Friday, 22 September 2017 to Thursday, 28 September 2017
On Friday we woke up to an amazingly blue-sky day in Budapest. This is what we came here for but unfortunately we had to move on… but we will be back… We had to be out of the hotel by 10:00, we were out by 11:00 thanks to a lovely and understanding young receptionist.

We drove towards the Slovenian border with this vignette thing still restless and murmuring in the back of my head – as you may recall from last week’s blog – but once again I chose to ignore its pleas and stick my head in the sand…

We turned off the highway and headed towards Siófok which lies on Lake Balaton, the largest lake in Europe which is sometimes described as an inland sea. We drove along the “coast”, stopping here and there and everywhere, marvelling at the lovely vistas that lay in front of us. Lake Balaton is obviously synonymous with holiday and it, being late September, was almost devoid of people, let alone holiday makers. It had an eerie deserted feeling to it with the plentiful holiday homes now all boarded up for the winter season but one does not have to use much imagination to realise that this place is paradise come high summer. We could easily spend a few summer months here.

 

We finally got back on the highway at Balatonfenyves and at around 40km before the Slovenian border we noticed a signboard proclaiming something about toll roads and vignettes and petrol and coffee and all. We put four and four together and decided we needed coffee and find out about the rest. After having filled up with petrol we ordered our coffees and enquired about the toll roads and vignettes. In order to use the toll roads in Slovenia you need to purchase a vignette, which is a small sticker that you have to stick to the inside of your windscreen. If you don’t have one of these, the fines are steep at around €2000! Just as well we stopped.

And by the way, we did indeed also need a vignette for Hungary, and also Slovakia, and also the Czech Republic, how we managed to get away with those I fear to know. It’s not that we wanted to get away with it, we just… did not know… but now we know. We also bought a vignette retrospectively for Hungary; we are law abiding residents you know, although the former two countries were now a moot point, I wasn’t going to drive back there for vignettes!

We made good progress and by 18:00 we turned into our new home in a village just south of Ljubljana called Šmarje – Sap where Marina was waving wildly to us from the patio. Steve and his son Corey, who had come to visit from London, were away on a road trip of their own to Belgrade, so we were met by a lonesome Marina. And what a wonderful reunion it was, it was so good to see her again after we saw her last in Montenegro in March earlier this year. There were another two family members that we had never met before, Pasha and Ivan, two gorgeous looking cats that crept into our hearts within a heartbeat.

After several drinks Marina served us borscht soup, a dish in true Russian style, accompanied with a doughy dough filled with potato which was shallow fried in a bit of oil, looking much like a vetkoek from SA, just much better. And of course this was accompanied by that old tried and trusted Russian pastime, vodka. Copious amounts of vodka made it to its intended destination wreaking havoc with my brain cells, those dearly departed and also those still struggling to survive.

We had a lot of catching up to do and it was past midnight that we turned in. To say I was tired would be an understatement, to say I was tipsy, would be an understatement…

Saturday morning the three of us went for a long walk through green grassy fields and up and down green grassy hills, the different shades of greens were just wonderful. We walked up and past the next village called Pleše, down to another village and up again to yet another one, and a few kilometres later we were once again home, ready for breakfast. Ah, we needed that amazingly clean and fresh air.

 

 

We spent most of the day reading and relaxing after our first week of motoring incessantly. We even took a snooze in the afternoon, something we have not done in a long while.

Adri made supper while Marina and I watched America’s Got Talent, and we specifically watched all the performances of young Darci Lynne, a ventriloquist of note. Check below and you will realize how incredibly talented this girl is.

The weather had turned rather cold outside so Marina made us a fire in their lovely large fireplace where, after supper, we sat huddled talking late into the night…

Sunday morning the three of us went to the large supermarket in Ljubljana called Mercator, which is opposite another large French supermarket called Leclerc. We loaded a trolley with foodstuffs for the evening’s supper, as well as beer and wine… the wine was quite unique, it was wine on tap! You grab yourself an empty plastic bottle, tap the tap and voila, we tapped one bottle of white, and one bottle of red.

