Final Thoughts

Today is my last day of work at Komunaprojekt and its also my last day in Slovenia. Looking over all my other blog entries I've realized the majority of them are about adventures and trips out of the country. Granted, there's not much that's exciting about my daily life here, but I have enjoyed the simplicity of my life a lot. Maribor has been a great city to live in, maybe not a tourist destination, but a place to enjoy the environment and go at a slower pace for a few months. At least in the summer. I've been told that when the university students return in October, the city completely changes and its a much busier, more lively place. The last 10 days have been cold and rainy, not quite the parting memory I wanted to have of Slovenia, but I will definitely return here. Afterall, I didn't get to climb Mt Triglav and Ljubljana is a fantastic city that I didn't get to spend enough time in.

I will repeat what all the tourist brouchures say about this place, that its a small, chicken-shaped country that has a little bit of everything and its all beautiful. Well, except the coast, go to Croatia to go swimming. I'll miss the river and the red tiled roofs and the pink toilet paper and the bakeries and the bike lanes and the park and all the small cars. I'll miss the mountains here, even Maribor's Pohorje which isn't as dramatic as the Julian Alps, but its the idea that the mountains and outdoors are so well used and enjoyed here that makes it so nice. Whenever you go for a hike, there is a mountain hut along the mountain somewhere so you can stop for a beer or goulash or ice-cream. I think in America we hang on to this idea of pristine nature such that people either cant touch it at all and its kept as pristine as possible, or it becomes like the top of Mt Washington, with so many cars and people, it no longer feels like you're in nature. But going for a hike, stopping at a mountain hut and then seeing cows and sheep along the mountain side reminds me that people can have a sustainable, even beautiful, simbiotic relationship with a landscape. Slovenia has figured all that out.

I am definitely ready to come home, but I think my readiness comes more from the amount of goodbyes I've said to people in the last 3 weeks more than anything else. I came to Slovenia not really knowing what I was getting into and absolutely prepared to be traveling and living day to day by myself. Then when I began doing everything after work and on weekends with the other IAESTE interns, I realized how lucky we all were to be part of a group that got along so well. It's not like we were all perfect soulmates, but we were all openminded and willing to try new things and get to know people very different than ourselves. I know, I know, I should take some wine with my cheese here, but it's been great to make some good friends and have shared so many things with them, its this group of people that has made this summer so great.

I spent all last night baking cookies for my office with Helena and Andreja. Not being able to find chocolate chips or brown sugar at the store, I had to improvise a bit, but as long as they have butter and chocolate, they'll be fine. So that'll be my goodbye to the other folks in the office, milk and cookies. But I'll see them all in October when the entire firm goes on vacation to New York City and Washington DC for 5 days.

I am meeting my parents tomorrow in Budapest and spending a few days there with Andreja and Helena before the Klains move on to the Czech Republic and Prague.

So, 2 amazing cities and 12 days between me and Pittsburgh.


Here we go.

Croatia part 3 - Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik was the one place I was able to find a room in and book in advance, but it turned out to be not the greatest place since we were a bus ride to the old city. Oh well. We made it into the city the first night for a late dinner and I think the entire population of Italy who were in Split had moved down to Dubrovnik as well and brought with them lots of Americans and Japanese too. Crowded, but such an amazing city.

Somebody a long time ago dubbed Dubrovnik ' the pearl of the Adriatic' and rightly so. Its a small, Venetian walled city that sits on a peninsula with the walls of the city running into the cliffs that end in the sea. The interior of the city was much more dramatic at night, but during the day we walked along the 8th century city walls and seeing the white limestone of the buildings and walls contrasted with the blue cerulean water, the red tiled roofs and the green of the trees around the city was incredible. I just would never expect to see colors as simple and brilliant as those in a city.

As crowded as the city itself was, we walked up to a fortress that looks on to the city and had the place to ourselves. It was the one place where we had a view of the city from the water side (since the ferry terminal is 10 km north of the city) and that's where we had the most stunning views. It was a short stay in Dubrovnik, but long enough to know I want to go back, preferably by sailboat.

Our plane and train connection didnt quite work out as planned, so we spent our last night in Zagreb and walked around a bit the next day. But we were both exhausted from the previous few days and, no offense Zagreb, but the city during the day was quite boring in comparison to turquoise water and idyllic walled cities on the rocky Dalmatian coast. Also, I think 80% of the important buildings in the city are being renovated, and who wants to take pictures of scaffolding?

