Day: October 22, 2012

Maribor Continued

Outside the church, we just wandered around the town, looking for nice streets and building. There were more neat passageways:



The Drava river (Drau in German) cuts through town and even though it looks large, it is artificially dammed in this part of town (much like the river in Austin TX). We crossed on a high bridge to walk along the banks and get different views of the city.


Walking across the bridge we saw this old, decaying house (on the left)

When we got closer we saw it was still inhabited.

Just a regular courtyard, with a few flowers:


Back on the older side of the river… This grapevine was planted 400 years ago and still bears fruit. A sign in English said it was a world record.

They had an art exhibition in the old Judgement tower (which was actually only a defense tower). Andy liked how the newer (or at least renovated) residential building wrapped around the old tower:

The inside was the most interesting, with huge brick arches.


This charming building was right on the river, and Andy thought it should be turned into a quaint B&B.


We had pretty good pizza at this little place (with rats on the sign above), we could watch as it was cooked in a wood fired oven.

Desert at a cafe in the center of town was decadent… (somebody ordered BOTH hot chocolate with whipped cream AND chocolate cake for Leilani, and that same someone later regretted it).

Some of the small streets were really pretty. If you wonder about the big box… Leilani insisted on carrying the pizza leftovers all the way back to Austria.

There was a nice-looking museum in the old city fort, but it was still closed for mid-day break (until 3pm)

I think this was from the Tito era when Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia.

Andy wanted to see the countryside and the nearby hills, but unfortunately, it was very gray and cloudy. We drove up a small mountain a few kilometers from Maribor, and when the views didn’t get any better, we walked around in the fog.

As soon as we had parked the car, out of nowhere 2 really friendly dogs appeared, very happy that someone was about to go for a walk and accompanied us for the entire walk. When we got back to the car they ran off…

Andy thought it would be good business to rent dogs to the tourists, as they should really not live in cities but it was a lot of fun to have them for a walk in the forest. (It turns out that this is already being done in Hawaii, on Maui: Rent-a-mutt)

Then we drove home on a different road through the Slovenian and Austrian countryside. It was longer but still pretty. That part of Slovenia is know as lower Styria, and it was once joined to “upper” Styria under some king or another–so the resemblence is not a coincidence.

Maribor, Slovenia

We went to Maribor (Marburg in German) and took a lot of photos. The most fascinating was the contrast between old and new. I hope Andy will write most the comments…

Comments updated by Andy :-)

Why Slovenia? Andy hadn’t been to a new country in 11 years, and it’s only 45 minutes from Gleisdorf. They are part of the European Union and use Euros since 2007. All we had to do was buy a highway permit sticker for the car and go.

It was fun to be in a truly foreign country. For example, I’m mostly familiar with western european languages and can pronounce most words. But this was definitely Eastern Europe, where the consonants have accent, and where none of us had any idea how to pronounce them. Fortunately, most people spoke English.

This year, Maribor was chosen as the European Culture Capital. I remembered that Graz was chosen back in 2003 when I first went there.

The old city wall, which ended up in the courtyard of a redeveloped building. There were a lot of old buildings, but some of them were just preserved façades, and in back was a “modern” building from 10-20 years ago.

We found this one painted passageway connecting the old plaza with the newer building behind it.

We had to visit the church on the main plaza. It wasn’t much from the outside (at least having just come from Paris), but had some nice features inside. Oddly, it was full of Austrian tour groups who walked through non-stop, so it felt just as crowded as Notre Dame. We wondered if they weren’t pilgrimage groups of some sort, as they stopped to hear about all the statues of saints and bishops. Pope Jean-Paul II also visited here, and they stopped to see the commemorative plaques and window.

One of the first things Leilani needs to do in each church we visit is buy a candle and light it:

As everywhere else in Maribor, stark contrast between old and new…


The modern stained glass windows are strange, but sometimes pretty

Sometimes more strange than pretty

And I spare you the really ugly ones…

Graz

Comments updated by Andy.

We tried to make it to the kid’s museum in Graz “Frida and Fred.”

Graz is pretty and colorful:

We found nice parking on the other side of the park, and decided to walk. What we did not know was, that almost the entire park was a playground. Leilani had to stop and play with everything (Andy helped).



I think she was playing Titanic…

And there’s lots more you can’t see here. Eventually, we got tired of taking pictures, so the parents sat down and had coffee from a kiosk in the park (how civilized) and more birthday chocolate.

After 2 hours on the playground, we told her she could either play another 30 minutes and then walk around the city or go to the kid’s museum for 2 hours. Life is all about “making” choices. She chose the kids museum. But along the way, we found some more fun things:

The river Mur, right next to the park

We found some giant eggs that looked like modern art, but Leilani immediately climbed on them and started jumping around. I did not photoshop this one (and she landed on her feet)

That’s the slightly modified Coat of Arms of the city of Graz, spray painted on the “playground.”

What to do with the giant eggs? Jump of course

We finally made it to the museum.

That was the entrance. No shoes allowed in the museum. They did have stairs for he adults, but I declined and took the kids route :-)

We forgot to take pictures for the greater part, but there was an exhibition on human bodies that Leilani liked a lot.

Among the highlights a plastic brain to take apart (complicated enough the high-school student in charge could not put it back together), a digestive system (easy enough that Leilani could name and place all the parts), and a skeleton (did not come apart, fortunately), all life-sized, an exercise bike for a stress test that was small enough for Leilani (and she was rated very high endurance), and compressed air mail from room to room… and soap on a rope in the washroom that really impressed Leilani.

Andy had to leave the museum to feed the parking meter. Along the way he took pictures of the cool little European cars painted in nice colors. Sonja played with photoshop: