Tites, mites, and Ben Carson

June 26, 2018

Tites, mites, and Ben Carson

Day 25, Sunday June 24

Travel day. Up early for the treadmill, followed by our last giant breakfast (at this location), followed by hanging around until a cab ride to Bucharest’s crowded airport, a 90 minutes flight to Ljubljana, and, presto, the day’s shot except for a sojourn to the local grocery store for wine and warm bread.

Ljubljana – don’t let the “j” fool you, it’s an “I” sound – is another smallish middle-European city (about 300,000) which would seem to have no modern buildings. They do, of course, and the 9€ ride from the airport takes us through average to dowdy-looking residential neighborhoods, too. Everyone speaks gibberish, but, seeing us in our obviously American clothes, they switch easily into English. Our hotel, the Above Average Best Western, is European at its finest, even if the shower stall is a 36” piece of plexi and the shower head is a spray gun on a stick. If one cowers at exactly the right angle, the bathroom floor doesn’t get wet. Ours gets wet. The a/c seems like it’s doing something and that’s all we need after blowing out the bread and a bottle of vino.

Day 26, Monday, June 25

There was loose talk about scoping out “Tivoli Park” near our hotel, but it’s raining so we merely walk long enough to get wet before adjourning to a giant breakfast in our new hotel. Being a European buffet, we are offered tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers, all of which we eat for the vitamins and to convince ourselves that we tried to eat right. We did not try to eat right, piling on croissants, chewy local bread, cheese, turkey, ham, and scrambled eggs in little glass containers, coffee, OJ and hazel nuts. A lot, but don’t forget we walked in the rain for fifteen minutes.

We are driven to Lake Bled (pronounced “Blid”), a teal blue lake fed by both melt water and hot springs so that it’s at 80 degrees, we are told, even though the air temp is closer to 60. The lake was created by glaciation a long time ago and features a tiny island in the center, which we reach by a “Bledboat,” a flat-bottomed conveyance rowed by a single fellow, the job passing from father to son. 20 or so of us make the trip, an easy ten minutes (easy since we aren’t rowing) and debark on the island, which is covered with trees, a Catholic Church and a gift shop, all owned by the church. For 6€, one can climb to the bell tower for photos and to ring the bell; big surprise, the bell is rung every 18 seconds. We are told that traditional weddings are performed in the church, the key traditions being that the groom must carry the bride-to-be up the 99 steps from the dock to the church and that she must remain silent during the process. Not sure if she was allowed to cry out in pain if dropped after 98 steps. Catholics! They’re a hoot!

The tiny island is pleasant enough on an overcast day, but the notable feature is the teal colored water, which our guide, Nina, is at a loss to explain. Nina! Give us something! Anything! She has a sense of humor, but she’s no Radu when it comes to stretching the truth for entertainment value.

Flashback to Bucharest/Has this ever happened to you, dept? In Bucharest, we decide to hide our cash in the night stand on Dave’s side of the bed. (Who’d think to look there?) Inside is a Gideon Bible, in Romanian, and four condoms. Four! Who in their right mind would think Dave and Deb would need that many for four weeks in Europe? Dunno. We left’em for the next guest.

Back to Ljubljana. After Lake Bled, it’s on to Lake Bled Castle, a really old (as far back as 1004) pile of grubby rocks where, once upon a time, someone wealthy lived in (relative) comfort. Other than a higher view of the lake, and a brief recap of which lakeside chateaus were owned/had been owned by whom, the main feature was a snack stand selling “Bled Cakes,” a Napoleon-like cream-and-custard-filled confection that helped us overcome the lack of calories ingested at breakfast.

Dave’s lunch (again with the eating!) was a “traditional” dish: a big piece of tough, flattened and breaded chicken. Knives were part of the place setting for a reason. Local beer here tastes like local beer everywhere. Scout chose “Octopus testicals” from the menu, feeling sure it meant “tentacles.” Can’t be sure either way.

We then were taken to Perestroika Castle, unusual because it was built (and rebuilt) into a rock mountain, which simplified defending it, but created other challenges, one being mold from water leaking through the limestone rock. Inhabitants collected water for daily use much the way Vermonters collect maple syrup, except that the water leached through the stone whether wanted or not. Nowadays, as a tourist attraction, the place is painted annually; even so, the paint starts to peel off quickly and the walls go greenish black. Must have been a great place to live.