But, we needed more drinks. On the way home Marina told me to take a right turn, down a muddy track and then told me to stop next to a little dam surrounded by dense woods. The mist was eerily thick in the air, one could almost taste it. She ordered us out of the car… Oh shit, this felt like a scene straight from Gorky Park. “Is this how it was all going to end?” I thought. I got even more worried when Marina ordered “Open the boot”. “Okay, so this was it then”. I came face to face with a… 10 litre plastic water container which was promptly filled with fresh spring water from the fountain right there. The fountain is used by anyone in the village that knows about this little gem and man, you’ve never tasted water like this.

 

Steve and Corey arrived back from Belgrade early evening and what a delightful young man Corey turned out to be. And they were hungry as wolves after their long trip home.

Adri had prepared a sort of a boerekos (farmer’s food) supper of grilled chicken, grilled pork fillet, roast potatoes, salad and pampoenkoekies (pumpkin fritters). It was only while we were having supper that Steve declared “I do not eat pumpkin…”, he apparently abhors the stuff. And of course Corey, being cut from the same cloth, ditto’d that sentiment. It was only towards the end of the meal that Corey attempted a pampoenkoekie and quickly loaded another and then yet another onto his plate. Steve having witnessed this, reluctantly coerced one onto his plate and then another and then yet another. Between the two of them they left the pumpkin dish bare. Steve, with a bashful glint in his eye said, “And here I thought I didn’t eat pumpkin!” Yes, those pampoenkoekies are something else.

For dessert Adri had made tiramisu which most of us attacked with gusto, except Steve who declared “I do not eat tiramisu…” as he got up and poured another drink in lieu of dessert. Marina dished him a small piece, ignoring his protestations, which he gingerly spooned into his mouth. His eyes lit up and soon enough there was not much of that tiramisu left. Steve, with a second glint in his eye said, “And here I thought I didn’t eat tiramisu!” Yes, that tiramisu is something else.

After supper, a few more beers and cheap wine on-tap, it was past midnight when we turned in… after a long hard day!

For breakfast on Monday Adri and I were reunited with our favourite burek, Adri could not contain her excitement. You may remember our burek excesses while we were in Serbia and Montenegro earlier in the year and these were perfect specimens. We arrived home with a few goats cheese ones, a few beef/pork mince ones, a burek pizza, as well and the mandatory natural white yogurt. A breakfast feast was had by all.

Steve and Marina took Corey to the airport for his flight back to London while Adri and I headed back into Ljubljana for some shopping. During our wanderings we saw a lot of purchasable stuff but of course we have to be selective what we buy, we only have so much baggage allowance on the plane. We once again looked at mobile phones but the selection at Media Markt in Amsterdam was far superior to here at their Big Bang store. Oh well, we’ll have to wait a while still for our replacements.

We opted to go for a cappuccino, but ended up going for a hot chocolate instead, which was called for by the weather outside. But to my dismay, the hot chocolate arrived cool to the touch, and believe me, that was not cool. Not being one to complain… really… we let it go and left it at that, their wifi was at least good.

It was dark when we got home; Steve and Marina was just getting worried that we had gotten lost. And their worry was not totally misplaced as we experienced a Google glitch. Apparently I had no more 3G data left of the 5GB data package I purchased, even though my phone assured me I had only used 547MB thus far. This meant I could not use Google on my phone and had to rely on the Peugeot’s GPS which did not accept our exact address.

This lady took us along the scenic route but turning down that garden path we found barriers in our way. We turned around and headed in another direction. While waiting for the GPS to reroute we drove past the road we were supposed to be rerouted to, so it started rerouting again… you get the picture. We finally stopped until it had time to properly reroute after which it pointed us down another path, but lo and behold, more road works called for another detour. Finally things became more familiar in the dark and we found home where we had left it many hours before, and many reroutings later.

Marina had made us meatballs for supper and when Adri and I talked about the frikkadelle, Marina exclaimed that that is what they call it in Russian. Well, that defied explanation, how the hell did that come about? Frikkadelle in Russian is фрикадельки which is pronounced, believe it or not, frikadel’ki… who would have thought!

