Steps in the Right Direction

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Note: Again, as with part one, I’m a little late with posting this.

The weather finally changed, and it’s been absolutely idyllic as a result. Karst is beautiful, and reminds a lot of the area of Portugal we visited in July, but somehow more remote (maybe it’s the more significant language barrier). One funny footnote is that David has three times as many Facebook friends as people who live in this village. Sad for him.

Because of the rurality, the drive here was a little fraught. Let’s just say our teamwork broke down right around Nova Gorica and didn’t re-establish itself until we’d finally made it to the farm. This place, Kmetija Skerlj, is a different type of farm than Pri Plajerju. The owners are much more businesslike (the husband works all day tending to the honey and grapes, and is trained as a butcher; the wife and daughters seem to run the tourist part of things). The stench is definitely authentic, as are the bugs, and the shower is a bit hard to navigate. Other than that, the place is magical. If this is possible, it’s more remote than Marvao in Portugal. There are rolling vineyards and gardens as far as the eye can see. The buildings are all stone, brick and stucco. There are about three times as many churches as gas stations.

We were about 20 minutes away from Trieste so we decided to spend a day there. The city was unremarkable, I thought (looked like every other European city), but the port was pretty picturesque. We ventured out to bordering town, Muggia, which was much more charming, before heading back to Slovenia.

The food at the farm was better than the first. We had beef and pork, no surprise, but the side dishes were so so good and we got a garden fresh salad every night with the best tomatoes I’ve ever had. Every morning, we had grapes right off the vine. Once I figured out how to get around the seeds, I was downing them like candy. They bottle their own wine at this farm, and the sauvignon blanc and honey liqueur were amazing. Their reds were…undrinkable. I’ll just leave it at that.

One our last full day, we checked out the Skocjan caves, a UNESCO World Heritage site. They were pretty cool, but I didn’t realize they’d be such a tourist trap. You’re forced to take the guided tour for the first 30 minutes, then they let you find your way out at your own pace. They also don’t allow pictures, which is annoying (but I found a way to sneak a few). Once you’re back to daylight, there’s a half hour hike to get back to the parking lot. That part reminded me a lot of Ithaca.

The next day, we headed to Ljubljana for a night. It’s such a cool little city, with a river running through it and really unassuming medieval streets. There’s a really nice, big park on the outskirts of downtown, and it’s so small that everything is within walking distance. For dinner, we got a local suggestion and went to one of the best meals I’ve ever had (yes, it’s a theme) at a place called Valvas’or. The pretentiousness was a little over the top, but the food justified the attitude.

On the way back to our hotel, we discovered that Slovenia was playing Serbia in the semi-finals of the European basketball championships. There was a huge TV set up in the main plaza, and there were tons of people riveted to the game. We could hear them cheering late. (Unfortunately, Serbia beat Bosnia in overtime).

Our last stop was Vienna, where we met up with Curt and Ann who were passing through on their way to Oktoberfest. By that point, we were feeling lazy and Vienna looked too overwhelming to do justice in a day. So we checked into our hotel (the Hollmann Beletage, highly highly recommended) and drank beers from the BP station (only place selling booze on Sunday) in the hotel courtyard. At dinner, I finally had wiener schnitzel and got to sample some good Austrian gruner veltliner and Reisling.

As I type, I’m on Lufthansa 424 from Munich to Boston, with an irritated toddler behind me to reinstate me to reality. My summer of 1,000 adventures is officially over, now it’s time to return to the inbox of 1,000 unread messages.