Polhov Gradec - Part 1

Yesterday, our friend Marjan organized a trip for us to his home town of Polhov Gradec, a beautiful hilly village just west of Ljubljana.  The name means “Door-Mouse Castle” – as the story goes, a knight arrived by horse in the village to build a castle, and door mice ate his saddle.  Like most other villages in Slovenia, Polhov Gradec has an inordinate number of churches: ten (one on top of each hill).

Our first visit was to Božnar Hisa Medu (House of Honey), a seven-person company owned by a husband and wife couple.  The owners gave us a tour of their facility, where they make pretty much everything you can think of that comes from bees and export it all over the world.  They let us sample at least twenty different types of honey (our favorites were chestnut, forest, and lime) along with some hand lotions, cookies, liqueurs, and chocolates, all made in their tiny factory.

They then took us to the castle in town, where they hold their own honey-tasting event each year.  They told us this past spring, an apiary from Hungary brought honey that came from tobacco flowers and it was the best there.  Hmmm.  This year, they also organized a contest in which they invited kids from all over the world to submit bees made out of recycled materials.  There were hundreds of these bees hanging from the ceiling, to which the Božnars remarked, “We know we need to take these down, but we’re just not sure what to do with them afterward.”