Will’s View

As some of you may know, I’ve been travelling through Europe for the last 6 or so weeks. Now that I have some time to reminisce on all the adventures, I thught I’d start back-posting and talking about the places I went.

For some reason I decided that these posts needed to have some central theme to tie them all together. You might think this is so that I come across in a cohesive and comprehensible matter. But really it was a completely spur of the moment decision with no good reasoning behind it whatsoever. The theme that won the (brief and fictional) contest was the lessons that I learned over the course of the trip. Sure I may not have actually learned from them, but I shall document them here for your entertainment.

--> As some of you may know, I’ve been travelling through Europe for the last 6 or so weeks. Now that I have some time to reminisce on all the adventures, I thught I’d start back-posting and talking about the places I went. For some reason I decided that these posts needed to have some central theme to tie them all together. You might think this is so that I come across in a cohesive and comprehensible matter. But really it was a completely spur of the moment decision with no good reasoning behind it whatsoever. The theme that won the (brief and fictional) contest was the lessons that I learned over the course of the trip. Sure I may not have actually learned from them, but I shall document them here for your entertainment.

Lake Bled is a stupidly picturesque lake just north-west of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. I have posted some photos of this place, but in order to visualise how amazing it is, fire up the old imagination and try this on for size: A glassy-still lake with an island in the middle of it. On the island is a church which has steps leading down to the water. Overlooking this lake is a castle perched on an impossibly-sheer cliff which drops directly down to the water. Definitely a scene worth borrowing for a movie or three!

We just happened (through sheer dumb luck) to be at this lake for the annual lake festival called Blejski Dnevi or ‘Days of Bled‘. There were all the things one expects of an annual regional celebration: local foods; local beers; and oddly-dressed marching bands playing local music. All of which are most novel and interesting for a foreigner like myself.

But Lake Bled refused to let Blejski Dnevi pass without adding a little something to the normal proceedings. There was a laser light-show (projected onto the sheer cliff on which the castle sits looking out over the lake with the island in the middle with the church on it) of the famous sights of Europe accompanied by an original score blared out over large speakers. There was also the requisite fireworks display. But still there were further heights of pomp and celebration to be observed: hundreds of candles floating on the lake.

The effect of these candles was most spectacular, especially with the church on the island in the background. It wasn’t until the next day however that we found the candles had in fact been placed in eggshells. Each candle had been individually placed into an eggshell which had been cut open for the purpose, and assumedly the contents used for the local cooking we had enjoyed the day previous. I thought it was rather an innovative solution, rather than buying costly floating candles from the China or somewhere. I must say though, there were then hundreds of burnt-out eggshells for civil servants to go and collect the next day, what a task!

--> Lake Bled is a stupidly picturesque lake just north-west of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. I have posted some photos of this place, but in order to visualise how amazing it is, fire up the old imagination and try this on for size: A glassy-still lake with an island in the middle of it. On the island is a church which has steps leading down to the water. Overlooking this lake is a castle perched on an impossibly-sheer (More...)

Whilst in Ljubljana we stayed in a converted prison. Sounds a bit creepy, but it was actually really well done. Apparently it used to be where the military prisoners were kept around the time of the end of Slovenia’s time as a part of Yugoslavia, or something like that. And out the back of the hostel is Ljubljana’s student quarter. There are two or three night-clubs in the area, all of which are converted houses with (I’m assuming) dubious liquor licenses. It seems the students hang out and do crazy art during the day, and then party and drink on converted playgrounds all night. Sounds like the life eh?

Anyway, we were minding our own business and having a local Slovenian brew at the hostel when someone came up and started talking to us and telling us how he wanted to go to New Zealand. He was a local and had seen the whole Yugoslav revolution first-hand, I think he may have even seen the hostel when it was a prison, but I’m not so sure about that one. So we all got to talking and this local and his friend were telling us all about the changes that had gone through Slovenia once it had extracted itself from Yugoslavia, and how the Slovenians had reacted to becoming part of the European Union. Even what school had been like in Slovenia 30-odd years ago. All this was stuff that definitely wasn’t in our Lonely Planet, and it just hit home how much of a skewed perspective we get in the West (well, out here in the Antipodes) about all these things like EU membership and throwing off the shackles of communism. It looks so easy on the news when people just renounce their communist dictatorship, but very rarely do we see the full impact of such a drastic civil change

--> Whilst in Ljubljana we stayed in a converted prison. Sounds a bit creepy, but it was actually really well done. Apparently it used to be where the military prisoners were kept around the time of the end of Slovenia’s time as a part of Yugoslavia, or something like that. And out the back of the hostel is Ljubljana’s student quarter. There are two or three night-clubs in the area, all of which are converted houses with (I’m assuming) (More...)

It may sound like something out of an old-time movie. Well at least my romanticised notions of it certainly were, but walking across the border was rather cool. Sure there wasn’t really a border to speak of, and any posts checking cars and such had been long abolished, but there was a certain inescapable element of old-school about it.

The border was between Slovenia and Italy. The border was drawn just outside the town of Gorizia after the Second World War (when Slovenia was still a part of Yugoslavia) . It was apparently often said that the two towns tried to out-do each other in the quality and attractiveness of their buildings, but I’m not sure how true this is. Back in the day the border was quite an imposing thing apparently, but ever Slovenia implemented the Schengen Agreement, the nature of the border has become somewhat lackadaisical.

Nonetheless, cross the border on foot we did, because no trains ran at times which suited us. I almost felt like an ultra-cool spy, crossing illegally from country to country. Despite how far from the truth this may be. I think the only photo I actually took near the border is this one but I will endeavour to see if I can find some more.

--> It may sound like something out of an old-time movie. Well at least my romanticised notions of it certainly were, but walking across the border was rather cool. Sure there wasn’t really a border to speak of, and any posts checking cars and such had been long abolished, but there was a certain inescapable element of old-school about it. The border was between Slovenia and Italy. The border was drawn just outside the town of Gorizia after the Second World (More...)

This particular brand of incident actually happened twice on our trip, but this was the first (and therefore more entertaining) instance. Whilst in Venice (photos) we went on a day trip to the island (ooh, sorry, archipelago of islands) of Murano. Murano’s main claim to fame (as I understand it) is the glass that is manufactured and moulded out there. The glass manufacturing was apparently moved to Murano originally because it was a rather dirty process and people didn’t want that kind of stuff happening in Venice. The official story is that the risk of fires was too high. Yeah right.

Anyway, I digress. We set off to Murano to see what there was to see about glass. As with most places that have a specialty, there is a museum in Murano dedicated to glass. “Great,” we thought, “we’ll get a bit of culture in whilst wandering around.” Unfortunately though, this particular museum was closed on Mondays, and only Mondays. And, you guessed it; we visited the Murano glass museum on a Monday.

I really didn’t get that. Why should it be open all weekend, but not open on Mondays? Wednesdays I would understand, no one really likes Wednesdays, but a Monday? We did manage to see some glass sculpture though, which almost made up for it. However, the lesson still stands: Check ye the opening hours of a museum before ye venture forth unto said museum. 

--> This particular brand of incident actually happened twice on our trip, but this was the first (and therefore more entertaining) instance. Whilst in Venice (photos) we went on a day trip to the island (ooh, sorry, archipelago of islands) of Murano. Murano’s main claim to fame (as I understand it) is the glass that is manufactured and moulded out there. The glass manufacturing was apparently moved to Murano originally because it was a rather dirty process and people didn’t want that (More...)