SLOVENIA TO VENICE- EASY, SHORT DRIVE

GREAT VIEW OF PIAZZA SAN MARCO FROM THE MUSEUM WINDOW



THE LOVES LEAVING FOR THE TRAIN STATION FROM THE HOTEL METROPOLE




ONE WAY BOAT TO MURANO. WHO CARES I'M WITH MY ELYSEE



CHAR LOVE AND ELYSEE EN MASQUE IN VENATO TRADITION.



Our second day in Venice with our friends the Loves once again confronted us with the worst of summer tourism; crowds, jostling for transportation, waiting on lines to be paraded through antiquities, and price gouging. Once more our hotel, the Metropole, helped by arranging a private water taxi to the world-renowned glass works of Murano. Interesting to see, but wildly overpriced; glassworks that only a dowager Venetian Aunt could take pleasure in. But the boat trip was OK, about thirty minutes with several interesting villas along the route. Unfortunately, the private cost-free boat that takes you right to the dock of the sponsoring glassmaker, does not pick you up for the return. I suppose if you bought enough glass they would be delighted to bring you back. Otherwise you are on public water taxi, Buddy.

With the Palace completely overcrowded we opted for the public museum on the opposite side of San Marco square. The museum turned out to be no more than a pleasant time passer, containing much of the same collected work as in the Doge Palace; but lacking the same level of explanation or guidance. I did find several windows open to great views of the square and the lagoon, affording some excellent vantage points for taking photographs.

With the Loves gone, the next morning, after a lingering breakfast, we opted to leave Venice and return to the peace and tranquility of Slovenia. Our drive, being almost all by Autoroute (read interstate), returned us in just over two hours to our little “Love Nest” in Bled. It was such an easy short drive. So if you are in Slovenia and wanting to visit Venice you have the option to pick your date and time of year, its an easy trip. We were both delighted to be back in Bled and vowed to stay put amid the relative peace and quiet of Slovenia, with a round of golf here and there and a countryside day trip now and then during the remainder of August.

SLOVENIA SIDE TRIPS- VENICE

VIEW OF THE LAGOON AND SANTA MARIA DELLA SALUTE FROM OUR ROOM AT THE METROPOLE




TWO SIGHING LADIES, CHAR (L) ELYSEE (R) IN FRONT OF THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.

Excerpted from my book, OUR SUMMER IN SLOVENIA, available at Amazon.com

Our friends, Char and Al Love, who we linked up with in Budapest, stayed a few days at our apartment in Bled, and we promised to take them to Venice, Italy where they were to board a train. Sounds complicated? Not really, and that is one of the surprises about Slovenia. How well Slovenia is situated for side trips to some of Europe's most desirable stopovers.

To get from our apartment in Bled to the Venice parking garage was just a short 2 1/ 2 hour drive, and we took a longer route than necessary passing through more of Slovenia’s pastoral countryside.

Our hotel in Venice was the Metropole, situated directly on the lagoon and constructed in the 1890’s as a private residence, has been a well- known Venice hotel for almost 100 years. It was for us a sanctuary of peace and civility after the mobs of people in the city. The hotel lobby looks across the lagoon to the commanding church Santa Maria della Salute, built in the mid-1600s to honor Mary for delivering the city from the plague. The décor is an eclectic collection of furnishings gathered during those past hundred years, giving the place a cluttered bygone elegance that is a delight. No room is furnished the same. For example, the room Elysee and I occupied was furnished with a stylish deco bedroom suite made of matching marble and inlaid veneers, an ultra-modern bath, with the window overlooking the canal on which the hotel had its private dock. The bar and lounge were equally inviting, encouraging one to enjoy a lingering morning coffee or afternoon drink rather than venturing forth to do battle with the hordes that invaded the Old Lady of the Lagoon.

