everything 3.5 miles on his back. I was less interested in trudging back through the deep dark forest. We managed to catch the ski bus to Vogel and then walk back to the apartment.

Patrick was wrecked and just wanted to hang out, but I knew I might not get another chance to check out Vogel. Anyone can buy a ticket to the cable car that takes you up the mountain. I bought a ticket and then went up. It's a wild ride – it feels like you're just hanging on nothing with the ground dropping out from underneath you. Probably not that much fun if you're afraid of heights, but the views from the top are worth a little fright.



I also rang Mr. Robi at Ranch Mrcina to arrange for a horse ride the next day. I'd been pouring over his online brochure of routes, trying to determine which one I'd take. In the end, the snowiest winter in recent memory made the decision for me. The snow was so deep on the trails that there was only one ride on offer – a one-hour trek. Mr. Robi was greatly apologetic for this, asked me how much riding experience I had, and then arranged to meet at the ranch at 11 am the next morning.

At the Gallops

As I mentioned, I had a lot of anxiety about how I was going to get to the horse place. I'd checked out the bus schedule and I was pretty sure I could get a bus to Ribčev Laz every hour on the .40 but, given my experiences with Dublin bus, I tend to distrust bus schedules and doubt bus stops. I didn't fancy trekking 3.5 miles through the deep dark forest either.

The morning was beautiful though – an ice blue sky without a single cloud, a happy shimmering sun, crisp mountain air, clear views for miles. The weather has a great impact on my emotional outlook. Nothing bad could happen on such a splendid day – sure I'd get to the horse place, no trouble at all.

The bus arrived promptly at 8.40 and I was in Ribčev Laz before 9. I walked into the next town, Stara Fužina and knew I was going to be hopelessly early if I continued on, so I turned back. I meandered my way back to Ribčev Laz and checked out their "Internet Centre", which turned out to be a single PC on the bar at a pizzeria.

After checking my email and reading a bit of news, I walked back to Stara Fužina- and then on to Studor. Helpful signs labeled "Icelandic horses" guided my way. The fact that Ranch Mrcina had Icelandics was a major selling point for me. Ever since I'd seen them tolting their way around the arena at Danada's Fall Festival, I'd been obsessed with them. Finally, a chance to ride one and see what all the fuss was about.

Even with my time-killing in the Internet Centre, I still was 20 minutes early for my appointment. Mr. Robi was a lot younger than I expected, maybe 27. I honestly didn't know if Mr. Robi is his first name or last name, but since an email sent to me from the hotel referred to him as Mr. Robi, that's what I called him.

He didn't have the horses ready, so I offered to help him out. I groomed my horse, Geeta, a ridiculously tall Lipizzaner. She was beautiful and very gentle, but not an Icelandic horse so I couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment. I groomed her and then Mr. Robi tacked her up I had to climb on a fence to get on her back, since her shoulder was higher than my head and I haven't quite mastered the art of ground-mounting.

We headed off along the paved road and then on a gravel road. We chatted occasionally, but were mostly quiet. When we got onto a small gravel path, Mr. Robi turned around and said "Now we go a little faster." His Icelandic tolted and my Lipizzanner trotted. It was a grand day out and a great way to enjoy the scenery. After a bit of trotting, Mr. Robi turned around and said "Now, we gallop!" and off we galloped. Geeta was fast and I'm not the most experienced of gallopers. I'll take a good canter over a gallop most days. The only small mishap in the galloping was when Mr. Robi's horse kicked up a gigantic iceball that hit me square in the eye. That was a little painful and galloping blind isn't something I'd ever been prepared for, but I survived.

At some point, Mr. Robi pulled his horse back to a walk and Geeta followed suit. We walked along the gravel path and then Mr. Robi turned his horse off the path and into a field of snow. For some reason, Geeta didn't want to walk exactly behind Mr. Robi's horse and she kept drifting off the left of the path. The snow was deep, but it was dense enough to support the horses' weight. With each step, they were only sinking maybe three or four inches. Until Geeta found more loosely packed snow and she sank right to her belly.

Since she was finding it difficult to step through the snow, she started trying to jump out of the snow. But she didn't have much momentum going, so it was a very bumpy process. It felt like bucking, only without malice. I shifted my weight over her shoulder and tried to stay still but not rigid, moving with her as much possible. I did fine although I lost my left stirrup on her last jump, so I don't know how much longer I would have been able to hang on had she not worked herself back into the safer snow. Shortly after this episode, Mr. Robi decided we would turn around and find a different way to complete the ride.

