The road trip took us from Piran via Ljubljana, where we greeted sister, uncle and my fir tree, and then continued to Maribor on the other side of the country, second biggest Slovenian city and the birthplace of my father. He showed us the house of his birth and many other landmarks. The Central Post Office drew my camera closest.
And then it went wheeeeee, with me at the wheel, and we were back to the coast in no time, in time for the spectacular sky over Izola’s gas station where we also stopped to fill our tank after arriving from Italy three days ago. I had one look towards the Nanos mountain and proclaimed: “You gotta love a country of which you can see one half from one gas station, and the other half from the second.”
I was curious to see how much I needed for practically the whole length of the country, about 240 km. (Truth be told, there is still some Slovenia left beyond Maribor. Until Hungarian border there are further 50 km.) I took the clock from the Post Office at face value, 6.40 pm. Then I looked at the time of the photos I took with the last light from that gas station above Izola on the coast. The time display from my camera showed 8.10 pm.
I don’t know about you (unless you’re from Luxembourg or the like), but however fast I would be driving one hour and a half is not enough to cross any country.
First I thought that the Maribor clock must be an hour behind. But then I realised that there’s no way the sun could have set at 8 pm yet. That’s it – according to my winter-time camera, I have been living one hour in the future since who knows when. In reality we reached the coast at 9 pm, and I needed 2 hours and a half for the drive.
If I started in my Tuscan hometown Capalbio, this would just suffice to reach Florence. Which reminds me – there are fires close to home and storms, such as a twister hurting several people in an Ostia beach near Rome. There has been a big fire extremely close to Split in Croatia as well. And Slovenia? Slovenia is green, cloudless, moderately hot and peaceful. Let it last.
My Ljubljana fir tree. It was planted when I was born.
A detail.
I spotted it as we were parking in Maribor.
Stuff going on in the architecture.
They look like a couple of catches in the fishnet.
I don’t know if these are angels…
…but there is no doubt one is holding a telephone.
The Post of Slovenia with the on-time clock.
Two hours and a half away: Izola.
The light was going fast. One half of Slovenia was not visible any more.
The sunset of the corn.
Photo: © signature mmm
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