Ljubljana

Were we worried about driving by the Slovenian Alps in a nine-seated van in the end of December after a thorough snowing in Barcs on narrow, unfamiliar roads?

Absolutely not. We were headed to Ljubljana, and after that, to one of the most romantic cities of the world, Venice, and two parts of our family were happily reunited to share in this together. Dad and Wendy had never heard of Ljubljana, and we could none of us hardly spell it, but we were excited to experience it. My good friend, Laurel, is a committed traveler, and she had proclaimed Ljubljana to be one of her favorite cities, a high recommendation. Google Images is already a heady introduction to a town backgrounded by Alps, transversed by footbridges and canals, and preserved in stunning and colorful architecture.

Windshield wipers did double-time against cold, driving rain through a three or four hour drive, and we arrived at a resort on the outskirts of town, and settled in to a liberating, off-season solitude, picnic tables covered in a grey snow, the resort's pool complex locked in the distance, icicles hanging from a ropes-course strung through the trees.

Behind the sleeping apartments, we looked out towards the train tracks and saw what we suspected were also busier in sunnier days.

Wendy had been reading about the Roma before she arrived in Hungary (she recommends Bury Me Standing, by Isabel Fonseca, a book Katalin owns too), and she thought these huts off the tracks fit descriptions all too well.

Our own settlement was spacious, although it looks a little crowded here.

We were happy to park the van colossus and take the bus into town. Dad was always very alert to the possibility of family separation, which was the only disadvantage of a crowded bus, but we emerged from the experience happy and whole, as we did in other moments out of eye-shot.

And then, this is what we saw.

 

It was bewitching. It lacked the chaotic bustle of Prague traffic but was a town, in its shapes and colors and shutters and steeples, one could easily love. But this too would be transformed in only a few hours, when Slovenians came from all over to walk the wide streets, and the real magic would make itself known to us in a city's absolute and unembarrassed vibrancy.

More on magic later. But here's a taste, as darkness begins to fall.

Throughout the trip, we ate a hotel breakfast and one big meal a day, snacking for the rest. Below you see us parked outside a pastry shop, and below that, having coffee. The kids are drinking hot chocolate, which, in much of Europe, is something very different from hot cocoa. Hot chocolate is a pudding -- hot, thick -- a sweet sludge that stands above the ladle of the spoon a few millimeters before rising in a swell in the middle.

We had good meals in Ljubljana. My gnocchi were pillowy soft. It was also a happy treat to be served a large jug of tap water again. The two deciliter bottles to which we never became accustomed always made me feel foreign and guarded.

I don't know what Amelia's doing.

Emerging into the night is where we first discovered something else about Ljubljana, where we looked up at the buildings and the lights and the pixillated castle on the hill and the joyfully strolling people that we became swept up in it, looking up with the delight of a kite-flier for whom wind and sun and sky and the expanse of space become all of a sudden a magic of play and lift and dance.

Our second day, we travelled up the hill to the castle.

Although the road was of less grade and the hill was shorter, our walk was not so unlike the ascent to the castle in Salzburg, another energetic, Alpine city that won a place in our dreams. On the walk, Wendy said she and Maisie would take up the rear because they both wanted to climb at a slow pace, but they were the first to the top.

The view from the caste's tower was thrilling, the mist rolling so thickly across the valley we could feel it moving in our lungs. When Wendy was buying tickets to get us in, she was given a generously discounted price, our kids getting toddler rates, and Dad and Wendy dawdler rates, and I figured the ticket agents felt uncomfortable charging people money to go up such a stubby little tower. But the city appeared in every direction over the the parapet, however hazy through the fog, and the air was delicious.

A small castle chapel was open to the public. Within, a styrofoam baby Jesus with ball.

What we found, here in the castle, in the chapel, and elsewhere, was an open celebration of art -- serious art, abstract art, and above all, playful art. In the basement of the castle, a great deal of money was obviously spent preserving the foundation and incorporating it with modern structures to provide aesthetically striking contrasts, and with this backdrop, there were multiple galleries and settings for concerts. The fact that Ljubljana would honor its artwork in this intersection of history and civic investment is such a clear statement. And this was by no means mainstream work it was displaying. Dad and Wendy found the photographs of punk Alice and Wonderland shots pretty tacky, for example. Tacky, perhaps; playful, definitely. And everywhere we saw this institutional appreciation for art. In the Town Hall, we were followed by a security guard who finally ushered us towards an art exhibit in a hidden room and then left us alone with it.


Ljubljana, you are exhilarating!


Examples of this sensibility are below.

1. Stairs descending below the castle.
2. Art gallery. Dad still deciding.
3. Floating art in the hexagonal room.
4. No more castle. Faces you step on as you walk a pedestrian path.
5. Weird melty woody figure in the middle of a foot bridge.
6. Table pedestal, for serving hot wine.
7. Dad and electric crown, probably antique hair dryer.
8. Detail from previously seen night lights, including sperm and egg, mitosis, and various planets. Not pictured but observable in earlier shot: double-helix DNA and xx, xy chromosomes.
9. Raised fairy seat in front of Town Hall.

Above is the raised fairy seat, mysterious and wonderful even empty. But it was occupied by evening. The woman below, a fairy's helper, explained the tradition, saying we could go to the Good Fairy and ask for three wishes. Dad and Wendy were ready to wish that the fairies could be warmed up, maybe with some hot tea, but someone had already made this wish, and the capes and layers were apparently plenty warm. 

Wendy was able to convince Sophie to go the Good Fairy by telling her she could make a wish for someone other than herself. Good-hearted Sophie. Wendy was right: Sophie would never have stood before the Fairy for herself alone.

Amelia's wish was to feel the wishing balls on her head.

I don't know what Stephanie was wishing for, and she's very careful not to ruin her chances by telling, but look at that concentration. I hope she is happily answered.

So these are examples of Ljubljana's artistic soul. Before launching into this illustration, I was describing the castle. We walked down the hill by way of a terrific, winding bridge. One short detour led to a terraced playground in the shadow of slightly malevolent Hansel and Gretel tree.

And then we were down. At every hour, our affection for Ljubljana grew.

We absolutely let loose on the final night, warming to a group of gospel carolers, and then chasing after Amelia who ran across the bridge to follow the organ grinders.

We helped draw a crowd for the organ grinders, as Amelia danced circles on the wet square and then partnered with Wendy for a polka, and Stephanie for a waltz, and then Grandpa for something in between, until Dad was dancing with two girls, and the organ grinders were throwing us their best turns.

At our first restaurant, we toasted to our adventure, and to how special it was to not just share our European lives this year, but to experience it together, with people we love.