More of Slovenia-Part II

The scenery along Lake Bled was actually quite amazing. There were boats, churches, amazing water lilies of all manner and the quiet and peacefulness was awesome. On my way to Slovenia by train I saw a kayak course of slalom gates, along with small rural farms of corn and wine grapes. The most interesting building I saw around the lake had an incredible painted exterior mural of folk art along with an extended wall "turret" of sorts and reminded me of my friend Craig's house in Colorado that was also inspired by this European rural farm architechture he'd seen in Austria and Germany--his heritage.

Slovenia in a Day

Slovenia is a really tiny country that amazingly you can see in a day. I had no idea when I started this would be the case but it is true. I hopped on a train from Zagreb, Croatia knowing it would only take barely two hours to get to Ljulbijana, the Capital of Slovenia. It's a lovely city and I hopped of the train for a couple hours and walked around this fine place. Probaly should have hung out for a few days to get the flavor as the folks were nice and they have a whitewater kayak course there, too.

But, I was really tired of cities and opted to hop back on the train and head to Lake Bled, Slovenia's answer to Sun Valley, Idaho minus the ski hill. This is clearly a palatial spot in the foothills of the Alps with a lake that takes a couple hours to walk around. It's 4 miles give or take. The scenery is stunning, the lake is swimmable though discouraged in many locations. I don't think the Slovenes or tourists paid much attention to that, however. I swam at a couple of isolated spots as I really was in the mode of avoiding many people; having had more than my fair share of human contact in Zagreb for nearly 4 weeks by this time.

Slovenes were not very friendly, actually, with the notabl exception of one woman I met at the touris information center. She spoke perfect English and was actually from somewhere else, though one parent was Slovene, she told me.

The lake was stunning, the castle had it's requisite armor and all the things that castles are supposed to have, though I have no photos because my camera battery decided to die then. Slovenes were not very friendly and I can only guess they were sick of tourists. Though Slovenian and Croatian language are similar they are differnt. But not much different than Spanish and Italian, or Spanish and Portuguese. So I was a bit miffed when Slovenes pretended they didn't understand my Croatian. I know for a fact that I speak clearly. My Croatian skills are limited but they are clear. These Slovenes were just being butt nuggets.

I liked the scenery but clearly I didn't really feel like Slovenia had anything over Croatia in terms of intellect, scenery, culture or Klapa singing. Or any manner of other things. I had expected more and got less. Oh well. It's not that Slovenes are bad. They are just spoiled children of the Austro Hungarian empire and have come to think they are better than anyone else from former Yugoslavia. Well, they better get some better ski racers and soccer players, I guess. Got their butts kicked on both of those counts!

Dalmatian Klapa Singing-Not a Dog

Klapa singing is a tradition very specific to the Dalmatian coastline. Klapa singers are highly esteemed throughout all of Croatia. Croats love to sing and many children grow up singing songs for family and friends at various and sundry events, both private and public. While on the ferry this July 2010 to Korcula Town we discovered a group of Klapa singers were on board. Little did we know they would be singing for us publicly in a few days. They were members of the Croatian Navy. At first I thought it was really crystal clear music being piped onto our deck. I walked downstairs to get a soda and there they were, but had no idea they were naval as they weren't in their naval dress. The sweet harmonies and their friendly demeanor put everyone at ease on a really bumpy, swaying, stomach wrenching nauseating trip for many as the seas were quite choppy for the first hour on the ferry.

So while visiting Korcula Island I was privileged to get to listen to two klapa (a capella as it's known in English) groups on the same stage one evening. The Croatian Naval Klapa group that had been on our ferry and are known as Sveti Juraj were really quite amazing in their harmonies and their tightness in terms of singing together. They sang for one and a half hours along the Korcula waterfront. All the Croats knew many of the songs, and on at least three were invited to sing along. It really was a highlight of my trip and where I felt so much like a local; surrounded by warmth and joy next to the Adriatic Sea on a star filled, full moon lit night.

Grk White Wine-Only from Korcula Island

On the island of Korcula in a small village called Lumbarda that is about 5 miles away from Korcula Town and slightly over an hour walk lies a unique mixture of soil, climate, sea salt and sunshine that produces a very dry white wine known as Grk. I had the pleasure of walking to Lumbarda and spending an entire day tasting wine, swimming at a couple of beaches and talking with a few locals. Unfortunately the walk is along a main road as opposed to through the vinyards and farms. Some good signage along the back trails would have a profound benefit for Lumbarda Agro-tourism and bring the wine drinking public closer to the producers and the scenery.
Grk is not everyones cup of tea or in this case, glass of wine. I particulary liked the Grk that I found from the Bire family--Vesna and Franz. They bottle about 10,000 bottle or maybe it was 10,000 cases. Either way, it's a small operation. I had their 2009 bottling and it was quite good, actually. You may be able to find Grk varietal wines in Boise at the Bosnian market but most wines imported from Croatia to the U.S. are in short supply and relatively expensive for what they really are. Expect to pay $20 a bottle for something that would likely cost $10 to $12 if it were from Chile, Argentina or even California.

Zagreb Airport Security (NOT)!

The last week I was in Croatia (July 24 to July 30, 2010)I had occasion to fly from Zagreb to Split in order to take a ferry to Korcula Island to visit my Croat friends Paulina and Antonio. I had somehow managed to get rid of numerous nice publications I wanted to keep because they weighed down my bag an extra 12 pounds and I wasn't willing to haul that much around.Smirking to my self that I was really smart I decided I'd just check my bag since I had a nice bottle of Grk wine it and knew I wouldn't be able to take it on board.
I arrived at the airport, walked to the counter, and handed the woman my passport and told her I was flying to Split and had a bag to check. Of course, I smiled and spoke in the best Croatian I could muster. She checked me in within 60 seconds. No kidding. So I was only left with my carryon daypack that had my netbook computer, some snacks and all my electronics stuff like cell phone, digi camera,ipod nano and a plethora of chargers and European plug ins so I could use my stuff there.
Even though it was only 9 a.m. I went and grabbed an expensive Karlovacko beer and waited before going to security.
Zagreb is a really small airport for a city of 800,000. Basically it's like Boise's though as you can drive right up front to get dropped off or picked up. It's international but you'd never know it. After the beer I figured I better get to security since with a foreign passport I thought it might take a bit. To my surprise I didn't have to take off shoes,or jewelry or my belt. In fact, I pulled my netbook out of the backpack and was set to take it out of it's netbook bag and they just put it right on the conveyor belt. There was no one in line and at least 6 Croat police officers at Security with little to do. I walked over to go through the "security open doorway" just like we have in our airports and realized my passport and boarding pass were in my backpack on the x-ray conveyor. But did security care? I guess not, because they never even asked to see my passport, let alone a boarding pass to get on a flight. I mean, anyone could have walked through there with bags and whatnot hassle free. Which was actually nice in a way, because American are made to be paranoid fearful freaks of the travelling world by our government and media.
I walked through the body scanner and no beebs, so picked up my stuff and put the netbook back into the backpack and went to sit down. Then I watched to see how they checked everyone else coming through. It was pretty much the same routine. I don't recall them checking passports or boarding passes except on two rather dirtbag looking young punks from who knows where. I never heard them speak so never knew. They weren't to pleased and the police didn't seem too impressed with them either.
Now here's where the funny part is. There are no bathrooms on the other side of security and I really needed to pee because our flight was delayed for two hours. I motioned to one of the security police that I'd like to go out to the bathroom. No problem she indicates and waves me through. I come back and they don't even make me go back through security. She just waves me back through the line and lets me walk around. You can bet that TSA in America would never do that. Ever. You know what else? I have never felt safer than in Croatia. I could be out a 5 a.m. and not be worried. It didn't matter if I was in Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Korcula or Zelena Kut on Mrzenica River. Other than the Serbian mafia in Zagreb, it's a really safe place to be by and large.