The Old Rog Bicycle Factory

Whenever we come to Ljubljana, we always stumble across something we haven’t seen before.  This year, one of those things was the Rog bicycle factory (technically, it wasn’t something we hadn’t seen before, as it’s an enormous building on the river near old town and we had walked by it at least a hundred times; we just had no idea what it used to be, or what it is today).

The factory is where Rog bicycles were manufactured from 1953 to 1991, when Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia.  It spent the next fifteen years abandoned and was then opened up to local artists.  The building hasn’t had any updates since 1991 and most of the windows are broken, but while it doesn’t look like much from the outside, today there is a thriving artist community on the inside.  And it’s about as unique a building as we’ve seen.

We also learned that Rog bikes have quite a following among certain groups here, and if you’re lucky enough to own one of the classics, you better not let it out of your sight!

 

Polhov Gradec - Part 2

After leaving the Božnar Honey House, Marjan and another friend of ours, Maja, drove us to the top of one of the hills of Polhov Gradec to visit a beekeeper named Matjaž.  Matjaž bought some land next to the church there three years ago and built a beehouse that doubles as his weekend cabin, and it might be the coolest building I’ve ever seen.  There’s a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, bunk up above the hives, and even a basement with a shower and washing machine.

Matjaž thought through everything when setting up his land.  For his fifteen hives of bees, he planted lavender a few feet away “so the bees don’t have to fly too far”, along with a small fountain that stores rainwater (he turns on the fountain as a water supply for the bees when things get dry).  He also planted a HUGE garden, rows of sage behind the building, and a few “bee trees”, which are popular among beekeepers here because they bloom in late summer after everything else is done.

Matjaž could have kept us there for days showing us everything he does (and honestly, I would have stayed).  He loaded us up with his award-winning honey and was especially excited to let us try his honey beer, honey and blueberry liqueurs, and apple juice, along with a huge plate of cookies for the kids.  All of it was fabulous.

And then, it was back to Marjan’s house with a quick stop at his neighbor who keeps 200 hives all over Slovenia and has his own honey-processing "kitchen" (check out the drums of honey below – they’re all full!).  Marjan and his wife, Mojca, treated us to homemade sausage, cheese, and ice cream.  A spectacular end to a spectacular day!

 

 

 

The Real Sri Lankan Jeweler and the Real Devil's Mask

If you’ve read Painted Hives, you remember the Sri Lankan jeweler who gave Wilber the “really ugly mask” from his shop.  Well, that mask is called a “Devil’s Mask”, and the real Sri Lankan jeweler in Ljubljana just gave me the real Devil’s Mask from his shop as a gift as we get ready to leave Slovenia.  How super unbelievably cool is that??????

 

Polhov Gradec - Part 1

Yesterday, our friend Marjan organized a trip for us to his home town of Polhov Gradec, a beautiful hilly village just west of Ljubljana.  The name means “Door-Mouse Castle” – as the story goes, a knight arrived by horse in the village to build a castle, and door mice ate his saddle.  Like most other villages in Slovenia, Polhov Gradec has an inordinate number of churches: ten (one on top of each hill).

Our first visit was to Božnar Hisa Medu (House of Honey), a seven-person company owned by a husband and wife couple.  The owners gave us a tour of their facility, where they make pretty much everything you can think of that comes from bees and export it all over the world.  They let us sample at least twenty different types of honey (our favorites were chestnut, forest, and lime) along with some hand lotions, cookies, liqueurs, and chocolates, all made in their tiny factory.

They then took us to the castle in town, where they hold their own honey-tasting event each year.  They told us this past spring, an apiary from Hungary brought honey that came from tobacco flowers and it was the best there.  Hmmm.  This year, they also organized a contest in which they invited kids from all over the world to submit bees made out of recycled materials.  There were hundreds of these bees hanging from the ceiling, to which the Božnars remarked, “We know we need to take these down, but we’re just not sure what to do with them afterward.”

Muzej Iluzij

There is a new museum in Ljubljana called Muzej Iluzij (Museum of Illusions).  It is exactly what the name implies:  a series of exhibits that mess with your mind along with explanations for how they mess with your mind.  The coolest was a tunnel that you walked through while a light pattern on the tunnel walls spun around – it was impossible to do it without losing your balance!  See if you can figure out the pics below…

 

Križna Jama

Slovenia is cave country, and its most popular caves collectively attract over one million visitors each year.  Last Sunday, we chose the less popular Križna Jama to explore, which is about an hour south of Ljubljana.  The cave is quite a bit more rugged than the caves at Postojna and Škocjan (no lights, stairs, railings, signs), so it was just us, our flashlights, a tour guide, and a big hole in the ground.  We learned that back in the day, bears that weighed as much as one ton (!) lived in the cave and found their way around solely by sense of smell, and we learned that of the forty-five species that live in the cave now, only two live out of the water.  We also took a small raft across one of the forty-five underground lakes in the cave and found out the true meaning of total darkness when the guide had all of us turn off our flashlights (it was a bit unnerving to say the least).  All in all, a very cool experience.

 

Back for a 7th Time

We are back in Slovenia for a 7^th time, catching up with friends and ice cream cones at one of our favorites, the Trubar Cafe.  And now that my class is finished, catching up on blog posts too.  Stay tuned.

Goodbye Again

Tomorrow we head home, and as always, we have mixed feelings about it.  It will be good to get back to family and friends and to our humble routine in St. Paul, but it’s tough to say goodbye.  Chantelle and I agree that this was one of our best trips here, mostly because we did so many things that were completely new, and just about all of them were with friends here.  As we look back, those have always been our best experiences by far.  It reminds me of something my dad says: what makes life special are the relationships you build along the way.

We have been so fortunate that what seemed like chance events led us here in 2011 and led to invitations to return five times since.  What we are most thankful for is that coming here has given us the opportunity to experience an incredible country and culture and to explore and grow as a family without the distractions we have back home.

We thought it would be fun to do a few "now and then" photos from the apartment under the castle with the spiral staircase.  It feels like yesterday that we arrived there for the first time, and we remember very clearly being terrified that the kids would kill themselves on those stairs.  But, of course, it took them all of two days to master the staircase and adopt it as their playground.  What is funny is that the apartment still maintains some of the touches we added back in 2011, like the cow placemats we bought to try to preserve the dining room table.

Of course, it wasn't just yesterday, and it’s tough to look at these pictures without a lump creeping up in my throat.   I love watching the kids grow up, but it really does happen too fast.  I guess I’ll take solace in the fact that they all still fit inside the cabinet at the top of the stairs, and in the fact that they still think I’m smart and fun and cool.  Or at least I think they do.

Thank you to Maja and Leon and Tim, to Rok and Petra, to Mijo and Drita, to Marinka, and to everyone else here who helped to make this trip special.  And thank you, Slovenia – you are beautiful in so many ways.
 

Painted Hives Landmarks

For those of you who have read the book Painted Hives, we hunted down a few landmarks you might recognize and took photos.  For those of you who haven't, well...  :)