Well it finally happened. It was inevitable yet it seemed that it might not happen. Christmas came and went, New Years, first 10, then 20 days of the year, it seemed the whole month would pass with Autumn-like weather. I even entertained the thought that perhaps I might not get to experience snow in Slovenia as I only have about two weeks left of my visit here. Well I went to bed last night watching the rain turn to snow and rain again, I wondered what it would be like tomorrow.
By morning it was official, the snow was everywhere and not stopping. Just yesterday I was walking in down town Ljubljana taking pictures after a lunch apointment and it was lightly sprinkling off and on and I had such a peasant time I walked for a few bus stops till Tivoli park just enjoying the weather. Now less then 24 hours later it had gone from Autumn to Winter, quite literally over night.
Some friends and I thought we’d save the snow till the weekend and so we jumped in a car and made off for what we thought would be one last dash for warmth and peace. The beautiful Slovenian coast immediately came to mind and was hardly an hour away, we could not wait and made a hasty retreat from the snow. Dreaming of an ice cream or cold drink and walk on the shoreline thinking of all these unfortunate souls in the rest of the country sliding around the roads or chained to a desk who were not fortunate enough to not have to go to work this day, we were on our way.
We made as far as Koper and still snow, warmer temperatures but snow on the hills, we thought cool this does not happen every day, someone might have even thought out loud that it would be cool if it was snowing on the coast, sure enough it did, and with gusto.
Everything seemed to be against us today, we had a blizzard in Portorož!
The locals seemed to take it in stride but for us unlucky “tourists” it got boring real fast and all our hopes of cheating the winter evaporated. It was interesting and somewhat historical, as this is the Mediterranean not the North Sea! Locals said that last time was maybe 5 years ago and not usually even that often or as hard as today. For awhile we were being blanketed by cornflake sized powder and wind.
While it was not our best day and we did not have a unique experience living life in the XYZone catching this interesting occasion, we were kicking ourselves a bit when we got back to Ljubljana and it was all clean roads and calm, but heck, you can’t have it all right?
I took this little film starting from a view of the Metropol Casino and around to the sea, snow covered cars and everything.
[...] In looking back on my time here, three months turned into nearly six, my SIT turned into Euros, hikes turned into history lessons, people I meet become friends, and an old house become a home. If that were not enough this unusual winter I even experienced green mountains and a snowy beach. [...]