So the moral to this series of giant long blog posts, if you've made it this far, is to go to the Dalmatian Coast. Probably dont go in August, as its the month that all of Europe goes on vacation and most of them go to Croatia. But any month of the year is going to be gorgeous. I promise. And if you're going by boat, take me with you.

Again, all the photos from Croatia are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/CroatiaWithStu

Croatia part 2 - Korčula

We took a ferry from Split to the island of Korčula, about 3 hours on a fast catamaran passenger ferry. We get there and did the same thing, went to a tourist office, the girl calls a guy, the the guy comes, we walk 100m into the center of town and he shows us an amazing room with a view of the water in the house where he, his father and sister live. The picture on the left is the view from our window.

Being an island, this town is much smaller, and even though there's no city walls, the town is placed on an oval penninsula so the sea acts as the limits to the built environment. Once again, no cars on these sidewalk sized streets, just an amazing tiny old town surrounded by the sea on 3 sides then more modern developments (like cars) towards the land side. We took a 20 minute bus ride to the other side of the island after the reccomendation of a sandy beach from the guy whose house we were staying in. We went through 20 minutes of a hot, sandy, Mediteranean landscape with lots of dark macchia trees and woods to arrive at another town. We walked towards the promised sandy beach only to find a beach about 100m long and maybe 12 feet wide. And it was very occupied with lots of people. So we walk along the rocks further down, trying to avoid places with lots of sea urchins in the water and find a great place next to a small pier to enjoy our day of swimming and reading.

The whole coast there is gorgeous and we saw yachts, small and large, from all over the world cruising around. With all the old cities and beautiful islands, I would think the Dalmatian Coast is a sailor's paradise (Dad- hint, hint).

The seafood, wine, prosciutto and fresh cheese kept us (or maybe just me?) happy during the time we weren't on the rocks by the sea, but that wasnt very much time in the 2 days we stayed on Korčula. Our second day there we walked along the road in the other direction to find a place to swim and found a place to spend the afternoon.

We found an amazing spot with views of the mountains on the mainland and the boats going into the island's harbor. It was another great day in the ocean but we had to abbreviate our stay with the threat of dark clouds overhead. We got back t o the town fairly dry, only to have the rain start pouring down when we were moments away from our next ferry to Dubrovnik. It rains in paradise too, not just Pittsburgh.

Croatia part 1 - Split

Heeding the advice of my elders, Stu and I went to the southern coast of Croatia, the Dalmatian Coast, for a (very) long weekend to see the cities of Split and Dubrovnik and stop at one of the many gorgeous islands between the cities. We took a train to Zagreb, the captial of Croatia, then flew from there to Split in all of 45 minutes. Sure beats a 6 hour bus ride. According to my guide book, Croatia's selection of hotels and hostels was pretty weak from the recent war, so the way to find a room is to go to your destination city and find a tourist office to book you a private room. People rent out rooms in their houses to travelers and this is typically the cheapest and nicest way to go. Still, it sounds a bit dodgy, right? Staying in some random person's house while on vacation? We figured that since there was 2 of us, we could handle it. So when we got off the airport bus right outside the city walls, we walked around a bit and found a sign in a vacation rental shop that said it had private rooms, so we went in and this girl called another girl who showed us rooms she had about 100m from the old city walls. Good price, amazing location and the room was perfect. Apparently this system works...

Split is the second largest city in Croatia, it sprawls away from the old city which is right on the Adriatic. The old city consists of the walls of Diocletian's Palace that was built in 305 and then 400 years later, when the palace had long been abondoned, the surrounding villagers moved into the palace to protect themselves from the Turks (or someone else who was attacking). They built their village into a castle, like they took the palace walls and put houses and churches amongst them.

Its this crazy layering of architecture and history and ruins that still completely function as a city today amazingly well.
Walking around the city felt a lot like Venice just because of the age and type of the buildings along 'roads' which are nothing more than sidewalks. There's no order or grid to the layout of the streets (it was, afterall, a palace orginally) so you'll just wind your way down a street, it'll turn left, then go up a staircase, funky cafes and trendy shops abound, then turn right and you're in the main square. And also just like Venice, there were tons and tons of people there. I had figured that because I had never heard of the city, it couldn't be too touristy. But I think the entire country of Italy was in Croatia while we were. It was a big enough place though that the crowds didnt detract from it, Split has a great nightlife with something for everyone. Lots of restaurants and bars and cafes and clubs to embrace the throngs of people. We found reggae night at a local bar that had cushions on the stone wall and bean bags outside in its courtyard and barrels with stools for sitting on. Then we went back to the main square, attracted by live music, and found a singer and guitarist playing in the square thats bounded by the tall church tower, the old Roman columned entrance to the city and then town buildings on 2 sides. We were sitting along a row of columns and steps that must have led to something important at one time, but now just made a semi permeable wall in the middle of town.

