Snapshots of Slovenia (and Italy...and Croatia...)

Countryside surrounding "Jerusalem," a region of Slovenia
filled with orchards and vineyards 

(Written Sunday, July 25)

The time has come to fill in all those little gaps. Gaps like last Saturday, part 2 of our team day excursion, which included spontaneously detouring to Italy, wandering solo through Slovenia's capital city and rowing on iconic Lake Bled. Gaps like yesterday, when we spent the afternoon on a day-trip for lunch in Croatia. Gaps like listing all the random cultural differences between Canada and Slovenia. Since I have little else to do, waiting here at the Amsterdam airport for our flight out to London (except to procrastinate booking our bus tickets back from Scotland), now is the perfect opportunity to degapify things. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let the photos do most of the talking.

(Please click "Read More" to continue.)

Cathedral we peeked into during
our stroll through Trieste, Italy

Ridiculously amazing view from the hostel we overnighted
at during our team retreat in western Slovenia

On Day 2 of our team retreat, the day after we visited the caves and Adriatic Sea, we decided that we were way too close to Italy not to go there. Thus, a short twenty minute drive found us crossing another border, entering a country with a completely new culture from the one we had just left. Even the architecture was different, dominated by tall, square apartment buildings which would have looked out-of-place in the Slovenian towns we had seen. 

Parking near the harbour, we stepped onto the unexplored street--isn't that a great feeling when your feet first hit the pavement of a new city?--and began walking. We soon found ourselves in an enormous city square, surrounded by colossally high  government buildings, elaborate fountains, and of course bright Italian flags fluttering overhead.  After wandering through a small market, up to a cathedral and into a medieval chapel, we returned to the van and drove to a grocery store where I noticed a definite tomato/eggplant/pepper theme going on. The streets we encountered were captivating, streaming with vans, scooters and well-dressed foot traffic, bubbling with sounds of traffic horns and Italian banter, lined with high, ornate buildings...every alley opened into a seemingly new world of its own to explore.

So were the streets of Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital and the city we visited next. We had a window of time there to spend as we liked, so I struck off to explore the canal-side streets. Everyone, I decided, should plan to do that at least once: to wander a new European city. Alone. On foot.

The last activity of the day comprised a boat trip to the iconic island on Lake Bled, featured on just about every post card rack in Slovenia. A beautiful church stands on the island, stationed atop a daunting collection of stone stairs. Tradition demands that, for a matrimony to be sealed in that sanctuary, the groom must carry the bride up the entire set of stairs!

Team Picture on the famous stairs
leading up to the church

A Croatian guard

Our final team adventure happened Saturday (the 24th),
with a quick jaunt to Croatia. Again, the fact that we
 had entered a new country was immediately apparent
both by the language and architecture.

In architecture, especially, was the past influence of
Communism apparent, evidenced in brutalist concrete
 apartments and the shell of an abandoned factory. 

7 Differences Between Slovenia and Canada

In  no particular order...

1) In Slovenia, you do not take your shoes off when you enter people's houses.

2) Post secondary education in Slovenia is free for students.

3) In Slovenia, time is kept on a 24-hour basis rather than an AM-PM basis. (Eg, "the service tonight will be at 20:00.")

4) The biggest meal of the day is not supper, but lunch.

5) Light switches are large, flat and square rather than small, protruding and rectangular.

6) Coffee here is apparently better. Not that I'd know; I'm not a coffee drinker, except for that one time last week when someone handed me a whole mug by mistake...

7) Civil weddings are required for marriages in Slovenia to be legal; additional church weddings are optional.