Liz has always had a very special place in her heart for her older brother, Bill, and Bill is equally excited about her. We spent a couple of months with a date for his visit to Slovenia on our tentative calendar. As time went by it was set in sand. Then events tightened up and it became set in gravel. And finally solid stone. The date of their arrival was September 4.
They arrived early in the morning and we met them at the Ljubljana airport. Of course, they were jet-lagged, but we drug them along as we did some missionary apartment inspections. We also planned to take them to the "Heart Road", only 26 km north of Maribor. They are celebrating their 50th anniversary, and what could be better than to visit this road.
This is an internet photo. I will tell you why I didn't take one with them in it..
Getting to the heart road is a little bit challenging because it is only by driving through miles of narrow, winding roads in farming country that you arrive at the lookout with this view. In fact, our first visit had us driving up the heart road to the observation point and we were surprised to find we had already seen it. Of course, from down on the road it is nothing special - just a lane through the vineyard.
We had hoped that visiting it would a romantic event for them. Little did we know that there was a regional wine-tasting event going on. After battling unbelievable crowds of people we got to the lookout point to find it chained, and a matron was busy shooing intrepid hikers away. So Bill and Barb had to settle for a photo like the above.
After that we took them to our apartment and got them settled into our spare room. They had a nap and then we looked around for a suitable dinner location. There is a highly rated restaurant in Maribor that we have never visited, and we had hoped to take them there. However, it was closed. So we went over to the City Hotel next door to our apartment.
The hotel has a restaurant on the river side of their building, so you dine while enjoying the view of the river. It is a wonderful place to enjoy a fine meal.
This is the view from the cafe: the river flowing peacefully, the setting sun, and the mountains in the background.
We had a nice meal with seafood and steaks, each to his own taste. This photo is the desserts. Two are "plain" ice cream, one is chocolate lava cake, and other is ??? I don't remember, some kind of caramel concoction. But wonderful presentation.
We had worried while preparing for their trip that such World Travelers would not be impressed with our little country of Slovenia, but this was a good start.
The next day was Sunday. We took them with us to Fast and Testimony meeting, and Bill followed his sister's request to bear his testimony. Afterwards, we visited the World's oldest grape vine, which is near our former apartment where the sisters live now. The vine is at least 400 years old, and is carefully pruned and fertilized to provide a bounteous harvest.
The grapes hanging on the vine, almost ready for picking.
And here they are in front of the old, craggy trunk of the Old Vine. The fence is to prevent people from damaging it.
We then changed into casual clothes and drove to Lake Bled, that wonderous fairytale location. First, we went to Vila Bled, the former summer palace of Yugoslavia's long-time dictator, Tito. It is now owned by the country and is run as a hotel. We were consciously trying to impress Bill and Barbara, and the hotel, lake, castle, island, and church did the trick.
We had reserved a suite in the hotel for Bill and Barb, and a smaller room for us. But when we got there, it turned out that the suite had a view of the mountains, while the smaller room had a balcony with a view out across the lake. We told them they could have whichever they desired, and they chose the small room with the view.
This is the view from the top floor of the hotel down to the parking area. As you can see, the landscaping is first class.
There is a conference/banquet room with a very long mural of patriotic communist events. I was impressed that in the mural are German mauser rifles like they used in WWII, as well as Russian Mosin-Nagants, and even a Schmeisser machine pistol.
After we got settled in to our rooms, we took a leisurely stroll down the lake to the town, where we found a restaurant right on the water and had our dinner. My feet were not the only ones that were sore, so we took a taxi back to the hotel.
In the morning we went downstairs to the terrace of the hotel, where we ate breakfast in three courses. It was marvelous, to say the least. I told Bill that if they were not impressed by the views from the terrace, we were never going to impress them - this was our best shot.
After breakfast, we took a ride on a Pletna boat for a visit to the island and the church at the island's summit.
The Pletna is powered by a single oarsman, rowed while standing with an oar in each hand. This job is held by grant to certain families who live here. A few of them make the boats, although this guy told us our boat was almost 100 years old. It looked perfect.
Between Bill and Barb is Vila Bled up on the shore.
Here we are approaching the little island. The long stair goes from the boat landing all the way up to the church. The tradition is that if a prospective groom can carry his bride all the way to the top of the stairs, the marriage will be long and happy.
Here Bill is up just a few steps while waiting on everybody else. The small building is a shrine, the larger building is a restaurant and gift shop. The church is farther along and can't really be seen from here.
