Here are some shots of the Duffy racers in this year's Tour of Walla Walla!

Tim
Sean
Liam

Seamus

You can view our blog about our 700 mile bicycle trip from Seville to Finisterre in September and October 2006 at http://caminolaplata.blogspot.com

Here are our photos from our September/October roots-pilgrimage-tour of Slovenia. We have lots of recommendations for anyone who wants to visit this beautiful little country; just email us.

This is the view from the 12th floor apartment in the Na Jami neighborhood that we rented for the first five days in Ljubljana. At 50 Euros a night, this is the best housing bargain in the city--50 feet from a mercado, on a municipal bus line, and only a 10 minute walk to the center of the city. Check it out at: http://www.ljubljana-tourism.si/en/tourism/a2z/35013/podrobno.html

Disaster struck almost immediately, when we went out for groceries and locked our keys, passports, etc, etc, in the apartment. We didn’t have the owner’s phone number, so we scrambled about for an internet café and emailed him with our predicament. Within a half a hour Bogdan was there to let us back in. Thenceforth, Yvonne wore the key around her neck.

The next day, it was off to Kamnik for the day, and small town (that’s mostly what they have in Slovenia) a short bus ride from Ljubljana to see the annual Folk Costume Festival and Parade.

The food and beer were great, and the parade was quite charming



Most of the regions of Slovenia sent a group to participate in the parade, which went on for an hour or so. We met some very friendly people while watching, including Ursula whom we hoped to meet again later. Sadly our meeting fell through as I lost her phone number. We also enjoyed the company of Stanko and Marija Lavtar.
We spent the next several days wandering about Ljubljana, taking in its wonderful sights and enjoying the café culture along the Ljubljanica River. The Old City is quite charming. We also visited the National Archives to begin some family research.

The bronze dragon at Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana has become a symbol of the city

A large sidewalk cafe next to Presernov Trg, Lubjana's Central Square on the Left Bank of the Ljubljanica River

The late 17th, early 18 Century Ursaline Church of the Holy Trinity on the left bank of the Ljubljanica

The 18th Century Jesuit Church of St James

The dimly lit interior of St James

St Nicholas Cathedral in Central Ljubljana

Ljubljana has lots of wonderful, often whimsical, Art Nouveau architecture, like this colorful building.

We really enjoyed spending time walking around in Ljubljana's old town center.

This photo of the Church of the Annunciation, which fronts onto Presernov Trg, was taken looking down the river from Shoemakers Bridge

It’s a steep walk up the hill above the old town to Ljubljana Castle, which dates from the 12 Century, although most of what one sees today is from the 16th Century.

Inside the Castle, there a number of well preserved coats of arms of the Carniolan Princes of Germanic Slovenia, including this one of the Tschernembl Family, after which the town of Tschernembl—Crnomelj in Slovene—was named

This is Gruber Palace, built by the Jesuits as a research institute in the late 18th Century. It is now the National Archives where we started our research. They sent us to the Church Archives on Krekov Trg where we had easy access to the wonderfully well-kept Church records

Within minutes, we had located records like this showing the baptism of Peter Hrella in 1873 and the marriage of his parents in 1869. The young archivists were extremely helpful and patient with our endless questions.
After five great days in Ljubljana, we took a bus to Skofja Loka, one of the country's older cities. The first picture we took was of these interesting doorways. I was fascinated by Slovenian doorways. The flowers are ubiquitous.Skofja Loka has fine castle built by yet another German Prince. This German Prince put his African servant's portrait (which is decidedly un-politically correct) on his coat of arms after the servant killed a bear that was in the process of making a meal of the Prince.
In Skofja Loka, we also visited the Gallery of the Slovenian painter Franc Mihelich, whose surrealist paintings at first blush are exceedingly grim, though many of them grow on you. The gallery is located in town's Granary, the place where the ruling princes exacted taxes in the form of grain from the hapless peasants.
This is the gold-encrusted chapel in Skofja Loka Castle

This is the Church of St Anne, which adjoins the Capuchin Monastery in Skofja Loka

From Skofja Loka, it was just a short 4 kilometer walk through the countryside and forest (which tend to be very dark and forboding in Slovenia) to the tiny village of Crngrob (black grave), which has one of the masterpieces of Slovenia in the 14th Century pilgrim Church of the Annunciation. On the way, we encountered the usual roadside chapels one sees everywhere in Slovenia and the ubiquitous hayracks that have become one of the symbols of the country
These roadside chapels (predominantly crucifixes or madonnas) almost always have fresh flowers and often burning candles.

These hayracks are everywhere in Slovenia, although the farmers have now largely switched to more modern methods of hay preservation

Here is the Church of the Annunciation, which is not really that interesting from the outside, and just a few of the gilded baroque altars it houses. We we arrived at the church, the priest was conducting a wedding rehearsal. When he finished, he gave us a personal guided tour. There are over 100 carved figures on the main altar alone. The church still has to undergo substantial renovation and restoration.












