We leave our campsite on the outskirts of Lubbly-Jubbly mid morning and head for Velenje which has a castle and a couple of nearby lakes which look just the spot for a wild camp. En-route we pass through the countries beer making area Lasko where we find hops growing on every spare inch of ground.
we have noticed these structures rather like a high fence with a roof on,
they are called Kozolec and are a national symbol of rural Slovenia, they are made for drying hay and wheat more efficiently, and are sometimes elaborately decorated though these days more and more hay is stored in plastic leaving the roadside Kozolec for a more modern day use.
Arriving in Velenje we lunch first and then make the short uphill trek to the castle
which we according to our guidebook is fully intact and holds a selection of period furniture displays. The castle is deserted as we quietly make our way towards what appears to be a gift shop / ticket office, on entering, it is a step back in time to an early 1900’s general and hardware store, “Dober dan” says a male voice from inside another room, “Dober dan” we respond as the unkempt caretaker appears clutching bits of paper, after some exchanges in various languages we opt for English as our preferred method of conversation.
The man explains that he has to be able to speak at least six different languages to enable him to do his job which puts us well to shame.
He then goes on to explain that to attract visitors to the castle they have put on a number of displays and exhibits which if we were to pay 2 Euros 50 each we could visit all eleven of them, bargain !!
We assume at this point that we will be given a leaflet and left to get on with the visit, oh no, not here you don’t, we are guided through each room with a proud in- depth explanation of every exhibit, pausing occasionally when other visitors arrive at the castle as the caretaker/guide/ticket office/gift shop/cafe/toilet attendant rushes off to greet the new arrivals and start them off on their tour “wait at the end of the room, I’ll be back in a minute” he pleads as we try to look at objects without his broken English explanation. The displays include the reconstructions of a general store, a pub, an African art and mask collection,
an exhibition of items from the surrounding Salek valley between the 10th and 17th centuries, Baroque church art, How Velenje became a town, The Loize Perko gallery of paintings, Slovenian contemporary art, Saleska valley during World War 2, the Ciril Cesar sculpture collection and last but no means least a collection of mastodon bones.
As we near the end of our tour the guide has about five different groups under his care at various stages throughout the castle and on different floors, well out of breath and sweating profusely he opens the doors to our final display, the long awaited Mastodon collection, if you are unsure what one is,
then it is a predecessor to today’s elephants which lived about 2 million years ago,it had huge tusks for foraging and unlike mammoths they had no hair so were all killed off in the ice age, the remains of two were found when a road was being built on the outskirts of town in 1964.
Two hours later we leave the castle and head for the lakes to park up for the night, we are shocked to find that all the car parks have height restriction barriers on so we are unable to stay.
We consult our trusty bible of places to stop in Eastern Europe in a motor home purchased in Italy and in Italian, we find that there is a hotel in the nearby thermal spa town of Zrece that has facilities especially for us. On arrival we are surprised to find that the parking spaces available for us are in the middle of the car park behind the hotel which has at least two weddings going on in the grounds 50 metres away. All very bizarre, wedding couples having their photos taken as half naked people waltz passed after having had various parts of their bodies irrigated, young children running screeching like banshees as they slide down water slides into hot bath water and then there’s us, I’m filling the motor home water tank with a hose pipe from a nearby tap and Jo’s hoovering the van out as more wedding guests arrive in the car park being photographed clutching their gifts, we hope that they and their gifts all find the right wedding reception.
A very comical day.
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