Anyways, as we sat and listened to the music we started to see lightning all around us. Probably the most amazing setting from which to watch a lightning storm.
It was much easier than we expected to escape the city and people to find a nice place to swim, just a half hour walk through a park along the edge of the city. Of course, swimming in Croatia means finding a nice flattish rock to lay on and jump or climb in- no sandy beaches here.

Castles and Beer (aka Salzburg)

We made it into Salzburg and found a hostel by about 10:30 that night, only to find that the best beer hall was on the other side of the city and closed at 11. So we went out into the town in search of a place to eat and drink a bit, finally finding a restaurant that was still open and enjoyed first Austrian beers and sausages and goulash. We spent Sunday walking around the city seeing all the sights, climbing to the castle that overlooks the rest of the city (more impressive from the outside I think) and walking by the river to the other side of town where this famous beer hall is. After filling ourselves with beer, meat, potatoes and sauerkraut in the beer garden there, we slowly made our way back to the car and made it back to Maribor. There were tunnels we had to go through on the highway that were 8 miles long, that was weird. But just driving through Austria made us want to return. There were castles or ski lifts around every bend, the beer was excellent and Im beginning to really enjoy good sauerkraut....

Salzburg photos are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/Salzburg

Julian Alps

I know these posts are a couple weeks late in coming, but better now than never...

The plan was when Stu came to visit, that we were going to climb Mt Triglav, the epic mountain thats on the Slovenian flag and that every Sloveneian has to climb sometime in their life. It's a 2 day climb so we were going to take the weekend to do it and stay in a mountain hut halfway up. But then the forecast said it was going to rain, on Friday and Sunday. Ugh. So change of plans. Stu really wanted to go to Salzburg while he was here, so we made plans to spend (rainy) Friday in Maribor, then a day hike in Triglav National Park Saturday (with our fearless Slovenian guide, Andreja) then to Salzburg Saturday night to spend the rest of the weekend there.
We left at 5am Saturday to make sure we would have time to make all the detours necessary for the many sights in and around Triglav. We drove into the park a ways and hiked for 15 minutes to get some great views of the North face of Triglav.

It truly is a majestic mountain and Im so disapointed we didnt get to climb it. I guess I'll just have to return to Slovenia another time... Then we continued on our way stopping for breakfast at a mountain hut as we continued driving up these roads built by the Russians in the 1930s going through the park. Switchback after switchback, the tight hairpin turns were cobblestoned and the rest of the road was dirt or asphalt. Finally we found our trailhead, along with hundreds of other people. It was great to see the park so well used by people of all ages and as soon as we got on our trail, there was hardly anyone else in sight. Andreja said that the Julian Alps, the tallest Alps in Slovenia, differ from the rest of the mountain chain in their pure white color. The rest of the Alps are gray and brown, but in Slovenia its all white rock. The peak we came to had amazing views of the mountains all around us and even into Italy and Austria. Just before the top (vrh in Slovenian) we found a herd of sheep grazing in this beautiful meadowy area surrounded by steep rock going down. These sheep must be pretty talented to make it all the way up there. The sheep were perhaps a little too friendly but the meadow was a great place to take a little rest before going down again.

All the photos are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/TriglavNationalPark

On our way through Slovenia and Italy to get to Austria, we stopped at a famous farmer's hut to buy some cheese. It was very good and an amazing setting for a sheep farmer's house.

Graz

Turns out Graz is an incredible city. I didnt know anything about it previously, but Im so glad we stopped there. Its a pretty big city and sprawls for a while, but the city center around the river is really nice and walkable. The city has a lot of quirky things about it, like a funicular (similar to Pittsburgh's) but also a glass elevator that will take you up and down through the middle of the same mountain. Then there's some crazy architecture there too like the new art museum.

In the art museum(nicknamed the friendly alien) there was an exhibit of current Chinese artists, and it was one of the best exhibits I've seen in a while. A lot of the pieces were very spacial and 3 dimensional so it was very interesting to experience it all.

Then we went to a cafe in the middle of the river that had a playground and amphitheater as part of the island, it was designed be Vito Acconci and was very cool. I really had no knowledge of Graz before I went there, and Im so glad I did. And when we caught the train back Friday night, it was at just about the same time we would have been getting off from work. Time well spent.

Some other pictures of the city are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/acadiak/Graz