Home » Slovenia » Ljubljana/Lyubyanka-What's the Difference?

Somehow I managed to get vacation time from work for two weeks in February 1998, and decided to use a good part of it to go to Slovenia, a place I’d always wanted to see, but most of my family and friends had never heard of.

Ljubljana/Lyubyanka-What's the Difference?

Tony
2004-01-28 10:10:43

Displayed times (last time: )

Plecnik, the most famous architect of Slovenia. Then he asked me if I was familiar with his book about Plecnik. I replied that I wasn’t sure, but I have several books about him back home. He showed me a copy of his book about Plecnik , and it turned out that I had just sat with the world expert on Plecnik: Peter Krecic! I had looked for his book for a long time in New York, and I finally found it in a small second hand bookstore a block from my apartment just a week before I left on my trip. I didn’t tell him I found his $65.00 book for $10.00, because I’m sure his royalty share would be very modest. But I was charmed and flattered to have met him, and to learn so much about his city and country in our chat.

That’s what makes for a memorable vacation, indeed!

The rest of my trip was more of the same--same pleasantness. On Saturday I took a train to Velenje. In college, I saw an article in a Yugoslav magazine about this town. It was a premier example of socialist town planning, up in the mountains of Slovenia, in a coal mining region. So I went to see it. It was a good way to see more of the country, and to ride the Slovenian railways. At Celje, I changed trains to a small old-fashioned traincar, more like a bus on rail, and we went VERY slowly through a dozen little hamlets, and at last arrived in Velenje. Everything was closing by the time I got there in early afternoon, and the next train out left in one hour. So for one hour I looked at this unprepossessing hallmark of socialist towns. It DOES have a lovely ancient castle on a hill overlooking the new town, and the new town is in no way unpleasant. It’s just not overly exciting on a Saturday afternoon. Well, I was excited because I now had a map of the place.

Back down the railway track and out of the high mountains, I went back to Celje. I looked around there for a while, and had lunch. It’s an ancient place, with some ancient ruins from Roman times. Real ones! It also has a ruined castle perched on a hill just outside of town that was delightfully moody. Like something out of a black and white Dracula movie, although I think to the people of Celje it has more historical significance rather than Hollywood b-grade movie meanings.

My last night in Ljubljana, after my trek to Velenje, I treated myself to room service from the National Restaurant, serving Slovene dishes, and located in my hotel. The room service waiter was an older man who referred to me throughout as “Misterrr” I ordered a huge meal, and asked for ice to go with my cola. Instead of a cup of ice, I got a huge ice cream sundae with lots of whipped cream. “Ice” to my waiter from the old country, meant ice cream, and he was spoiling the “Misterrr”with a huge dessert!

I left next morning. When I got back to New York, one of my coworkers said she'd told everyone that I'd gone to "Lubyanka", until someone pointed out that that's the old KGB prison in Moscow!!! Ljubljana means "beloved place" in Slovene. That's a wonderful name for a city, I think.

Copyright Tony Skaggs.

All rights reserved.

visit my site