Ljubljana Castle was quite a nice tourist attraction (from the outside).
And there was also a bijou opera house, which put on a very nice performance of Pepelka/La Cenerentola/Cinderella:
The orchestra were especially good and really tore into the music as though it meant something, while our Angelina dealt very prettily with her coloratura and the Prince also impressed. The Slovenes’ idea of bringing their Slovene children along was less successful, causing me irritation and the children an eternal agony of boredom. I’m not sure the grown-up Slovene’s really got bel canto either.
This picture of the really rather impressive gluten-free section of Maximarket earned me a telling-off…
…while here is a further example of disrespect to the Cyrillic alphabet–rdeča must just be ‘red’…
The journey to Nova Gorica occasioned scenes of wild panic, as he bus managed no more than 5 metres in the direction of Nova Gorica when the driver declared it was kaputt. After lengthy consultations on his mobile, he said there would be another bus in ten minutes and we could transfer our luggage. Then he couldn’t open the baggage compartment because the bus was kaputt…
Or rather: said something in Slovene which starting from Russian I interpreted as indicating there would be another bus in ten minutes and we could transfer our luggage.
This is the border between Nova Gorica (Slovenia) and Gorizia (Italy), with an abandoned Cold War style checkpoint–you just walk, drive or cycle on through. Wouldn’t it be great to be part of the civilised world like these two countries? (Even though recent elections produced desirable results in neither of them.)
O Iago the pity of it, Iago the pity…
What confused me was that the signposts in Nova Gorica failed to acknowledge the existence of Gorizia (though they are now essentially the same place). Then at the suggestion of a helpful local gentleman I got the shuttle from the Nova Gorica bus station to the Gorizia train station, which was just as far from my hotel but did have a map on display, so I eventually reached safety.
A picture of Italians talking in the street, accompanied by small dogs.
The hills above Lake Bled had something of Caspar David Friedrich about them, or perhaps Arnold Böcklin…
…while the lake itself provided a picturesque pre-lunch walk.
Back in Ljubljana before flying out, some traditional British-style holiday weather cleared the streets pretty quickly–you can’t expect these Europeans to understand the point of taking one’s pleasures sadly, masochistically even.