As for heat, some thoughtful soul put the kitchen directly under the master’s bedroom. No one else in the castle got any. Lots of stairs; lots of small rooms; lots of heavy, dark furniture. No glass in the windows. Animal skins were scraped and stretched to let a little light in, but probably not much. The original structure was built in 1200 something and later expanded. Legend has it that one owner was killed by a cannon shot while sitting on the, uh, throne. To be candid, the throne was just a seat with a hole in it that emptied 100 feet onto the ground below. Guess those walking there got the occasional surprise. The cannon shot story seems to suggest really, really accurate cannons in those far back days. Possible; not likely.

We clamber up and down too many stairs to count and, since June 25 in “Nation Day,” the date Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia, we had a good amount of company. Mostly Slovenians, we think. Fewer Japanese than at Lake & Castle Bled. (Maybe they had “traditional” Slovenian lunches and had to seek medical aid.)

The next highlight on a busy day was Postojnska Jama, Europe’s longest system of “touristic” caves, i.e., the longest of those operating as a tourist attraction. Part was discovered in 1818 and more bits are being identified even now. We take a tram two kilometers into the system, walk 1 1/2 km, then tram it back to the surface. The tram ride was fast and no basketball player could have survived it. The walls and ceiling whiz by, seemingly inches away. Even a few meters from the start, we see stalactites (they hold tight to the ceiling), stalagmites (they might grow to the top) and curtains, all created by drip-drip-dripping calcium carbonate, the grow coming at a rate of one centimeter per century. (For those of you not hip to the metric system, that’s about a quarter inch.)

The touristic part of the caves are illuminated to show various highlights, more than a few of which look like melted human flesh. Just sayin. The entire known system is about 25 miles long, some of which, of course, is of no visual interest. The part we see has been groomed to accommodate a tram coming and going and a slip-free pedestrian path totaling maybe 3 or 4 miles, tops. The caves were open to visitors in 1870 or so and the guides had to push the first tram carts. Before too long, electric lights were added and the trams, too, were electrified. We sense that our guide does not miss “the good old days.” Early exploration of the caves was by candle and lamp light, hardly a reliable system.

Of course, no cave visit is complete without the moment when the guide turns out all the lights and the visitors can sense what darkness can truly be. When we went to Carlsbad Caverns a few decades ago, the guide tied the moment to talk about early explorers who doubtless experienced it many times. In those days, the lights out moment was a real “Gee whiz” experience. This time, with every tourist holding a cell phone/camera with a lighted screen, it was nothing. Damn cell phones!

Still, tons and tons of stalactites, stalagmites and other weird chemical/geological phenomena. The river that did all this by flowing through soft limestone, still rushes along below us, still carving and still picking up calcium carbonate to deposit for our android descendants to marvel at in a few million more years.

We emerge, blinking into late afternoon sun. Once again, threatening weather has given way to breezy and pleasant. Our van buddies are a young couple from San Francisco and a family from Australia. The SF couple live in the Embarcadero area and are on their way to a destination wedding at Lake Como in Italy. Total time off work: 33 days. The Aussies, who have Greek roots, are taking 42 days off, mostly for a family reunion. Did I mention that we wash our clothes in the sink to save money?

These are nice folks and good companions, sort of how Scout and Dave were before he got bald and embittered. Still, a youngish family on a 42 day vacation? Okay, readers (if any have persisted this far) how many of you took a 42 day vacation to foreign lands with children aged 10 and 7? Sure, the kids were nice today, but 42 days? Dave can’t cut it for more than two weeks and he’s 10 times 7!

The day’s sightseeing at an end, our weary travelers rush to the hotel bar, courtesy of a 2 for 1 coupon in their welcome packet. Love those BOGOs! We are barely seated when the lone other barfly says to Dave “I saw you at breakfast.” Turns out the gentleman was in town for a trade group conference and had decided to stay an extra day or two. He was either drunk, a stroke victim, or Ben Carson. A warm and civil guy, but a slow-talker and, well, who needs’em? People who chat you up in bars… Dunno, but there’s something fishy about’em.

A couple of photos and our Google photos album: