Day 2 - The back of the back of beyond

12:00
I sleep less than brilliantly. My room has no cooling features of any kind. It’s in the basement of an old stone building, so isn’t disastrously hot, but I could have done with a fan or some AC to keep me cool. Kirsten’s on some work calls this morning, so I head out around 10:00 for a wander around Ljubljana. It’s a stunningly pretty little city, very quiet, very clean. 100m from our guesthouse is the Republic Square, which celebrates Slovenian independence. It’s all but empty. I head on down towards the river, taking a scenic route - i.e. I set off in what I think is the general direction of the river, and it turns out I’m walking away from it. I dawdle along for maybe 30 minutes, stopping to look at occasional bits of architecture. Finally, I reach the river, and sit down at one of the many waterside cafés that line its banks. I deserve and have a strong black coffee. I’m conscious I haven’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday, so grab a piece of cheese pie. It’s delicious. Lots in common with the Greek Spanakopita I love so much.

Arriving back at our guesthouse, Kirsten is just about finished with her work calls, and I decide it’s probably beer o’clock. The local brew is called Lasko, and is a fairly generic Mediterranean lager. Inoffensive, easy drinking. Max joins us and insists I have another. She’s a good woman.

18:00
Kirsten and I head off from Ljubljana around 12:30, heading East towards the borders with Croatia and Hungary. I’m on map duty, and successfully navigate us out of the city centre without too many difficulties. We join the eastbound highway, and settle into a fast cruise. The roads are fairly empty, and we make good progress. The views of the scenery are stunning. Only a few kilometres out of Ljubljana, we’re surrounded by sweeping hills blanketed in thick forest.

We leave the highway, and join a 2 lane road. We leave the two lane road, and join a single carriageway road. We leave the single carriageway road, onto a single track. We are definitely headed for the middle of nowhere. The map is fairly easy to follow though, which is something. We start to climb a not insignificant hill. Reaching the summit a few minutes later, we realise we’re very nearly at our AirBnB.

It’s idyllic. We’re surrounded on all sides by vines and fruit trees. It’s silent. Not quiet - SILENT. We’re shown around the property and grounds by our hosts, Simone and Franz. They introduce us to their dogs - Mufi and Arya. We introduce Mufi and Arya to Mila and Juancho. Much dogging occurs. Our AirBnB has a wine bar in it. I’m not kidding - a full on bar with a wine fridge, and wine racks. Now, we’re not stupid enough to think that the wine is free, but it’s a lovely touch, and we crack open a bottle of Slovenian Sauvignon Blanc, which is better than we thought it’d be. We briefly consider taking our wine to the hot tub, but Kirsten has another work call to join.

Instead, I head down to our nearest town, Ormoz - which is about 10km away. We need food and wine supplies. Before shopping, I take a bit of a swing through the town. It feels, I don’t know - almost empty. There are a handful of cars on the road, but very few. Quite a lot of businesses look to be closed - whether for the end of the day (it’s a little past 16:00) or more permanently, I’m not sure. I find a wine tasting room of the famous Puklavec family, but alas - it closed at 16:00. I’ll be back in the next couple of days…

My first shopping stop is at the Lidl supermarket on the outskirts of town. They have very little of what I need. More successful is a stop at the Spar supermarket nearby. Spar in this part of Europe is a more mainstream supermarket than the corner shop brand we’re used to seeing in the UK. They have most of what I need - including some cool looking local beers and wines. They don’t have BBQ fuel though, so I make a 3rd stop at a Slovenian supermarket chain called Mercator, who happily fulfil my fuel fantasies.

23:50
We have a lovely dinner, sitting outside under the vines. I knock up a simple, Greek marinade for some chicken thighs, and Kirsten pairs it with a Sicilian pasta dish that shows more than a passing resemblance to Puttanesca. Delish. The BBQ is a small version of the big Landmann I use at home, which makes cooking the bone-in chicken thighs a breeze. They’re crispy where they should be, juicy and unctuous in all the right places, and - crucially - cooked all the way through.

After dinner, Kirsten insists on some red wine, and grabs a bottle that she and Max bought in Italy, on their road-trip through to Slovenia. It’s wonderful. I’m a relative newbie with Italian wine, and struggle to know which are worth a punt, and which not. This one’s a banger. Bright acidity, full bodied and zippy fruit. I’d make a note of the winemaker’s / vineyard’s name, but there’s zero chance of me finding the same wine in the UK. Around 22:30, I suggest bed, but Kirsten’s thinking is slightly more diagonal than mine, and she proposes a final bottle of wine. It’s been ages since we sat up (fairly) late with too much wine, and set the world to rights - so I greedily acquiesce.

I stumble to bed a little before midnight, and Kirsten attempts to climb the narrow staircase to her room. This doesn’t go entirely to plan, and she falls down them. Thankfully uninjured.Read more