My knee was still sore from the previous evening's stroll, so I declined to mount the stairs. Instead, I circumnavigated the island on a little path and took some interesting photos.
Here is a happy couple in a rowboat - how romantic. Beyond them is the the inlet end of the lake and a large campground. Some people from the campground swim out to the island instead of paying to rent a boat or Pletna, but only in hot weather.
This view is from the other side of the island, toward the City of Bled. Just above the rowboat is a Pletna coming out.
On this side of the island, trees overhang the shore and the side of the island is a sheer cliff. It is impossible to tell (in such clear water) how deep the fish are. I couldn't see the bottom at all.
A nice man from our boat passed me and remarked at my impressive set of straps. I call it my tourist badge. The straps are for the camera, the camera backpack, my man-bag, and Liz's large purse which she didn't want to carry up the stairs. He offered to take my photo, which was nice of him. As he was doing this, I noticed clouds of bubbles, rhythmically rising in the water. It was almost certainly a scuba diver, but I never saw him/her.
From there, we headed to Zadar, Croatia. As we neared the Croatian border, we decided to stop for lunch at the next restaurant we saw. Considering that it was a random choice, we did amazingly well.
The pizza was excellent, the veges were fresh and cooked just right, and the view was perfect. The thing we love best (out of many things) about Slovenia is the little villages nestled in small valleys with fields and vineyards growing up the slopes of the hills and mountains. It was a perfect break from driving.
It is interesting how the climate and environment changes as soon as we crossed into Croatia. The border is at the base of the mountains and thus in a rain shadow. With less rain, the trees became smaller and the grass drier. Soon we were driving through a land with fields of rocks, rock walls around fields, rock buildings, and rocky mountains.
Zadar is a seaside town with a harbor. Recently they had a contest for an architect to build something artistic and rare for the outside edge of the harbor. The winner built a sea, or wave, organ, and a tribute to our star, the sun.
The holes in the sidewalk are where the notes from the wave organ come out. The people are sitting on steps that go down into the water. On the step risers there are large holes that allow the waves to rush inside, pushing air ahead of them. The air goes through organ pipes and then into large sound chambers under the sidewalk, and hence up through the holes. It doesn't make music, but they play different notes in rhythm to the waves. It is very pleasant to listen to.
The people were gathered here to watch the sun set. At the moment the sun can no longer be seen everyone claps and cheers.
Here is our little party. Next to Bill and Barb is Sister Lamb who we arranged to meet here, so Bill could advise her on setting up a non-profit to help Croatian people set up businesses. Elder Lamb is sitting behind Sister Lamb, and Liz is beside her.
If you look at the wall behind them, you might notice that it is painted like piano keys. On the edges of the top of the wall are inscribed the dates of Catholic Holy days
After the sun went down, the crowds meandered over to the end of the wave organ. There is a 20 meter circle of glass there, with solar cells under the glass. The glass is thick enough to walk on. All day the solar cells charge batteries, and after it gets dark, the batteries power a light show.
I tried to insert video here, but no luck. Try pasting these links into a browser to see them:
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https://photos.app.goo.gl/hzyvQbxptMDnrCoB8
This large circle of glass and light represents the sun, and extending back towards the wave organ there are smaller circles representing all the planets, in proportional sizes and distances to the sun.
Bill liked this whole thing very much and was excited that we came this great distance to see it.
We were pretty tired by this point and we walked to a restaurant just past this old Templar church.
The templars were big on building round churches.
Then we went to our VRBO apartment for the night. We were lucky the Lambs stuck with us, because it was down a dark alley and we might not have found it without their help. Once inside, we found a beautiful apartment that looked like a lighting store showroom. There were lights on the floor, around the edges of the room, plus chandeliers, and flavors of can lights, hanging lights, suspended lights, and under-counter lights. But overall, it was a very comfortable to spend the night.
Next morning we met the missionaries at an outdoor restaurant by the sea. Another over-the-top breakfast made us mellow, as we enjoyed the sea breeze and a killer view.
After stuffing ourselves, we drove over to Hreljin, where Liz's father was born. We visited the very house where he was born, and we searched for the house where the Benac family lived, but we had too little information. So we went to the Hreljin cemetery. There Bill and Liz visited graves of their ancestors, and had a spiritually enriching experience.
We also visited the Hreljin church in the middle of town.
We only had three days with Bill and Barb, and they were packed chock full of fun things to do. Their flight was due to leave early the next morning - very early. So we drove back across Croatia to Zagreb, where we spent the night at a hotel near the airport. They had an early - early wake-up call and caught a shuttle to the airport, and we drove home.
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