The Poet and the Architect

Day 27, Tuesday, June 26

Up early to run in Tivoli Park. Unlike the actually famous Tivoli in Copenhagen, this one is a big, city park and not a pre-Disneyland. It has a myriad of trails and biking paths which, as far as we’re able to discern, do not run in any nice, measurable loops. It is also lined with parking lots, kiddy play pens and other park-type stuff and, after reconnoitering, we conclude that we’ll (at least one of us) get lost so it’s back to the hotel and its treadmills. One of those turns out to be busted so… we do the sensible thing: Head for the buffet to load up on tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, etc.  Nah.

Oh, on the way to Tivoli, we pass the local Mercedes dealer where we see our first MBZ pickup. No kidding. Cars in the streets are the usual European and Asian models with the odd Ford or Chevy. GM used to make Opels here, but sold it to Peugeot. Guess GM didn’t think the 400 million here were a big enough market.

A bit later, we go on a “free” city tour, guided by a licensed pro who works for tips. Lots of fun facts and banter. We start in the city’s main square at what tourists impolitely call “the Big Pink Church.” It’s Franciscan and was supposed to be red, the Franciscan team color. (When did religious orders get team colors?) Big Pink is a few steps from a statue of Slovenia’s national poet, France Prešeren. Since Slovenia was under foreign rule essentially always before 1991, there are no dead Kings or dead generals to revere. Tough break. Prešeren is shown gazing mournfully across the square at the home of the, uh, woman he loved. She was 16 when he fell for her; he was 42. Ill-fated Love? Or pedophilia? Dunno. Nothing seems to have happened except for a lot of poetic longing, but, Prešeren was so beloved that the Ljubljana placed a fake window on the girl’s house with a depiction of her gazing back at the poet. Kinda sweet of them to pair the two.

Prešeren had at least one alternative: his statue has a second statute situated above it, depicting Erato, Greek muse of poetry who holds out a garland as if blessing
Prešeren's efforts. Since Erato’s statue is topless (hey! It’s the arts!), folks running Big Pink weren’t happy having worshippers see an image of temptation as they departed from services. They started covering the, uh, temptations only to have stubborn locals undo the cover-up time after time. Eventually, the church people planted trees to shield the righteous from the lord’s creation.

One can only guess whether  Prešeren, if he knew there was a topless goddess two meters away, would continue gazing at a the residence of a fully-clothed teenager across the way. It’s one of those deep philosophical questions that men are likely to answer one way and women another. 

We depart from the square via the “famous” triple bridge, a structure intended to relieve traffic pressure by adding two waking bridges alongside the main vehicle bridge. All went well until a decade or so ago when vehicular traffic (except delivery trucks) was prohibited from the square so, now you have three pedestrian bridges side by side, none of them more than 30 meters long. The bridges were designed by Jože Plečnik, a local whose designs redid big parts of Ljubljana after the big quake of 1895. 

The Triple crosses the Ljubljana River, which bisects this part of old town and which, we are told, was where Jason and the Argonauts, having stolen the Golden Fleece, was once a swamp guarded by a dragon. Jason killed the dragon and made it home. For reasons unknown, the town decided to adopt the dragon (with no wins and one fatal loss in battle) as symbol and protector for the town. The dragon (depicted in four sculptures on “the Dragon Bridge,”) was consistent in its efforts: Slovenia was part of the Roman Empire, the Habsburg Empire, and the Russian Empire – though not the Ottomans. Way to go, Dragon!

Local architecture (excluding the  Plečnik stuffj) in old town is mostly Austrian Secessionist and looks a bit like Art Nouveau. The bottom floors are loaded with pastry and ice cream shops, jewelry and women’s clothing stores. We saw no store that exclusively sold menswear (“futbol” jerseys don’t count). Oh, and restaurants, tons of them, mostly outdoors and, if possible with a view of the river or of a square.

Architect Jože Plečnik's alleged masterpiece was the university library, completed during WWII just as the Italians approached. The Italian Army will undoubtedly use the empty building as a military headquarters, locals said. As such, could Allied bombing be far behind? No. What to do. Citizens formed a human chain from the old library to the new one and, passing books from hand to hand, transferred 500,000 volumes from the old library to the new one in a single night. Presto! When the Italians arrived, the new library was full of books and the space wasn’t used for military purposes. Unfortunately, this being a middle European story, the building was substantially destroyed when an Italian plane crashed into it while unable to locate a place to land. Locals consider the library (now fully restored) either Plečnik's masterpiece or, for some, his ugliest masterpiece. It’s pink and white and was intended to look like a rug. Not sure that it does. It apparently looked like a landing strip to one pilot.

Our labors completed for another day, we obtain a large quantity of bread and wine and retire to our lodgings hoping that, if we limit our intake to bread and wine, we’ll lose weight. Uh… During a nice afternoon interlude, a ten or so piece ensemble gathers in the street below our room to play (mostly) American tunes to enthusiastic applause from passers-by. The a/c off and our window open in hopes of drying some of those damned cotton t-shirts, we get a bit of late-night boisterous street noise (university town, remember?). This is either a damned nuisance or a reminder that we’re in an actual place where people live and drink and sing songs and argue. Could be both. 

We’ve had good a/c in every town but one, and there, after two guys managed to get the fan part going, but not the cooling part, we shrugged and let it slide. The hotels have been fine for the most part and, let’s face it, this isn’t a luxury tour. Staff are pleasant, breakfasts have been far too tempting and locations are all in the various “old towns,” so access to the stuff we’re here to see has been good. People on the street look sane, have cell phones and, for the young, bad haircuts, tattoos, and those ill-fitting and cheap-looking “leather” jackets that younger European men wear so no one confuses them with Americans. (Not likely; as if calling soccer “futbol” doesn’t give them away.)  The streets are generally clean and people are out early to sweep, pick up trash, etc. Too many smokers, but it’s Europe and can’t be helped. (Note: fewer smokers in Norway, Denmark and The Netherlands; better haircuts there, too.)

Fun facts/links: Prešeren square..his muse, etc

National library and Jože Plečnik

Jože Plečnik

A few photos and Google album

National/University Library

Love locks...as seen in many cities 

Dragon!!

And, a the link to a few photos via Google photo album of Ljubljana on our walking tour and on our own, especially our early morning walk on Wed, June 28 before departing for Venice. Love the quiet morning cities.

A few Ljubljana pics