Packed up the bags this morning, loaded the car, dropped the hotel key in the return box, and headed out this morning on our way to Ljubljana, with a few stops planned along the way. Only one problem – I had booked the hotel for one more night, and didn’t have the AirBnB in Lubljana until Tuesday night. I didn’t realise this until about a half hour out of Maribor, when Lisa looked at our agenda. Whoops. Senior moment. No big deal though. Dropped a message to the hotel telling them of my boo-boo and confirming we would be back late afternoon to get a new key for the room!
Our plan for the drive to Ljubljana was to stop at a couple of sites about half an hour and 45 minutes down the road. So coming back after wasn’t really a problem. Slovenia is not a large country. First stop on the tour-de-jour was a Carthusian monastery, up in the hills south west of Maribor. The Žiče Charterhouse.
The monastery was first built around 1165. What remains has had extensive renovations, and much of the original buildings are long gone. It was a very peaceful and quiet visit, up in the mountains, with only a couple of tourists other than us.
Then it was off to storm the next castle – Celje Castle. About a 20 minute drive through the winding mountain roads (and another 10 or so on the freeway), we arrived at Celje, Slovenia’s third largest city (a close tie with Kranj, and both of them only have about 36,000 inhabitants). Looming above the town, across the river Savinja, is the Celje Castle. Google maps helpfully indicated a parking lot just below the castle, with what it said was a 10 minute trail walk up to the castle. Google also helpfully indicated that the parking lot at the top of mount, in front of the castle, “is very small, and it is not recommended to drive to the castle”. So we thought, sure we can do a ten minute walk up a trail.
Turns out Googles description of the trail should have been “a super steep gradient hike on loose gravel, with numerous switchbacks, that will take much longer than ten minutes, even for very fit, young people”. But we didn’t stop, and made it to the top, even if we were sweating profusely (at least the trail was in the forest, shaded. But still hot and humid!). The picture here does not do the gradient justice.
At the top we were rewarded with a very well preserved 12th century castle. There’s not a whole lot in the castle (other than a few dioramas of castle life, and the chamber of terror – with replica medieval torture devices). But the walk around the castle and the grounds was nice, and the views of the mountains and plains surrounding the castle, as well as the city of Celje just below, was fantastic. Also enjoyed a light lunch at the cafe.
After the castle we had a short drive into Celje to walk the old centre. It was dead quiet, with the cafes in the squares only having one or two people at each, and a few families walking though the main promenade. Kinda strange, but kinda nice that we haven’t experienced the mass tourists yet in Slovenia. Which was the plan all along. We’ll see how that holds up over the coming days.
Drove back to Maribor late in the afternoon, and picked up a new room key (I sheepishly made Lisa go into reception to get the key, so they couldn’t identify the dummy who doesn’t know how many days he paid for), walked for a meal, and now back at the hotel. For sure, tomorrow we hit the road for Ljubljana. I’m sure. I think…..
I have had that exact same senior moment!