We crossed a stream and walked up near a small ski area. Geeta was walking next to Mr. Robi's horse, so I was asking him questions about his stable and his horses. I was trying to ascertain why he'd given me a Lipizzaner. I'm not complaining – Geeta was great and an original iteration of the trip had us going to Lipica, the home of the Lipizzaners, so that I could ride one. But I'd had my little heart set on an Icelandic.

I asked him how he chooses his horses and by that I meant for each rider. He thought I was asking in general and said that he'd wanted a whole stable of Lipizzaners, but they require experienced riders. Plus, Slovenians like to do things as a family and having a kid on a Lipizzaner isn't really practical. Icelandics cater to beginners and are perfect for children, which is why he selected them. As Patrick said later, Mr. Robi gave me the Cadillac of horses and all I wanted was the VW Polo.

When we were headed back toward the stables, Mr. Robi asked me if I'd like another gallop. I thought about it and the voice in my head told me galloping when pointing homeward is always a bad idea. But my stupid mouth said "Sure!" Off we went, much faster than the time before. I didn’t take any ice to the eye though. But this time, when Mr. Robi pulled up his horse, my horse thundered on. I was tightening my reins and trying to sit on her mouth and use my inner strength. I tried a nice loud "Whoa!" but guess who didn't speak English. I could see an icy slope up ahead and tried one last tightening of the reins and it worked. I was very relieved.

The rest of the ride was very calm and if Mr. Robi thought I was an amateur, he didn't let on to me. When we got back to the stable, I asked him if we could do the same ride the next day, but this time, I'd like to ride an Icelandic. He agreed and we arranged to meet again at 11.

I walked back to Ribčev Laz picked up some groceries in the Mercator, bought stamps in the post office, and then caught the bus to Ukanc. I spent the afternoon making lasagna, reading, and watching German television. I thought that except for missing Peter, I could get used to this sort of life.

Patrick got home around 5.30 and was thrilled to have a hot dinner cooking in the oven. He'd had a fantastic time snowboarding and was looking forward to the same-again the next day. He reported that the snow in Vogel was fantastic, the views were amazing, and the people were nice.

I've Ridden an Icelandic, Now I Can Die Happy

When we woke up the next day, Vogel was missing. You just couldn't see it at all for the clouds. The weather on the ground was okay – not as good as the day before though. It was partly cloudy with brilliant bursts of sunshine and harsh blasts of cold wind.

Someone else was missing – the proprietor of our apartment. He'd never stopped by on the night we arrived, or the next day, to collect the payment. Patrick opened the door to go snowboarding and we found a note from the proprietor saying he had to leave urgently and that his "housewife" would stop by to collect the payment. I don't know if he meant his wife or his maid. We didn't know this woman's name or when she would arrive. We weren't yet worried about it, but it is frustrating when you want to pay someone and can't find them.

I'd learned a little bit from my previous travels. I still caught the 8.40 bus, but this time, I spent a full hour in the Internet Centre. I managed to arrive at the ranch only 10 minutes early and Mr. Robi was ready for me.

My horse was a white Icelandic whose name sounds like Fire-nola. She was nice and small and delightfully friendly. I don't have a decent picture of her because she kept stepping forward to check out the camera.




I was able to get on her back in one try - without resorting to the fence. She was remarkably calm, allowing me to hop on her back even though a dog was barking and lunging at her. They're great little stoics, .

Mr. Robi reminded me about the route and then apologized profusely about not being able to offer me a better ride. He also briefed me on how to ride Fire-nola. He told me that when we tolted, I should stay seated. (This is different than a trot, where you can post, or bounce, up and down in time with the trot.) He started to give me directions about the galloping, mentioning that Firenola was a very fast horse, much faster than the one he was riding. I told Mr. Robi that I thought I might like to just skip the galloping and get more time tolting. Over the night, I'd grown a little superstitious and didn't want to press my luck.

I was really looking forward to the tolting and when Mr. Robi turned and said "Now, we go faster" I could scarcely contain my excitement. I later texted Peter and told him that tolting was everything I'd dreamt of and more. It's a smooth, gentle motion, very easy to sit.

We had a couple of tolting interludes and spent the rest of the time walking leisurely. Fire-nola was a complete trail horse. She wasn't happy unless her nose was halfway up the lead horse's butt. She had great manners though and was a joy to ride.

When the ride was over, I thanked Mr. Robi even as he tried again to apologize for the limited time and selection. I told him that the horses were the highlight of my trip and that I couldn’t wait until I was able to return. He seemed surprised by my excessive praise, but he doesn't know that I would have been happy just to walk in circles in the paddock.

