I sLOVEnia- Portoroz and Ljubljana

Post date: Sep 22, 2018 8:14:10 PM

Most of my travel at the moment is to see friends. Sometimes that’s at their home (please see Holiday Tour 2017), and sometime it’s in far off destinations (see all the trips I’ve done with Penny, and Toronto with Jen!).

This time, Kim (good friend/partner/heterolife friend) told me she needed an adventure buddy in Slovenia for a week while her husband was at a conference. I put in for leave from work and started making arrangements.

But first, I had to travel from Salzburg. I remember the days when travel was easy. When the journey from point A to point B didn’t take 2 days and exhausted me. Who am I kidding, that’s always been the case. The only thing that has changed: me. I’ve gotten older.

So I took a train from Salzburg to Trieste, stayed in a sketchy hostel in Trieste, wandered around until I caught a ride to Portoroz, Slovenia. For some reason the whole experience was more exhausting than I expected.

But it did give me a day to wander around Trieste! I love Italy, and the warm weather made me start to feel like I was on vacation (still missed my computer)(that feeling never faded). The iced bailey’s latte helped (Mr. Bond approved).

This is the largest town square that is open to the water in Italy. Got to love those super specific superlatives.

But on the water front you could see a ton of these!! Seriously, we could have a whole conversation about invasive species, and climate change leading to more optimal conditions for jellyfish to spawn, but that would be for a different blog. This blog is about my vacation, so instead we’ll talk about how their swimming is meditative and I watched them for awhile starting to slip into vacation mode.

Croatia is a hotspot for tourism at the moment (hoping that’ll fade someday soon!) but in the meantime, don’t go to Piran, Slovenia. It doesn’t look very good. It’s an absolute nightmare. And seriously, don’t go. Because I want it all to myself.

The old town is adorable, the water is crystal clear, the crowds are minimal. When I told my colleagues and friends that I was going to sit on a beach in Slovenia they laughed and asked “Does Slovenia even have beaches?” and in response I would like to resoundingly respond “No, seriously, don’t go” :)

It helps that I’m from Slovenia. Both my grandparents on my mother’s side were refugees during World War II. I don’t speak Slovenian, I haven’t ever lived there, but I feel a strong affinity towards this perfect little country.

It was particularly interesting seeing certain traits of mine and my family’s represented among the general populations. Genetics are a powerful thing.

Unfortunately this is going to be a relatively boring post. We slept in, we vegged out on the beach. We drank wine, we swam in the Adriatic Sea. It was simply a delight and I can’t wait to go back.

But I’m sure you wouldn’t like it. Don’t go.

On the way back I took a moment to stop in Ljubljana. Again, it’s a lovely city. I wandered to a lovely breakfast before making my way to the plane and then back to Berlin.

It’s not for right now (there aren’t any jobs in Ljubljana for me), but maybe someday in the future. It’s weird the possibilities that might exist, but I’m hoping one day that this might be one of them.