More Travels; More Vagus

After two years of Covid restrictions, I have been ready to 'move about the cabin,' for a while now. So when New Orleans friend, Pat Manning, contacted me, asking if I wanted to meet her in Italy, I was all over it. Patty was spending a week with friends in Florence, and suggested my joining her in Venice; I countered with Trieste, since I wasn't sure Venice wouldn't be over-run with tourista; it's become so bad, that the gov't has instituted a daily fee to enter the city. 

Trieste, meanwhile, is one of many destinations I have wanted to visit, and our friend, Sabine, speaks highly of this port city that sits close by her home in Slovenia. Patty agreed; Sabine even talked about joining us for a day. As mentioned in the previous post, we found plenty to do, and now that I'm home, I'm making plans for another trip, most likely solo.

The architecture of Trieste reminds me of Budapest & Vienna. This isn't so surprising, once I did a little 'googling;' during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Trieste was the main port of the sovereign territory. Even today, it is the deep water harbor for landlocked Hungary. So many of the buildings in Trieste were built during the belle epoch, just like Budapest.

Following our four days of exploring, we headed for Lake Bled in Slovenia, where we met up with Sabine, who owns a Bed n' Breakfast in the farmhouse her mother was born in. It's very cute, with plenty of Slovene country touches that reminded me of Mammaw Keen. While Pat & I were there, Sabine's aunt & uncle, Marta & Gerhard, were visiting from Switzerland. Marta is Sabine's mother's little sister; there is also an older brother, an uncle, who lives nearby and every morning would bring Sabine fresh eggs for our breakfast(!). Very sweet, very country, very good!

Pat & I spent a few days in the capital, Ljubljana. The weather did not always cooperate, but it did not slow us down. In the middle of our stay, I took the train & bus up to another lake, Bohinjsko, to check out the scene; in two weeks, I'll be joined by another New Orleanian, Lyle Breaux, and we plan to hike in the mountains behind Sabine's small town, called locally, the Julian Alps. As you might imagine, if you haven't seen the Alps, that they are drop-dead gorgeous, and I can't wait to try out the overnight hut-system created for exploring the mountains in style. More on that later.