I repeated my routine of walking back to Ribčev Laz, shopping, and then getting the bus to Ukanc. I was thrilled to find an episode of CSI on Slovenian television. Slovenian TV was much better for us than the German TV. (There wasn't really cable – we got 2 Slovenian channels, 2 German channels, 1 music video channel, and 1 German channel that seemed to be a gambling channel. I have no idea.) German TV will dub non-German shows. Slovenian TV uses subtitles.

As I cooked chili for the evening meal, I watched CSI and then watched an ancient episode (circa 1998) of Rikki Lake. Not my ideal viewing material, but after a week without much English-language media, I was starved for something I could understand. The Slovenian channel was playing ads for "Pirates of the Caribbean" and next to the time, there was the word "jutri". I scoured my Slovenian phrasebook, hopeful that it meant soon or tonight but it turned out to mean "tomorrow" so Patrick and I planned to have a movie night on Friday.

Patrick got back from his snowboarding a bit early as he'd had to give it up as a bad job. The clouds obscuring the mountain weren't so much clouds as a full-on blizzard. Apparently, workers who'd spent most of their lives working on the mountain swore they'd never seen snow that bad. It was blowing and drifting and nearly impossible to see where you were going.

We spent the whole of Friday morning waiting for the proprietor's housewife to arrived. It was snowing something fierce outside – we probably got about 20 inches over the course of the day. Patrick wrote his postcards and I read The Bourne Identity. We also watched "Air Bud", which was in English but, as Patrick rightly observed, it really could be in any language and you would still understand it.

Someone arrived around noon, but disappeared before we could pay her. I rang the proprietor on his mobile and he assured me that she would arrive at 9 am sharp the following morning to collect the payment. We could only hope that was the case since we were going to be on the 10.40 bus for Bled.

We had a walk into town to use the Internet Center and to get popcorn for movie night. We also left some of Nana in Lake Bohinj. Since the lake was frozen in places, we weren't sure of the best delivery method. We put some of her ashes into snowballs and threw them into the lake, aiming for the unfrozen areas. Since Nana was a keen swimmer in her youth, it always feels right to leave her in water.

We had a low-key last night in Ukanc, leftovers for dinner followed by "Pirates of the Caribbean" and popcorn.

Part Four – Bled: Days 11 – 12

When we left Ukanc, we were happy that we'd finally been able to pay for the apartment but also sad to be leaving such a beautiful and relaxing little place. I was surprised how bereft I felt, especially given how much angst I'd felt at first from the isolation of the place. It's a great little town though, even if it is in the middle of nowhere.

The bus ride to Bled took about 30 minutes. It would have been shorter and we could have avoided trekking around with our packs had I realised the bus stopped in front of our Pension. By the time I realized, it was too late and we had to get off at Bled's bus station.

Lake Bled is a beautiful lake with a picturesque island in the middle. It's a classic Slovenian postcard/tourism image, usually with a couple of graceful swans gliding across the water. Bled is also a bit over-developed and over-touristed. The downside of Bled in the winter is you can't take the boat ride out to the island and you can't swim in the lake. The upside is that it's not quite as busy, although it was fairly busy when we were there because the Biathlon World Championships were going on not far from Bled. (You know, that mad sport that combines cross-country skiing with air rifle shooting.)

After dropping off our rucksacks in the pension, we walked back around the lake and up to Bled Castle. Lonely Planet had reliably informed us that there were 3 ways to get up to the castle. We chose one of the forest paths and it was a bit treacherous in places. We had to pay about five euro to get into the castle and, again, no guided tours in the off-season. As Patrick later observed, you're really just paying for the view.




We walked down from the castle using the nice, safe paved road and stopped in a café for a coffee before dinner. We scheduled another alone day for Sunday, with Patrick taking a ski lesson at the local ski area. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but then decided a trip to a sauna/spa mightn't be a bad idea. After dinner, we did a little bit of reconnaissance and I settled on Wellness Ziva, even though it was a bit more expensive than the other choices. It had an enormous swimming pool complex with a water slide plus the spa/sauna area.

In the morning, it was a grey, dark day. It looked like it was snowing buckets even though the hotel desk clerk assured us it was just a strong wind blowing around snow that had fallen earlier in the week. Outside, the wind was pretty fierce and I was concerned that Patrick might have a miserable day of skiing ahead of him. The snowing/blowing ended up clearing off right around the time Patrick had his lesson.