After settling in, it being only 3 p.m., we did something very smart for which I credit Al’s enthusiasm and get-up-and-go. Immediately we set forth to St. Marks Square and bought tickets for the Doge Palace. This in hindsight was a very good move, because even on Monday, the next day, the lines to get into the Palace and St. Marks Basilica looked like a queue to view a deceased head of state. We could only surmise that it being late on Sunday most tourists had already visited the Palace or were too worn-out and back at their hotels. In any event we strode right in, picked up our individual headsets and proceeded with about a 2 to 3 hour tour. The experience of touring the palace today is vastly improved by the availability of headset guided tours. On a long-ago visit I had made you either bought a scanty guidebook and figured it out for yourself, or hired one of the available guides lounging outside the Palace-- persons of dubious qualifications except that they likely were born in Venice. Except for the tape frequently malfunctioning (they really can do better than several-generation-old Casio recorders), it was a very pleasant, informative, self-pacing experience and I’m sooo glad we went straight to the Palace as the next day the lines were intolerable.

After the Palace tour, how about a drink at St. Mark’s square--a time honored tradition? Well the Venetians have figured out how to capitalize on that experience. Each outdoor café had its own five-or-six piece ensemble playing pleasant ditties for patrons’ enjoyment. The catch: five Euros apiece to sit down. Effectively a $25 cover charge for a cup of coffee! We passed on principle and returned to our lovely hotel, which had atmosphere to spare.

On the way we stopped for a picture of two sighing ladies back- dropped by the Bridge of Sighs. This is not historically correct, however, for the sighs associated with the bridge are not from the love sighs of longing maidens, but from prisoners being brought across the bridge from their dungeons to the justice being meted out in the connecting Doge Palace.

Having been traveling all day we decided to dine at the hotel as is has a very nice, and for Venice unusual, garden restaurant in the back where there is live entertainment, as well as an elegant indoor dinning room overlooking the canal. We thankfully chose the latter for by dinner time it had begun to rain. Seated at a prime table by the window we had an excellent meal, cocktails and wine, unhurried and attentively served. The bartender at the Metropole was excellent.

Coffee and dessert were taken in the lounge and there too we enjoyed live music until time to retire. Before doing so Elysee and I stepped outside and sat looking across the lagoon. The city was now quiet and could be enjoyed for her storied past. Elysee, inspired by the moment, danced across the pavers where so many had trod over centuries. The day overall was pleasant, thanks to the Metropole.

SLOVENIA SIDE TRIPS- BUDAPEST

TOM RUBBING THE PEN OF ANONYMOUS...too late tom!



THE MAGNIFICENT BUDAPEST SYNAGOGUE-1859



HUGE SZECHENYI BATHS SUNDAY MORNING IN JULY

Sunday morning and Budapest sleeps. Mostly. Elysee and I are up and on our way for a guided four-hour walking tour of the city. Across one bridge and then another, up one hill and down again. But what better time to see a city than early on a Sunday morning, when all the nighttime revelers are still asleep and even the gypsies are too tired to bother you. I highly recommend these walking tours found in most major cities as an alternative to the standard commercial “City Tours”; on and off the bus, seven languages and please buy my cousin’s postcards.

BUDAPEST A CITY OF BATHS. Many European cities boast about their famous baths and spas, popular as a health treatment especially during the later stages of the Belle Epoch; but none have taken it to the limits of Budapest since ancient Roman times. Budapest is blessed with over a hundred thermal springs that are very hot, and over 400 mineral springs. Thus the baths are supplied from natural resources. Besides the well-known Gellert baths, situated inside the turn-of-the-century Gellert Hotel, there are public baths throughout the city, none more representative than Szechenyi Bath, which is the largest mineral bath in Europe. We entered these baths through the “needy” gate, which was queued up with people who had publicly paid prescriptions from their doctor ordering the “cure” as vital for their continued survival.

FREDOM SQUARE. We made the essential visit to Freedom Square, extolling ancient and modern Hungarian heroes, (of which there are a great number because Hungary was occupied by almost everyone, Mongols, Turks, Austrians, Russians, and fighting for their freedom for a thousand years or more resulted in a lot of Hungarian heroes).