On Tuesday we again had burek for breakfast, this time on-the-go, as we made our way to the south of Slovenia for a daytrip to the Predjama castle. Marina suggested that we buy tickets at the castle for both the castle and the Postojna caves as you get a better deal. This little nugget of advice saved us some €18 in the end. She also advised us where to park for free, “as you approach the castle, turn left down a little track to the parking space down below”. That saved us another €6. Good to have friends that are in the know.

The castle is awe inspiring, seemingly clinging to the cliff face, ingratiating itself into the cave beyond. The price includes an audio guide, ours was in English. We could have chosen the Slovenian one to try and be cool but I suspect that would have defeated the purpose.

As we entered the castle we unfortunately found ourselves behind a group of school kids made up of about 30 youngsters of around 16/17 years of age. They were lead by their teacher who was intent on showing off his history prowess to his young learners, taking his sweet damn time. It was a rumoerige (rowdy) bunch leaving a loud Slovenian narrative hanging thick in the air. Now I thought having chosen the Slovenian audio guide might have been appropriate, and least I would have been listening to the same language.

With effort we managed to bypass this bunch but would meet up again with them later, going in the opposite direction. As we waited for this train of youngsters to pass us it smelt as if a solid cloud of fart of varying degrees of obnoxious fumes engulfed us… man, these guys must have had an awfully good supper last night. Have they no shame…?

The castle is not large by any stretch of the imagination but it was amazing to experience it and rather interesting to see the way the people lived there so many years ago. You can read about the wonderful history of the castle here.

It was 14:15 when we left the castle and headed to the Postojna caves back towards the town of the same name. It now started to drizzle lightly but we soon enough found the entrance and made ourselves inconspicuous amongst a Japanese tour group. Our cover was blown when the three tour leaders appeared with a Union Jack, a German flag and a Japanese rising sun. We followed the Union Jack, that’s the only flag we understood.

At the cave entrance there is a little train that takes one 2km into the cave from where you walk around the most amazing natural structures of stalagmites and stalactites and cave curtains and all, millions of years in the making. These caves are the most visited in Europe and it shows, with heavy people traffic, but even so everything is very well organized and very well worth the visit.

At 10°C it was cold inside the cave but we were warned so dressed appropriately. It was the train ride though that was rather chilly with that cold air whistling past ones ears, I was sure if I touched them they would crack… I did not touch, it did not crack.

As we exited the caves I had a beer in mind but the weather had turned miserable and with that steady drizzle on our faces we agreed that home was a much better choice.

Wednesday we woke up to a snowstorm… well, not quite, but… I received an email from my bank to advise, in the most pleasant way possible, that my account had been frozen. I had been asked to supply a host of personal information by the 25th, which by the way I did – remember we stayed an extra day in Prague especially for this purpose – and now this. I was inwardly outraged, but what could I do?

I contacted the bank’s helpdesk via Skype and they were as helpful as ever – and I’m not being facetious here – fact is, apparently, or so they said, they had not received my email containing the data I sent from Prague. I was provided with another email address to send the stuff to and four hours later, after yet another call, I finally got my acknowledgment of receipt. My account was now defrosted, but for how long? They assured me that if I did not hear from them again, all was well; else they would be in contact. Hmm…

Just to make sure all was well I fired up my banking app on the Ipad which… froze up. Was this what they meant by my account being frozen? I downloaded and installed iOS 11.0.1, reinstalled the app and all was well in my banking world.

I have been monitoring flight prices for our trip back to SA and today I noticed that the prices started to get bloated. Adri and I discussed it, decided on a flight and booked it. We’ll be leaving for SA from Amsterdam on Monday, 16 October on Turkish Airlines with a stopover in Istanbul.

It was mid afternoon when Adri, Marina and I set off for Ljubljana; Marina wanted to show us her adopted town. For future reference we were shown exactly where to park for a reasonable rate and how to pay for the parking, a similar system as in France. Money is deposited into the parking machine, a parking slip is printed which must be displayed on the dash. Only difference, the parking here is vastly more affordable than in France.