Wellness Ziva was a calm, warm oasis in the blustery day. I paid for an entire day of swimming pool + sauna and was given a towel, a bed sheet, and a wristband with a microchip. I asked if there were any rules I needed to be aware of and was told no clothes in the sauna. Of course.

The wristband was interesting. The entrances to the pool and the sauna had turnstiles with a chip reader. You'd hold the chip up to the reader and then would be admitted if your chip granted access to the area. You could also use the chip to lock and then unlock a locker to store your belongings. Very high-tech.

The facilities were all new and sleek. The locker room was huge, spacious, and co-ed. There were small changing rooms you could use but most people seemed not to. The showers were a wide-open area with a glass wall, so everyone in the locker room could see into the showers. (Yep, some people still showered naked – and this was in the general swimming area, not the naked-naked spa.) There were even parts of the locker room that you could see into from the swimming pool. This all just struck me as very strange.

I swam for about an hour and then headed over to do some relaxing in the spa. This place was a million miles away from Klub Zlati in just about every respect. The clientele were younger and less naked (hooray for bed sheets). The standard for walking around seemed to be wrapped in the bed sheet. Even in the sauna and the steam rooms, there was a lot less nudity.

The facilities were top-of-the-line, brand-spanking new, and high-tech. They had fancy names like calderarium and laconium. They also had handy little signs in English that explained how to get the most out of them. I started with the laconium, which was a large comfy tiled couch with a tiled footrest in front of it. The sign said that it would slowly heat you to about 45 degrees Celsius and was ideal for those who found traditional steam rooms too hot. It also said you wouldn't feel it for at least 20 minutes and that you needed an hour to realise the full benefit. It was exactly as advertised.

I spent the next couple of hours trying out the various facilities. I especially enjoyed sitting outside in the hot pool, soaking in the gorgeous views of Lake Bled and the castle. When I got bored of the spa-ing, I went and enjoyed the swimming. I had a bowl of soup in the swimming pool's restaurant and then went back to the spa.

I enjoyed my relaxing day at the spa and was well on my way to being late to meet Patrick. Our plan was to meet at this café for a drink before dinner. When the room key wasn't at the desk, I knew he was in our room. I was just about to knock on the door when he pulled it open, on his way to the café. We had dinner at a very Slovenian restaurant, a fitting end to our travels in Slovenia. On our way back to the hotel, we left Nana in Lake Bled, again using the snowball delivery method. I think she would have found that amusing and practical.

Part Five – Venice: Days 13 - 15

Winding Down

My original plan had entailed taking a train from Bled to Nova Gorica and then somehow taking a bus or a train from there to Venice. I was never able to get definitive information on how to do this, and I had nightmare visions of us stranded in Nova Gorica. I decided it was better for us to take the bus back to Ljubljana and then the EC Casanova to Venice. It was a proven, reliable method.

This proved a wise plan and the only bit of excitement came in the Ljubljana train station, when a drunken passerby decided that A.) Patrick and I were from New Mexico and B.) we were desperate to talk to him about US politics. He reliably informed us "your President George Bush is most…fucker."

Our train carriage to Venice was overrun with junior figure skating champions. The World Junior Figure Skating Championship was held in Ljubljana and there were 4 Italian skaters, 2 Americans and 1 Canadian, all headed for Venice. (The Italians were not traveling with their parents while the Americans and the Canadian were.) Two of the Italian girls in particular had no respect for assigned seating and were not very thoughtful about where they put their luggage. I don't have a lot of time for figure skating and I have even less time for teenaged figure-skating divas traveling without parental supervision. Let's just say that the trip to Venice seemed A LOT Longer than the trip from Venice.

We found Venice largely as we'd left it although there did seem to be more tourists, particularly large school groups of Italian kids. Every summer, Dublin is inundated with Spanish and Italian teenagers, sent to a fellow Catholic country to learn English in a "safe" environment. Everyone who lives in Dublin dreads this yearly invasion as the kids always travel in packs of 20 to 30 and have the ability to take over any public space. I'd always thought it was just the way they acted in Dublin. It turns out I was wrong.

The hotel Patrick selected on Orbitz was an ideal location, right where Piazzale Roma meets the Grand Canal. Since he was only paying $80/night for the room, we were also afraid it would be a pit. It turned out to be a truly Venetian and cute little hotel. Marble floors, wood beam ceilings, a small balcony, enormous shutters for the windows. And, depending which way you looked out our window, we had a range of views.

Left
Straight
Right

Patrick and I spent our afternoon and evening in Venice hanging out and shopping for souvenirs. We mostly rested up for tackling San Marco the next day.