We stayed at the highly recommended Pri Marku Tourist Farm while in Crngrob. It was an extremely nice place that met all our expectations.

We decided to go on to Lake Bled. From Crngrob, we walked to a nearby village of Dorfarje where we caught the bus first to Kran and then on to Bled, a town on the edge of an Alpine lake in the north of Slovenia.
On the way to Dorfarje, we came across this young female soldier guarding a lonely dirt road to keep people from wandering into an area where the troops were engaged in live fire exercises. The Slovenian Army is small but proud. The Slovenes are particularly proud of their victory over Yugoslav forces in a 10-day war of independence, thereby avoiding the evil tenacles of the indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic.


Lake Bled is a beautiful spot in northern Slovenia, with an impressive castle overlooking the lake and an astonishing church built on an island in the lake. Despite the gloomy weather, there were lots of tourists in the town.
On our walk around the lake, we met a painter who was painting the Island Church. In chatting with him, we told him we were tracing family roots in Bela Krajina, but that we were getting the impression that the rest of Slovenia tended to consider the people of Bela Krajina to be their “poor cousins.” He objected: “they are the true Slovenes, with the most authentic traditional costumes, music, and culture. They are not poor. They are RRRICH!” Bela Krajina was in fact neglected during the Tito period and many Slovenes look askance at the people of Bela Krajina and consider them to be almost Croations, whom many Slovenes have a rather dim view of. In fact, the language, music, and customs of Bela Krajina are heavily influenced by their Croatian counterparts. It is no accident that most Slovenian immigrants to the US came from the southern districts--Dolenjska and Bela Krajina. These were the poorest regions in the country.
Before leaving the Bled area, we walked to Vintgar Gorge, a truly incredible canyon with a large river cascading through it. The walk through the Gorge is on a wooden platform that hangs on the side of the canyon walls. It was pouring rain the whole day, so the pictures are not very good.


From Lake Bled, we hopped the bus again, to Lake Bohinj, Slovenia’s largest lake, and the village of Zlatorog in Triglav National Park. We went to Zlatorog to see the “Kravji Ball,” or Cow Ball, which celebrates the annual moving of the cows from the mountain pastures back to the valleys. We found a room in Zlatorog for the night, but it was pouring rain so most of the festivities were cancelled, although some of the “cowboys” were busy whooping it up in Zlatorog Hotel early the next morning. It rains all night and all the next day as we walk the length of Lake Bohinj to catch a bus at Ribcev Laz. Because of the relentless rain, we decide to go on to Ljubljana where we can catch a train to Bela Krajina. It rains all the way to Ljubljana and we end up staying in a rather cramped and mediocre hostel.


We get a little lost the next morning (following the Ljubljanica River the wrong way) but get to the station in plenty of time to catch the train to Novo Mesto, which is in Dolenjska just north of Bela Krajina. We liked Novo Mesto (which means new town even though it’s 700+ years old), and stayed there for three days—at the excellent Ravbar apartments. It’s still raining, but we enjoy the town, its walks, and its museum. The museum is fascinating, with lots of old Roman stuff and a good ethnology collection. These are some of our favorite items in the Novo Mesto Museum.


Believe it or not, this is a beehive. Slovenia was once a nation of beekeepers, and here's where art and function met beautifully.

This is from the Church of St Nicholas in Novo Mesto

We loved these next two sculptures in Novo Mesto

On one of the days in Novo Mesto, we walk to Otocec Castle, which is on an island on the Krka River. The Castle has been turned into a 4 star restaurant (we have a cup of coffee) and it is well preserved.

Waiting in the rain for a bus back to Novo Mesto—a bus that never comes—we meet two young bicyclists who are waiting for the rest of their team to go on a practice run on these country roads. The boys are fun to talk to, and proud that a Slovenian (Brajkovic) is on the Discovery Team, which took its leader Lance Armstrong to victory in this year’s Tour de France. When we tell them Sean is a member of the Washington State Championship Bicycle Time Trial Team, the boys express a hope they’ll meet him some day!

We hike back to Novo Mesto and finally catch a bus in the mud and rain for the last couple kilometers.

On Thursday, the 22nd of September, we catch the train from Novo Mesto to Crnomelj.
We find a room at the welcoming Gostilna Muller, a terrific restaurant with just three rooms for rent. The fare includes breakfast, which far outdoes any breakfast we’ve ever had anywhere, period. Two rivers meet at Crnomelj, putting the old town inside a watery hairpin, which contributed to its ability resist some 18 attempts by the marauding Turks to sack the town. The rival Bela Krajina town of Metlika, which doesn’t have such advantages, was repeatedly sacked by the Turks.

