Today was a really low-key day, man, this is a different way of vacationing, that’s for sure. We had our usual coffee breakfast, then headed out to see a couple of interesting churches and eat at a restaurant, all near the three-countries border (Austria, Hungary, Slovenia). The first church was a new version built over an older one. It was notable for being designed by a famous Slovenian architect, Jozsef Plecnik. He had more free reign than usual, and made some interesting design decisions. These included putting plateware on the ceiling and pottery on the altar. These are crafts the area was known for. The black marble columns symbolized the earth, which the people were closely tied to. Most of the craftsmen have long since gone to Austria or Germany for work. But I like this church much better than some others I’ve seen.
Lunch was a leisurely 3-hour affair, starting with pear brandy, then: home-made sausages, lard and smoked-ham dip, home-made bread, fresh porcini and chanterelle mushrooms with smoked goose liver, fresh venison with turnip, parsley root, and carrot sauce with carmelized onions and a cranberry marmalade-apricot dipping sauce, a local Pinot, and finishing with flourless date-walnut cake with light chocolate frosting and whipped cream. Really, this place, run by one woman, her son, and one waitress, should be in Lonely Planet or something.
Dragging ourselves back to the car, we went to the nearby attraction for this area, the “Rotund Church”. This is a small chapel, actually, built in the shape of one of those turrets on a Victorian home. Inside there was seating in the ten niches carved into the walls, plus some old paintings on the ceiling, with some on the walls. One of the paintings, of the Last Supper, is one of the few existing paintings anywhere to show two female apostles (This is a whole ‘nother topic.) The church was constructed around 1400, then remodeled and restored. Now, as opposed to some other churches, where I feel the natural spirit of the place has been destroyed, you could feel something about this place. You don’t have to buy into the Christian thing to know that something special, beyond any particular religion, was going on here, on a subtle level.
We returned via the ice cream place we’d visited a couple of times this week. We talked some about the dissolution of society among young people, here in Slovenia and in Austria and Germany. They don’t really have a future, have gotten into drugs and heavy metal, with lyrics about putting people against the wall and shooting them, black shirts, and then there’s the whole skinhead movement as well. Frankly, this doesn’t sound too different from the US subcultures, but I believe it’s perceived as more dangerous here due to the Nazi history of the area. And in the US, we still have the illusion of hope for a better world. I have to say that, as one example, reading how difficult it is for people in the US to get that everyone having health care should be a right and not based on any profit by anyone whatsoever, even with Obama’s pathetically watered down version of universal health care, this Balkan cynicism feels more accurate to me at the moment. I still will do my work with kids, and keep a vision of a better world, but I don’t think I have many (if any) illusions yet about the odds against us making it as a more evolved species, treating the gift we’ve been given as a species with love and care, and protecting our Earth home. Where’s that asteroid when we need it?!
