Architectural Monstrosities Amid the Beauty

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This morning we decide to visit Tivoli Park which is only a few hundred metres across the river from our hotel. We walk through the very attractive Congress Square which is surrounded by classical architectural icons including the Slovenian Philharmonic Building and the University of Ljubljana. A few hundred metres further on is the eye wateringly ugly and completely contrasting Trg Republike. The ever reliable Google Maps describes this as a “plaza to showcase socialist modernist architecture in 1960, fringed by landmark towers”. Hmmm. The two “landmark towers” are on one side opposite the National Assembly Building of Slovenia. The architects who designed this lot clearly did their training at a kindergarten where all they were given to play with were a bunch of dark grey Lego bricks. There’s not a curve or any shred of colour in sight; well assuming you don’t consider dark grey to be a colour. I assume they were cheap to build, well I hope they were cheap to build because it’s hard to imagine any other reason for making them look so completely unappealing. I avoid the temptation to take pictures of the towers; we’re away for a few more weeks yet so I wouldn’t want to risk cracking a lens.

It’s hot again today, and everyone’s in their summer gear. We both comment that this isn’t at all how it was in Soviet era movies set in these parts. It was always cold and grey, and everyone wore heavy grey coats and looked completely miserable. It was so grey that it was usually hard to tell whether the movies were in colour or black and white. The locals must have been delighted when democracy came along and they finally got to experience summer. I hope they didn’t all get sunburnt in the first year.

Tivoli Park is massive, and is apparently by far the largest of the city’s parks. We read that it was laid out by a French engineer in 1813 during the Napoleonic occupation. We get excellent views along the Park’s central promenade from the 17th century Tivoli Castle mansion which sits on the side of a small hill. The eastern end of the park looks to be Ljubljana sports central, and there don’t seem to be too many sports you can’t do here - tennis, ice hockey, soccer, skateboarding, mini golf (is that a sport?), basketball, volleyball and ten pin bowling at least, and I’ve probably missed a few.

We lie down in the clover under a chestnut tree, well Issy lies down in the clover; I narrowly avoid puncturing my back on a bunch of balls covered in sharp spines. The Google machine tells us that these are horse chestnuts. It seems that chestnuts are big (figuratively) and plentiful here in Slovenia. They have Chestnut Festivals in autumn every year to celebrate the coming of cold weather, rain, snow and shorter days. I’m a summer person, so I don’t personally think that that’s something to be celebrated, but if that’s what they want to do….. We’re getting hungry, but it seems that the horse chestnut, unlike it’s apparently “unrelated cousin” (?), the sweet chestnut, is inedible. It is however good for medicinal purposes including pain relief. I wonder if that includes relieving the pain caused by inadvertently lying on one. And it seems we need to be careful not to pick up too many of them; it’s apparently illegal to collect more than two kgs per day, although on rereading that might only apply to the edible variety, so we should be safe; we haven’t seen any of those yet.

Based on our experiences to date, everyone here is extremely friendly and helpful, almost on a Canadian level, and virtually everyone seems to speak English. The latter seems to us to be quite an achievement given that English doesn’t appear to bear any resemblance at all to Slovenian. We stop at a supermarket to stock up on supplies. As usual, the young cashier couldn’t be any more friendly and helpful if he tried. First he apologises profusely that he couldn’t be in two places at once to rescue us from the grumpy self serve checkout machine (I’d be surprised if that was made in Slovenia), then when he’s finished bagging everything he wishes us a good rest of the day, and says that he hopes we enjoy the rest of our time in Slovenia, all in perfect English and with real sincerity and a massive smile. We’re lucky if we get a grunt from a lot of the supermarket staff back home.

We decide to eat local again for dinner tonight. My main is a goulash served up in a bowl that’s a hollowed out loaf of bread. I’m not quite sure why the bread doesn’t fall apart long before I’ve finished the goulash, but it doesn’t; and then I eat the bread, not because I’m still hungry, I just want to make sure they haven’t cheated and lined it with plastic.

We take a detour on the way home into the Ljubljana Town Hall. We read that the original structure was built in 1484, but it’s had a few makeovers since. It’s built around three open courtyards, and reminds us of a few Moorish buildings we’ve been to in Spain. It’s currently hosting an art exhibition. Some of the sculptures are a bit “out there”; make believe animals with hands and feet sticking out of their heads. I didn’t see any signs warning parents to keep any young children well clear, although maybe they were in Slovenian.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Slovenia Beauty
Slovenia and this part of the world has been on our short list for ages. Hopefully, we will get there soon. I'd like to try the goulash.

[DaveandIssy]

Slovenia
Yes, you have to go, and that would be another country towards your 100 (we’re stalled in the 60s somewhere I think). We only really went to four places (Ljubljana, Bled, Postojna Caves and Piran), but we loved all of them and they were all so completely different from each other.