Main street in Crnomelj

Church of the Holy Trinity in Crnomelj--undergoing thorough restoration.

Crnomelj as it looked when Pete Hrella was a boy.
From Crnomelj, we walked to Svibnik (where Peter Hrella’s mother Katarina Grahek, was born) and on to Jelsevnik, which was for several centuries the home of the Hrellas.

Arriving in Jelsevnik, we meet the wonderful Verderber Family, who invited us in for wine, sausage, and strudel—and wonderful converstion translated for us by Ana Verderber.
Alojz and Ana Verderber
Andrea & Ana, Yvonne, the girls' uncle, and Babinca and Ded Verderber

Roadside chapel in Jelsevnik

East side of Jelsevnik

Approaching the west side of Jelsevnik

The next set of pictures is of some of the older houses in Jelsevnik, taken because they might have been there when the Hrellas lived there





The next day, Saturday, is market day in Crnomelj and we get to see some traditional dancing by the town’s schoolkids.




We visited the recently excavated cellar of a church building in Crnomelj and met Totjana, a local school teacher and part-time tour guide. Totjana loves to show off Bela Krajina and volunteers to take us around to be sure we see some of the highlights we otherwise probably would have missed.
Totjana takes us first to Metlika, where the local castle has been turned into a first rate museum.
Inside Metlika Castle

Totjana then took us to the famous "Three Parishes" at Rosalnice, three quite surprisingly large churches build side by side by side. The origins of these beautiful churches is unclear, but they may have been built by the ubiquitous Knights Templar who held sway over large chunks of Europe in the middle ages.



Here are some pictures from inside the "Three Parishes"




Totjana then took us then to the Pecaric winery outside of Metlika, (www.geocities.com/vinopecaric) where we spent most of the rest of the day sampling their wonderful wines and visiting with the delightful Pecaric family.
Left to right, the senior Mr. Pecaric, Totjana, Yvonne, Polona, and two friends who happened to stop by while we were there. The friends had just returned from Indonesia, where he was training people, believe it or not, to take his job as a plant manager of a factory that was being outsourced to Indonesia. The Pecaric family tends some 10,000 grape vines and sells virtually all of its wine here at the winery, although some is shipped to the Slovenian community in Chicago. Their wine is something special--both red and white. They also make a killer peach brandy!

Polona shows us the air-conditioned wine cellar. Polona's husband Martin was off in Ljubljana doing some marketing work.

On the way back to Crnomelj, Totjana took us by vintage DC-3 that was used to support the Partisans in WWII, the mammoth Krupa spring that starts the flow of the Kolpa River, and the remains of a 2nd century Temple of the Persian God Mithra, who was popular among Roman Soldiers.



The next day we decided to spend more time in Jelsevnik. In wandering about the village, we were again invited in for wine and food, this time by the Turk Family. A neighborhood girl, Alenka Kocjan, joined us to do the translating. We had a lovely visit and hope to meet the Turks again some day. Incidentally, Turk is a very common Slovenia surname, and goes back to people who moved into Slovenia to escape the depredations of the Ottoman Turks as they expanded into the Balkans and up into Western Europe.
Left to right, this is Yvonne, Alenka Kocjan (our translator who is a college student in Ljubljana),Anika & Vinko Banovec, and Stanko Turk. Mrs. Turk (Antonija) was busy in the kitchen and too shy to pose for the picture.

On the way back to Crnomelj, we met Daniel Fazlic, a high school senior who is one of the most charming and impressive young men we have ever met. Daniel spent the rest of the day with us, and gave us a personal tour and running history of Crnomelj. We ended our tour with this extraordinary young man at his favorite spot in Crnomelj—the monument to the Partisans killed in WWII. The monument, on a hilltop overlooking the town, contains the remains of a number of victims of the war, and is quite a moving place.



Having spent five days in Crnomelj, we decided to travel to Slovenian Istria. We took the train back to Ljubljana and booked a room at Hostel Celica, one of the most unusual hostels anywhere. The hostel is a former military prison dating back to the Hapsburg Empire in the 1890s. Artists from around Slovenia were invited to decorate each cell. We stayed in a room in the former attic, sharing a room with three other persons, one of whom never moved under his covers and whom we never saw, and an Englishman from York and his daughter. The Yorkshireman said we snored steadily until midnight when we both stopped suddenly. He thought perhaps we both had died, but figured it wouldn’t matter if he waited until morning to report our deaths so he could get a night’s sleep. His daughter said he took over the chorus after we stopped and kept her awake the rest of the night.
Hostel Celica, Ljubljana

Our first stop in Slovenian Istria was the town of Izola on the Adriatic coast. Izola is an active fishing village with lots of charm. It is within walking distance to Slovenia’s other seaside cities—Koper, Piran, and Portoroz—on the country’s tiny coastline. Many Slovenes think the coastline should be somewhat longer, and should at least include Trieste (Trst in Slovene). Trieste was long a part of Slovenia and was lost after the Italians invaded and big power politics favored the Italians over the Slovenes. When the Italians took over, they gratuitously Italianized many of the inhabitants’ names—for example, Gradnik became Gradini! We rented a very nice apartment in Izola from Lydia Gregorovic and spent the next week walking and bicycling between these charming old cities. The seafood was great.

