Our New Favorite Hangouts

Every time we come here, we discover new places to frequent.  In the past, they have mostly been in old town, but this year our two favorite places are just outside of old town: the Cat Caffe and the Trubar.

The Cat Caffe is exactly as it sounds: it’s a café with lots of cats inside.  They make a great bela kava with the added touch of “Myou” written on top in chocolate, and it’s always entertaining for the kids.  If you go, don’t forget to bring a grocery bag – you’ll be an instant hit with the residents.  :)

The Trubar is a café with a smattering of small tables outside that sits on a street corner a half-block from where we are staying this year.  It is named after Primož Trubar, who is famous for writing the Abcedarium in the 1500’s, which was the first book printed in Slovene.

We had only been to the Trubar a two or three times before this summer, but maybe it’s appropriate that it has become a favorite of ours.  It used to be more of a dessert café with exquisite cakes and pies, and it is actually the café where Nina and Wilber share a piece of chocolate cake in Painted Hives (although it is called something different in the book).  While they don’t still have the cakes and pies, they do have some of the best ice cream cones in Ljubljana (trust us, we’ve tried them all!) and some of the friendliest staff as well.

 

If I Were a Cow, This is Where I'd Like to Be

On Thursday, we made the trek up to Velika Planina to spend the night with the cows.  Our good friends, Rok and Petra, had rented a herdsman hut with a wood-fired hot tub for the week and invited us to visit.

It’s a bit of an adventure getting there:  you need to take a tram to get most of the way up the mountain, and then an ancient ski lift to get to the top.  And there isn’t much there once you’re up: a single restaurant, a few tourist huts, the herders’ village, a small church, and cows (and cow piles, which far out-populate everything else).

We hiked around, bought fresh milk and cheese from the herders, picked wild strawberries, and, of course, enjoyed the hot tub.  Rosetta, Celia, and Sy made great friends with Rok and Petra’s daughter and son, Kaja and Bine (Bine even started calling Rosetta “Mommy”). 

It is absolutely beautiful there, and we’d highly recommend it.  Especially if you’re a cow.

Logarska Dolina and Robanov Kot

This past weekend, we had one of our best trips here, a visit to the Logarska Valley near the Austrian border.  It’s not easy to get to, but well worth the effort.

Part of what made the trip special was meeting up with Maja, who I met a few weeks ago in St. Paul (a story for a different time), and her husband and son (Leon and Tim), who live near the Logarska Valley.  We spent Saturday morning and afternoon with them, driving all the way to the tip of the valley, where we hiked to Rinka Slap, the highest waterfall in Slovenia.  It is always fun to spend time with people from Slovenia, hearing stories and insights and perspectives that we wouldn’t otherwise get.  Interestingly, Maja’s other son just graduated from college in Texas and their family has been to the U.S. many times.  Maja and her family are big NFL and NHL fans, and although Leon’s favorite team is the Cowboys he still seemed like a good guy.  :)

After, we drove a few kilometers up the road to Robanov Kot, where a single-lane mountain road took us to the Govc-Vršnik tourist farm in potentially the most scenic location possible (I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves).  We hiked most of the day Sunday, explored the old sawmill down by the river, watched the cows come back to the barn from their hillside pasture, and were fed amazingly, amazingly well (which is a total understatement).  It’s the kind of place that you want to tell everyone about but you don’t want anyone else to discover.  It is definitely on our list of places to go again.

The Pleterje Monastery

So, we’re back here for a sixth time.  Hard to believe.  And now that we’ve been here for two weeks already, it’s time to start getting caught up on our blog posts.

First up is the day trip we took last Sunday to the open-air museum at the Pleterje Monastery in southeastern Slovenia.  The monastery’s gatekeeper, Simon, doubles as the museum caretaker and tour guide, and seems he couldn’t be happier in his role.  He has given names to all of the animals at the museum, including goats named Helda and Zoki (after Ljubljana’s mayor) and a pig named Rudi (who happens to be from Minnesota), along with geese, chickens, an Alaskan husky, and a few others.   He also collects antique farm tools from the area.

The buildings in the museum, which are hundreds of years old, were all deconstructed piece by piece, brought to the museum, and then rebuilt.  The family who lived in one of the houses in the mid-1800’s raised five girls and four boys; in summer the boys slept in the barn while the girls slept in a single bedroom, and in winter all nine of them slept in the dining room to keep warm.  The house didn’t have a chimney, so the entire area in the center of the house was black, and they used the attic above the stove to smoke meats. 

The Monastery itself was originally built in the early 1400’s and is one of the few remaining monasteries in Europe fully committed to solitude and contemplation.  The monks spend eight hours a day in prayer, eight hours working, and eight hours resting, and only speak to each other for a few hours on Sundays and holidays.  There are nine monks and nine employees to operate the premises, which sits on an area of land three times the size of Ljubljana.  We did get to go inside the chapel of the monastery, where we could hear the monks chanting in prayer.

On the way back to Ljubljana, we drove to the nearby town of Šenternej and made the mistake of ordering burgers for lunch.  We’re pretty sure they weren't beef burgers…  :)