BUDAPEST SYNAGOGUE. Also important was viewing the “Great Synagogue,” which is the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world outside of New York City’s. It is a stunning building completed after five years in 1859, combining Moorish and Romantic period elements. During the holocaust more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazi regime.

CHAINE BRIDGE.Another highlight of the tour was a walk across the Chain Bridge that was designed by a Scotsman, Clark Adam and also opened in 1859. It was a marvel of its age, combining steel cabling and concrete and resembling and serving as precedent for the much larger Brooklyn Bridge about 40 years later. The bridge created the first link of Buda and Pest, yet another generation passed before the cities were united. Politics got in the way, with the nobility on the Buda side refusing to be associated (and taxed) with the peasantry on the Pest side.

ANONYMOUS. A final highlight of the tour was discovering the actual location of that most famous person every college student gets to quote over and over again in their term papers, Anonymous; Ey-noni-moose. Hey! He (She?) really existed! In the City Park is a hooded statue (of course you can’t see the face of Anonymous) of an unknown scribe who, during the reign of King Bela III wrote a history of the early Maygars. The scribes pen is a touchstone for all Hungarian students before they take their college examinations, as well as aspiring writers seeking inspiration.


Arriving back at our hotel we found that our friends and neighbors the Love's had arrived. Together we saw more of Budapest before leaving for Bled where they were tp spend several more days at our "love nest."

SLOVENIA SIDE TRIPS-HUNGARY-PART FIVE

AMERICAN STYLE BUFFET. UNLIMITED CONSUMPTION?

WE HAD BREAKFAST OVERLOOKING LAKE BALATON.

ENTERING BUDAPEST

OLD AND NEW. ABBEY CHURCH 1754 AND MODERN SCHULPTURE OF CHRIST

Saturday morning brought another mild summer day. Clear sky and breezes so light the hundred-plus sail regatta on Lake Balaton is merely languishing in place. Our plans call for a drive to Budapest, stopping at Tihany, a peninsula that juts almost four miles into Lake Balaton, nearly touching the opposite shore. Tihany is one of the more significant places on the lake, with traces going back to Roman times and King Andrew founding a Benedictine monastery in the 11th century. A twin spired church was built in 1754 on the ruins of King Andrew’s earlier church, commanding a magnificent view over the lake. The remains of King Andrew (ruled 1046-1055) rest in a limestone sarcophagus under the crypt, and the former Benedictine abbey is now a museum of contemporary Hungarian art. Being in Tihany, it was here that I found the wine we had the night before, securing three bottles to take back to Slovenia. First things first, right! There are lots of old churches in Europe, but some wine can be difficult to find. Carpe Vino I say; not carpe diem.

Later that afternoon, entering Budapest by automobile, an unfamiliar large city, and finding our hotel could have been a daunting task. A few years ago a group of college students in Prague started a service of picking up arriving tourists at checkpoints outside of town and driving them to their destinations, Prague being a particularly old city with many winding, narrow and one way streets and lanes. I suppose that service kept them in beer money, but it does not seem to have survived beyond graduation.

With Elysee navigating, we entered Budapest in due course and found our hotel straightaway. As is our practice we lodged on the executive floor this time at the Marriott, affording us a grand view of the Chain Bridge and Castle Hill, and immediately availed ourselves of the hospitality lounge, doing our best to amortize the extra cost. An inquiry at the concierge led us to buy tickets for that night’s Danube Symphony Orchestra performance, a fine program of mostly Hungarian composers, Kalman, Bartok, Liszt with a little Strauss and Brahms thrown in for added measure.

Budapest, like Vienna, is a city of music and musicians. Within many of the cafes lining the Danube there are small groups playing lilting sonatas and gypsy dances, so on a summer’s evening you are never far from the sounds of a violin.

Our seats at the concert hall, being ordered only hours before the performance, were in the front row, giving a whole different perspective on the soprano’s dental work. But considering that we arrived only that afternoon with no plans made, we had a great Saturday night out, the performance was very entertaining, and we lingered at the bar until after 1 A.M. As many of you can testify who have been there, night life in Budapest is lively unto the wee hours. Hungarians know how to have a good time.