View of Izola from the Izola terminus of the Izola/Portoroz bicycle/foot path.

A Baroque Palace in Izola that is now a music school

St Mauro Church, Izola
Main Altar in St Mauro Church, Izola

Side Altar, St Mauro
The Interior of St Mauro Church in Izola--one of our favorite photos!

This is the town hall in Izola. Note the Lion with an open book--the symbol of peace--in the gable. When the book is closed, it symbolizes war.

Walking along the sea and over a couple mountains, we arrive at St George's Cathedral in the most historic Slovene Coastal city, Piran. Piran is an exceptionally beautiful place.

Just a few of the 146 rickety steps up the bell tower in St George's.

Next, a few photos of the view of Piran from the bell tower







Main Altar in St George Cathedral

Two versions of St. George slaying the dragon


The "Piran Crucifix" in St. Peter's Church, one of three polychromed medieval masterpieces from the 14th Century. The other two are in Split, Croatia, and Kotor, Montenegro.

Piran Town Hall and Tartinjev Trg, the vast circular expanse of marble that is Piran's central square

Piran's shoreline with St George's dominating the skyline

Piran's Church of ST. Clement and random street scenes, including a classic pink Venetian house on Tartinjev Trg






View from Piran across the Adriatic to Italy & the city of Trieste

View of Croatian coastline from Piran

The Palace Hotel in Portoroz, built around the turn of 19th/20th century for a visit by the Hapsburg Emperor, which never took place. The hotel is currently undergoing complete restoration, inside & out. Portoroz is the least interesting of the coastal towns of Slovenia. It is mainly a modern tourist center with numerous ugly modern hotels and spas. However, it does have the charm of the unusual mix of German, Italian, Austrian and other foreign tourists in substantial numbers. We had some unbelievable baklava in Portoroz.

Views along the path between Izola and Portoroz, on an old rail line built by the Hapsburgs. Two tunnels on the path cut through the mountains that lie between the tow coastal cities.







Our nice apartment in Izola and one of our typical meals when we weren't eating seafood--Bacon, eggs, cheese, tomatoes, bread, good Slovenian wine, all topped off with a shot of peach schnapps from Pecaric winery.



We walked one day from Izola to Koper (the Italians call it Capodistria), a 15 kilometer round trip along the Adrdiatic shoreline. Following are some of the highlights of our day in Koper.

This photo, and the next four, are of the Dance Macabre, a fresco in the 12th century Romanesque Church of the Holy Trinity in Hrastovlje, a few miles inland from the coastal towns. It is our favorite fresco, portraying the unity and essential equality of all mankind in our relentless walk to the same end. This is just a replica in the museum in Koper, but it retains its astonishing power, showing a child, a crippled man, a burgher, a tax collector trying to bribe his way out of it, a merchant with the same idea, a monk, a bishop, a matron, king and queen, and a pope—all led by skeletons





This lovely lady began life on the prow of a ship before she ended up in the Koper Museum
A serene Madonna
The symbolism of this polychromed statue is clear: "I, the Bishop, own this town!"

We loved this Madonna and Child, showing the baby Jesus sucking his thumb. The glass cover interfered a little with the photo.
The bell tower of Koper's Cathedral of the Assumption. The 200 plus steps up the tower led to some wonderful views of the area and across the Adriatic to Northern Italy.


The 12th Century Rotunda of John the Baptist and the ceiling inside the Rotunda



This is Vojko, the wonderful guide in the out-of-the way ethnology museum in Koper. She gave us a really terrific tour of the museum along with a lot of history about the region, its oft-troubled and tangled relationship with the Italians, and the wonderful artifacts in the museum.


Our last day in Slovenia’s Karst region took us to the Postojna Caves and Predjama Castle, two of Slovenia’s major tourist attractions. The Castle was wonderful, and the caves—at some 21 kilometers in length, the second largest in the world—are impressive, but a little too touristy, in fact, the most touristy place in the entire country.



Then it was back to Ljubljana for a last day visiting our favorite places and a few random photos.




Our last meal in Ljubljana—in Apartma Levc—bread, cheese, salami, and a great bottle of Sivi Pinot courtesy of Bogdan, our terrific landlord—and the cow we left for him to remember us by!




GOOD BYE SLOVENIJA—WE SINCERELY HOPE WE’LL BE BACK!