We walked along the Ljubljanica River, which flows into the Sava River not far from town. And yes, it’s the same Sava River we saw in Belgrade where it terminates into the Danube. We stopped off at an antique watch shop, then walked up to the square and the head office of the university, then round the corner past some amazingly beautiful buildings and entered a theatre and crept up a flight of stairs to its restaurant. We took up position at a corner table but were gently persuaded to move a few tables up. That table was reserved for a book reading by a writer/poet who was expected soon.

While the ladies were having a glass of Cabernet and I a large Tuborg, the book reading began with a number of people listening attentively… in Slovenian. Marina of course could understand most of it, Adri and I were dumbfounded, and when Marina got tired of translating for us we left.

 

 

 

Up and down a few more streets and we came upon Republic Square with some old communist era buildings on the one side and the parliament building on the other. The front of the parliament building is adorned with naked figures of men, women and children, some being fishermen, some farmers, some woodcutters and so on. Quite strange you might think? But, it illustrates that parliament represents all people from all walks of life, depicted by the different professions of the figures and the nakedness depicts that all people are equal, in their nakedness so to speak… rather ingenious.

From there we ambled on to the opera house and from there walked into the post office. Renate from Sète had asked us to send her a postcard from Ljubljana as she had never been here. A postcard and stamps were bought ready to be defaced at the appropriate time.

We walked though another square where we found the Butcher’s bridge after which we reached and crossed the Dragon Bridge. We then walked past the daily market that was by now deserted and then stepped into a church where a service was about to start.

 

 

 

 

 

From there it was past some lovely restaurants on cobbled streets until we entered Marina’s favourite authentic Slovenian cuisine restaurant called Sokol. And what a lovely and friendly place this was. We ordered some of their own brewed beer, Adri and Marina had the smoked sausages with cabbage, sort of like sauerkraut, and I had the goulash that came in a hollowed bread, not to be mistaken for hallowed… I can now confirm it was hollow. The food was great, the beer was as good, we had a wonderful time chatting and laughing, Marina is a real hoot to be around.

It was 21:00 when we found Steve at home – having run some errands during the day – happily having supper… the leftovers from last night. It serves him right for running errands and not joining us for supper.

Thursday Steve and Marina took us to the mountains and what an unexpectedly amazing – and tiresome – day it was… but let me explain.

After a hearty breakfast of delicious Russian pancakes, some with mince and others with a sweetish cream cheese, we set off in Steve’s Audi heading south towards the bottom end of Slovenia. Steve had worked out a route that took us close to the Italian border and past the Solkan Bridge. With an arch span of 85 metres, it is the longest stone bridge among train bridges built of stone blocks. We stopped off to marvel at this piece of artwork and this was where I also had my first encounter with the Soča River which flows down below. The Soča or Isonzo River is something special with its clear light milky Caribbean turquoise colour, one cannot stop looking at it… it’s simply mesmerizing.

 

 

e then stopped off at a little town called Kanal ob Soči for some refreshments. We had beers and… custard slices. We sat outside on the veranda in the sun overlooking the Soča River, the weather was just amazing at around 22°C degrees, blue skies, no wind. The weather had an Adriatic feel to it; it somehow strangely felt like Croatian weather… I had to get to Croatia.

 

 

 

 

Our next stop was the Tolmin Gorges where we found two Italian girl students in a heated and animated exchange, as only Italians can, with the box office lady. They were vehemently opposed to the high entrance fee but eventually relented and produced the necessary Euros. Not sure why they wasted their collective breaths, I’m sure there was nothing the lady could do other than fake being calm.

The Tolmin Gorges is something you have to see, it is simply magnificent, one could easily spend a full day just wandering around these lovely surroundings. The Tolminka and Zadlaščica Rivers meet here and that same strange turquoise coloured waters as seen in the Soči is prevalent here. We walked along the perfectly maintained walkways, admiring the beautiful scenery all around. Because we were on a tight schedule we could not linger, there was much more to be seen.