Overrated

Visiting San Marco and the square is the high point for many tourists. I have to say, it didn't do much for me. I found it too big, too full of pigeons and people. It seemed to lack the simple character of the rest of Venice. To me, Venice is cobbled alleyways, humpbacked bridges, narrow canals, crumbling buildings, hanging laundry, hidden courtyards, and shuttered windows. The huge open space of the square, dominated by the over-done basilica just isn't for me.

We also visited the Palazzo Ducale and took the Secret Itineraries tour. In the end, it wasn't secret or illicit enough for us. The biggest thing I learned is that early Venetian republic was really into bureaucracy. They produced reams and reams of paperwork and, when faced with a problem, their instinct was to form a committee to investigate and propose solutions.

Don't get me wrong – it was a good tour, but it wasn't as cloak and dagger, non-stop excitement as the title would lead you to believe. It was also nearly impossible to leave the palace. It took us at least 30 minutes just to find our way out.

Even though I'm not a big fan of churches, we did go into San Marco Basilica. It's as gaudy and overdone on the inside as it is on the outside. Yes, I am a Philistine.

We did the separate afternoon thing and then met up for dinner. I gave Patrick my un-validated vaporetti ticket and my Lonely Planet guidebook and instructed him to follow the Grand Canal tour in the book. A trip to Venice wouldn't be complete if you never once set foot on a boat, after all.

We had an early night since Patrick had a ridiculously early flight. His plane was leaving for Amsterdam at 6:20 am. We weren't sure how to get him to the airport, but it turned out that the first bus left at 4.40 am, so he was able to take that. Being the mean sister, I made him get up at 3.30 to make sure he didn’t miss the bus.

I spent my last day in Venice riding the vaporetti and touring the islands. I made a crucial mistake at the start, leaping on the first vaporetti that came my way without knowing where it was going. My plan was to go to the fishing village in Burano. I ended up getting there in the most bass-ackards way possible.

I went from Piazzale Roma to San Zaccharrio, then from there to Lido. At Lido, I got on an enormous double-decker ferry to I-don't-even-know-where and from there, I got a regular vaporetti to Burano. A trip that should have taken 45 or 50 minutes took 2 hours. Ordinarily, I'd have been jumping out of my skin, but a calmer me prevailed. On this day, it was all about the journey and not so much about the destination.

As a bonus, I really enjoyed the destination when I finally got there. Burano is like a candy village, all of the houses painted different bright colours like candy wrappers. It's a quiet place and I just strolled around soaking in the sights. I bought a couple of things in the open market and met a very sweet dog. I was on a quest to find some souvenirs and to just relax and enjoy myself. I was successful on both counts.





After Burano, I headed to Murano, which is known for its glass industry. The glass blowers were relocated to the island in 1300s because of the fire risk of their kilns. I found Murano a bit of a tourist trap – full of shops selling expensive glass stuff.

After Murano, I spent my last few hours in Venice walking, shopping, and just relaxing. Someone who recommended things to do in Venice told me to buy a glass necklace. She said, "They're beautiful and cheap and whenever someone asks you where you got it, you can chuckle to yourself and then say 'Venice.'" I did look around for a necklace, but I never seemed to find exactly what I was looking for and besides, I have a necklace already. (Peter gave me a very nice necklace with a small sapphire and diamond pendant and the necklace has pretty much become a part of my body.)

I ended up with an array of glass hair clips. They're much more my style. One of them even looks like a Gustav Klimt painting, so I'm a happy girl.

Retracing my first vaporetti journey, I went from Ferrovia to Piazzale Roma. The boat was packed to the point of uncomfortable-ness, but I still managed to drop a bit of Nana in the canal.

Conclusion

That's my report (and I'm sticking to it.) I loved Venice and Slovenia. If I had to do the trip over, I don't know that I would have changed anything. (Well, maybe I would have made it less snowy in the mountains so I could have had longer horse rides, but that's not exactly something that's inside my control.)

Venice is an amazing place and worth a visit before it sinks. It is a little expensive, but you can find bargain accommodation and reasonably priced meals if you know where to look. I didn't feel ripped off at all. (Traveling in the off-season is definitely the way to go.)

Slovenia is a fantastic hidden gem of a place. The Julian Alps are amazing. It's a relatively inexpensive place to visit, once you get out of the capital. On 1 January 2007, they're switching over to the euro, so I don't know how that's going to affect their prices. I'm very much looking forward to a return trip sometime soon with Peter.