by After three days in which things were getting dangerous (the day before I left was really shitty), I desperately needed to press the reset button. My short trip to Slovenia had that effect, so I’m putting it down as a success.
Maribor is hardly just up the road; it’s roughly the same as going from Auckland to Wellington. My outward journey weighed in at 645 km, almost entirely on motorways, and took me 8 hours and 50 minutes including breaks and two hold-ups – a queue at the Romania–Hungary border (the Hungarian border guard couldn’t speak a word of anything non-Hungarian, so that was fun), then a traffic jam around Budapest. I went back a different way, taking a slightly more countrified route through Hungary. That cut the distance to “just” 622 km; surprisingly I had no delays to speak of, and got back ten minutes faster despite going on slower roads. Coming back I stopped at a town called Balatonlelle, which is on Lake Balaton as its name suggests. I picked it practically at random, expecting to find a sleepy village by the lake, but instead it was a bustling tourist destination. Over the border into Romania, the motorway was eerily quiet.
In between I stayed three nights in Maribor, the second city of Slovenia, a country of only 2.1 million people. It sits on the Drava river, a tributary of the Danube (which I’ll see very soon) but a major river in its own right. My motel (that’s what I’d call it) was 4 km out of the city. Once I’d checked in, I drove into town (after I’d been convinced by a passerby not to walk) and was struck by how beautiful and peaceful it was. The river, the bridges, the buildings, the people milling around, the perfect temperature, it was all uplifting. I sat outside and enjoyed my pizza and Sprite, which I felt I’d earned after nearly nine hours on the road. (The pizza was very yummy indeed, come to think of it.)
That evening I called New Zealand. I hadn’t told them I was going to Slovenia. The line was terrible, as was the general mood, caused by everyone’s illnesses. The worst sufferers have been my sister-in-law and my father. Dad wrote to me in an email that my brother and his family have had a nightmare “holiday” in NZ and will never come back. Mum has escaped virtually unscathed, but her stress levels must have been way up there.
The next morning I took the bus into town and wandered around. Some cities look happy, others look sad. Maribor looked happy. The only negative was that all the touristy stuff like the museum and wine tasting were beyond what I was prepared to pay. I’d been looking forward to trying some Slovenian wines, but when a severe young lady at the entrance said it would be €20 to try three wines or €25 for four, I declined. (I bought a cheap bottle of Slovenian red at the supermarket instead.) Yep, Slovenia uses the euro; unlike some other ex-Yugoslav states, they’ve gone all-in on the European project. On the evidence of what I saw, it’s been to their benefit. (By the way, after the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early nineties, Slovenia adopted the tolar is its currency. It was replaced by the euro in 2007.) The only vaguely touristy thing I did was visit the aquarium/terrarium, which I didn’t expect to find in the city park. The aquarium wasn’t exactly Kelly Tarlton’s but the terrarium bit was rather good. I had another pizza – I’ll give kebab pizza a miss next time – and walked back to the motel.
What to do on my second and last full day? It was Saturday. Probably the worst day of the year if you want to avoid plagues of tourists, which I always want to do. The lakes, Bled and Bohinj, were out for that very reason. I set off for Ljubljana but the motorway was chocka – rammed as everyone says in the UK now – and I couldn’t hack it any more. I got off the hellscape of the south-westbound A1 and decided to visit the town of Ptuj (a short way downstream of Maribor on the Drava) instead. The name is fun to say: think tui, as in the native NZ bird, with a p sound immediately before it. There were lovely old buildings, you could walk (or cycle) alongside the river, although when I visited it was wedding day. At least three of them. It had a castle which I chose not to take a tour of because it was just too hot.
The motel was quiet and had a simple balcony; it was nice to just sit out there and have a beer. One more night before the long trek home. I had €99 in cash when I went. This will do me. I came back with €3, and that’s after buying stuff like washing powder that I saw was cheaper over there. All in all, the trip cost me around £400 or NZ$800.
It’s incredible all the places I can see, now that I have a car. (It has added complexity and expense to my life too though, so I’d say it’s been neutral to my wellbeing.) Just think, Mum and Dad could come over next spring, or heck, next month, and we could go travelling for three weeks or more. What wonders could be in store for them. You can but dream.
Now for some photos of Maribor:
The Plague Column in Maribor, built after the plague of 1680. Ptuj had one too. Timișoara has one. Vienna apparently has a famous one. And when monkeypox really takes off…
I’ve mentioned these Roman numeral “puzzles” before. These were everywhere in Maribor. This is a modern one which was inscribed when the plague column was renovated (in 1991, if I’m not mistaken).
Ptuj:
Lake Balaton:
