Seeing old things.

And it just occurred to me that I could very well be talking about what I see in the mirror every morning.  At least it’s kind of blurry until I put my glasses on.  Not recommended.  You know what else is not recommended?  Those big magnifying mirror thingies they have in hotel rooms.  There was one in the bathroom at the Sava Golf Hotel in Bled.   Man,  that was a whole world of discoveries.  We won’t talk about it.

 

Often when we think of old things in Europe,  it’s along the lines of architecture or art.   Or maybe old buildings.  The Alamo or the little dust-up that went on there by comparison,  is fairly recent.   Heck,  that was only back in 1836.  And even though the Alamo was built in 1793, and is now a museum,  there are folks here living in buildings that are older.   Don’t get your panties in a knot.  I’m just pointing these things out.  We got some seriously old sh*t over here.

 

Since it’s never a bad thing to see something older than one’s own face in the  mirror,  we thought we’d stop along the way through Slovenia this time to see the ‘Stara trta’,  or ‘Old Vine’.

 

 

If you went to that Facebook page yesterday,  you may have seen a couple pictures.

The thing is,  I have to sheepishly admit that,  we’ve driven past Maribor a FEW times,  (lost count) and never had a clue that there was the world’s oldest grapevine in town.   On one of the first occasions,  we even forgot to turn off the GPS and ended up actually driving through town,  and still had no clue.   That’s the other thing about going to certain countries in Europe,  the Navigation system in the car needs to be updated,  and in some places it’s best to turn it off if logic is telling you to follow the signs to Ljubljana for example,  and the nice lady is telling you to get of the road,  because she thinks it hasn’t been built yet.  Just one of those learning things.  She doesn’t ALWAYS know the way.  Just saying.

Oh,  and it’s “Maribor”,  not “Marlboro”.   Some kind of Freudian “thinking I’d like a smoke”  sort of slip going on there.  Not mentioning any names.

 

Saying it’s the “world’s oldest”  is a bit bold I suppose,  but the folks from Guinness seem to think so,  as there has been some testing done along the lines of DNA and such to verify this claim.   OK then.   It looked pretty old to me.

So are we going to go back?   Well,  no.   There’s not much else to see,  except the odd tourist who wanders up,  looks at the foliage, reads the signs and wanders off again. 

 

 

Hey,  it’s a grape vine,  not an amusement park.

 

We made a proper visit of it by having our lunch.   There was a bench over by the river.

Saw a mating pair of swans with two signets.   Big whoop.  They left us alone,  which is my preferred way to view any wildlife.

 

Speaking of excitement at the amusement park, did you read about this one?

Photo credit goes to Chris Riley / Times-Herald / AP

 

This is reason number 47 why I no longer go on rides.

Used to have to suck it up and go on with the kids when they were too young to go by themselves.  Thankfully they grew up.

These brave (foolish?)  souls were stuck up there for a couple hours.  Roughly 150 feet up.   That’s a ways.  No thanks.

There was one picture I saw of some water being delivered.  I think I’d need a couple Valium to go with it.

Here’s a link to the article if you’re remotely interested.   Thought I’d throw it in there to offset the boredom generated by watching grapes grow.  That’s right up there with watching paint dry.

And that’s all I got.

It’s a fine day weather wise here in Wienerland.  Hope yours is just as nice.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

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