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Published: September 20th 2019
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Marshes or Barje
During flooding (not my photo) On Friday, we planned to bike to the site of one of the pile dweller villages, in the marshes south of Ljubljana. We weren't sure about taking the the clunky and very heavy city bikes that far, but it is a flat route, and at 2 euros an hour after the first free hour, a bargain! We had a bike trail map, without street names, and google maps on our phones. With that combo, we made it out of the city and into the marshes on a gravel path. We only took one wrong turn, and didn't go too far before realizing our mistake and turning around. The bikes are so heavy that you can't lift them to turn them around! We rode on gravel paths for seven miles or so to the site. We stopped and had a snack, and chatted with a local young man on a bike, who explained that the sites had been reburied, so there was nothing to see. He also told us that the water flowing from a nearby pipe was good to drink and came from a spring twelve meters deep.
We rode back a different way, through a small town, and on
mostly paved roads. The whole trip took about three hours and we went over 14 miles...and the bikes were fine, slow, but fine!
The marshes have been inhabited since the stone age, and in recent history, the peat was dug out, causing the level to sink several feet. Then drainage ditches were dug...
"Such violence against nature went on uninterrupted until the adoption of the European Natura 2000 Directive which designated some built-up and the majority of already drained areas as a natural value. The new spatial plans of Ljubljana which were adopted in 2010 had to face this fact so that the Ljubljana Marshes are today probably formally well protected from many ambitions to materially exploit this area. The Ljubljana Marshes are recognized as one of the locations in six European countries where Neolithic or Copper Age pile dwellings existed. It was also designated a
UNESCO World Heritage Site."
Archaeologists have extensively studied the Ljubljana pile-dwelling culture, which is believed to have arisen in the years between 2300 to 1800 BCE. At that time, the Marshes were full of pile-dwellings that were erected near running water, which often flooded. With occasional breaks, pile dwellers remained in the Ljubljana Marshes
for approximately 3000 years.
When we got back to town, we left our bikes and walked to the market square, to eat at the Odprta Kuhna, or Open Kitchen, which happens every Friday from mid-March to October. "The choice of food on offer is wide and varied. Each Friday, the market features around thirty different food providers, including modern restaurants, traditional gostilnas, tourist farms, and independent chefs wanting to promote their offerings. The cooking is done to the accompaniment of music and entertainment."
We grabbed two more bikes, having to wait a few minutes for people to drop some off, and rode home. We visited the artists' squat near us, that is now a center for artists.
“Metelkova is a centre of urban culture,” explains Zoran Janković, the current mayor of Ljubljana who is sympathetic to the squat. “It’s a place for critical reflection, civic engagement – and with its activities it is establishing Ljubljana as an area where ideas of all generations can freely flow.”
Back and tired...14 miles, sun, and a beer lead to a nap....
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