Today I ventured into ‘Carniola country’ the Northern Slovenian city of Maribor. I’ve been here before but this was the first time with this blog in mind and I think the last time I visited was 2003 so it was nice to see improvements and changes since then as well as the wonderful old town and riverfront/ bridges again.
The old town with lovely old red roofs.
The old train bridge and the rolling hills surrounding the city and the picturesque Drava river pictured.
A just few hours is clearly not enough time to asses anything around here but it was sort of a re-acquaintance visit and a refreshing look at another large city in Slovenia and enjoy the friendship of those we encountered. We had a wonderful breaded pork steak (Wiener schnitzel) and fries (pomis) meal at the beautiful old Baroque themed “La Storia” restaurant and tatoria (cake shop) before exploring town and walking the old streets with this wonderful weather (+9 C degrees) for January, I really can’t complain.
I later had a delightful cup of coffee at the “Picasso” and talk with a friendly waitress that ended up being a Serb who fled Croatia with her parents during the war and now lives in Slovenia, we had a lot to talk about and great interchange of views on this area and times.
I stood in the town square and remembered reading in a history book once that in 1941 Hitler stood in this very town and declared “Make me this land German again”. Thank God he failed, this city is a very beautiful representation of Slovenia, it has its visible German and Baroque influences in art and organization but in a truly Slovenian way and got to be one of my favorite cites in Slovenia to visit.
This is the new Kolosej entertainment complex complete with cinema and bowling alley. It is kind of out of place with the rest of the riverfront but a modern example of the changing face of Slovenia’s urban areas, thankfully it is a little removed from the old walls and medieval watch towers where this city holds wonderful outdoor summer concerts and took this old unused spot to place this new symbol of the city’s progress here and what I think is a good balance for the city as a whole, while it is not the most charismatic of designs it does cut a nice reflection and a unique presence, it is directly across from the super-mall Europark too so there is a little commercial theme in that part of the river ‘down-stream’ from the old historical part of town.
Wonderful pictures! You should have dropped me a line and told me you were in town.