Europe 2011 # 3

SLOVENIA-CROATIA-HUNGARY:  On Monday we left Slovenia after stopping for a visit to Ljubljana, the capital.  This is a lovely and very clean city of only about 300,000.  We started with a walking tour led by a local guide.  However, she seemed only interested in telling us about visits by the Pope and other important Catholics, so we were happy to escape and stop for lunch at a lovely cafe on the banks of the river.  Our waiter spoke accentless English and I asked him where he learned his English.  "In high school" was his response.  Later that evening we went into a pharmacy in Zagreb and Betty asked the pharmacist if she spoke English.  The woman was clearly insulted by such a stupid question.  What I am learning from this trip is that Shakespeare identified the wrong profession (lawyers) for extermination.  It should be officials from any departments of education (political or academic) in Canada.

ZAGREB:  Later on Monday we drove to the capital of Croatia.  This is also a nice, although unspectacular city of about 800,000.  Zagreb escaped the worst of the Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian war but the country is still recovering from a war that had 500,000 casualties.  As most of you may know the war was partly religious and partly economic and partly caused by centuries old hatreds.  Basically the Catholic Croatians fought with the Orthodox Serbians and the Orthodox Serbians fought with the Bosnians and people from Kosovo.

On Tuesday morning we did a walking tour of the city and then drove through the countryside to see Marshal Tito's birthplace (boring).  We then had lunch at a country restaurant set in a vineyard, and were served local specialties.  Perhaps the most interesting part of the meal was starting lunch with a large glass of honey brandy. 

THE OLD LAMPLIGHTER:  Those of you over 60 will remember the very romantic song "The old lamplighter".  Well in a small part of Zagreb's "upper town" the streets are still lit by gas streetlamps, and Betty and I spent some time tracking down the lamplighter.  We eventually found him.  Unfortunately he was young, unlike in the song, but he did at least have his girlfriend accompanying him as he walked the old streets lighting the lamps.  Later we had a nice meal in the center of the city accompanied by a spectacular wine (see below).

WINES OF CROATIA:  Croatia has a very good terroir but has suffered from communist rule and then the bitter war with the Serbs.   While in Croatia we had wine three times; once by buying a bottle at random in a corner store, and once as a house wine in the country restaurant.  Both of these wines were virtually undrinkable, but it is nice to know that there are wineries in the world that make wine as distasteful as many vintners in Nova Scotia.  However, Betty found an article on Croatian wine in a tourist magazine and it recommended that one should always order the Plavac Mali. The article suggested that the wine tasted something like Zinfandel.  In the restaurant last night I found a bottle (for about $ 30.) on the wine list.  It was absolutely superb and Betty supervised my pouring with great intensity.

BUDAPEST:  We just arrived in Budapest after driving across the flat farmland of much of Hungary.  We are now doing some laundry while waiting to join this evening's dinner cruise on the Danube.