Steve had wanted to visit the Triglav mountain range one day, and today was to be that day. Now normal people would hike over the Triglav mountain, but Steve was never born to be normal, he wanted to drive over the Triglav, which is exactly what we did… and then some.

On the way to Triglav we stopped off at a hanging bridge that crosses the Soča where we bottled some Soča water. I had to see that water up close, I had to touch it, I had to feel it… I had to drink it! The water was icy cold and was so perfectly clear and pure; it seemed to taste of nothing… Amazing!

 

 

It was soon after being nourished by Soča’s water that we started climbing the Triglav, the Audi I mean, and boy, did we climb, the Audi I mean. When the GPS pronounced that we were 5200ft above sea level, we were ready to descend the other side but not before stopping at some forlorn restaurant right there. Taking too long to take our drinks order we decided to push on, we could get drinks and something to eat at Lake Bled on the other side of the mountain.

 

 

 

On our descent on the other side of the mountain, the tarmac road turns to cobble stones on the hairpin bends, and then continues with tarmac until the next hairpin a short way away which is a rather nice touch. The road up and down this mountain was built between 1915 and 1916 by more than 10,000 Russian prisoners of war. At one point the hairpin was so tight Steve had to stop to let a car finish its turn. As the car came past the driver indicated something with his hand which we read as a lambasting for questioning his driving skills having stopped for him to pass. In unison Steve and I let rip with a long and hearty “Arsehooooole!” But we would soon enough find out that we were the arseholes for not taking note, this guy was trying to warn us to turn back.

It was a while still, going down hairpin after hairpin, when we came to a sudden stop for road works. But there was something more sinister going on apart from the road works; a bus carrying a load of school kids had gotten stuck on that road being worked on. We prowled around the bus and Marina finally found out that it would be struck there for at least another three hours, which meant probably four hours or rather all night. And it was getting late.

It was not a tough decision to turn around, but rather a rough one, rough on Steve who had been driving all day. Now it was all the way up again and then back down the other side from whence we came. Bummer… But somebody had to do it and although we all offered to drive Steve refused, he was used to driving long distances. Or maybe he just didn’t trust us…?

As we reached the bottom on the other side it was already rather dark and we were hungry as rats, we stopped at the first decent looking restaurant we could find. We ordered beer and wine and more beer and more wine, and then food. The deep fried cheese we had as a starter was simply delicious, a type of a halloumi cheese. Steve and I ordered plates of ćevapčići or ćevapi with chips and the ladies got trout with fried almond flakes and… all was simply delicious.

 

 

 

The GPS received instructions for Ljubljana, which it executed perfectly, just not in the way Steve had anticipated. We were planning to go back the way we came but it being dark and all, we blindly followed the GPS. And before we knew it we had crossed the border into Italy, going north instead of south. We passed by Tarvisio in the most north-eastern part of Italy and soon enough crossed the border into Austria. This part of the trip was not planned. Come to think of it, other parts weren’t either, but it was all very exciting nevertheless.

From being off the beaten track we were now beating the track, making good progress on the immaculate highway heading towards the Karawanks Tunnel (Karawankentunnel in German). This tunnel tunnels its way through the Alpine Karawanks mountain range between Austria and Slovenia and is 7,864m long. Anyway, we were at least now heading in the right direction, home, in a very roundabout way.

At the Karawankentunnel the traffic came to a sudden stop… there were road works or something, we changed the name to Karawankertunnel, none of us were in the mood for yet another holdup, it was late and we were tired. And can you believe the reason for the holdup? They were cleaning the tunnel, I kid you not, water trucks were spraying clean the walls of the tunnel, with the normal two lane traffic now reduced to one.

And when we emerged from the tunnel we were back in Slovenia, home was now a short 70km away… or so we thought. We could smell home when we hit more road works and had to wait a while and then take a detour. We could not believe that so many unforeseen things could happen in one day, but what a wonderfully memorable day…!

Home