Country folk are city dwellers for a few days...
Trip Start
Jun 16, 2010
1
4
15
Trip End
Jul 18, 2010
Where I stayed
Apartment in Town Center of Maribor
Maribor, Slovenia
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
The comparison of the 2 country sides are so drastically different. I didn't expect that with them being so close to each other. The Austrian countryside was far more land then houses. Plots were pretty spread out and the structure of the buildings were different. As soon as we arrived into Slovenia, we were back to the close neighboring homes with beautiful vegetable gardens. As soon as we entered back into Slovenia, we all felt like we were back home to a language that was familiar. The funny part about it is, the the Slovene language is as complicated as it gets, but yet after 2 weeks we found it familiar.
Once we arrived into Maribor, I think it was a shock to all our systems. We had spent the last 2 weeks in a beautiful quiet country side and now were in the hub of the 2nd largest city in Slovenia. We found the kava house that we were suppose to meet the guy who has the keys to the apartment we are renting. Sat out on the cobblestone pedestrian path and order Lasko's to drink to celebrate our successful arrival into Maribor. Once we got situated into our apartment, Jorge decided that we wanted to continue his adventure back through the Austrian Alps, so he took off for his adventure and the rest of us were pretty exhausted from our trip. We managed to venture out and walk around the town for a bit to get our bearings. We arrived just in time for the Lent Festival which is a really big event to the Slovenians in this area. Concerts, beer gardens, local wine tasting, traditional food dishes being served. Everyone in Maribor is in the Lent area of the city during this festival. The rest of the town shuts down and becomes a ghost town. We manage to stay out a bit, but afterword I went straight to bed and for the first time on this trip I slept 12 hours. I was done for.
When we returned from Ptuj, that night we went down to the Lent area for the festival and it was awesome. We managed to park ourselves at the wine tasting area and stood by the oldest grapevine in the world. They claim it to be 400 years old, and it produces maybe a case of wine each year. We did not taste that wine. That wine is put into .25 L bottles and offered to dignitaries as the key to the city when they arrive to Maribor. We were quite happy just hanging out next to it and having it be our back drop while we tasted the local wines.
Dondo left yesterday morning and Mark arrived from his adventures into Hungary the same afternoon. We watched the Netherlands spank Brazil and then ventured out to find a nice dinner. Oh did we succeed. We found a nice restaurant name Rozemarin, that was absolutely spectacular. We may go back again tonight. Definitely a nicer restaurant than what we have gone to but they served 2 dishes for 14 Euro per person. Had a beautiful bottle of local wine. And had a feast that made me smile and hum to myself while I ate. The waiter was nice enough to reserve us a table after our meal in front of the big screen featuring the Ghana vs. Uruguay game. What a game! So sad for Ghana. I really wanted them to win.
Today we hope to explore more of the town, watch the games and see a huge wine cellar that sits below the town square that we are hoping to get a tour of. Tonight is the fireworks show down at the river so we will most likely venture down and sip local wine by the old grapevine and hang with the rest of the town.
Na svidenje!
