In the morning we walked through the Ptuj Castle, which had room after beautiful room still full of their great furniture, heaters, tapestries, and murals on the walls. The chandelier looks like it came from Venice!
Upstairs there were some interesting festival masks and unimpressive paintings.
Downstairs there were a bunch of musical instruments and an armory. Also a not-so-impressive statue of St. George killing a pathetically tiny dragon.
There were also nice views over the town of Ptuj from the castle grounds.
Next we moved on to Zagreb, the Croatian capital, where we went to the City Museum to learn a bit about the country's history. After they booted us out because the museum was closing, we walked the Rick Steves walking circuit and admired the outsides of a variety of buildings. We were able to actually go into very few, as it was Sunday. We were surprised to find a bunch of tour buses outside of the cathedral (properly called, "The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saintly Kings Stephen and Ladislav"). It's not a particularly famous cathedral, nor is Zagreb much of a tourist destination. We think we found the answer when we went up behind the alter and found a body wearing a bishop's hat on display, being circled by praying people. This isn't mentioned in the guidebook, I think their bishop must have just died recently and the bus loads of people were coming to pay their respects.
Pressing onward from Zagreb, we wound our way south toward Plitvice Lakes National Park. Along the way we passed, well, many things, but notably we stopped to photograph a storks nest atop a telephone pole. In some parts of the world, these are very common, but it's quite a thing to see for us Americans. So that's where babies come from!
Our final photo stop was the little town of Slunj, which we saw out the window and had to turn around and explore! The town is perched incredibly, all but unbelievably, right on the cusp of a series of waterfalls. As one would expect, the main industry of the town was originally water power and you can still see some of the waterwheels. Also as one would expect, the main industry of the town is now tourism. So how is this possible? See the side topic on travertine.
Subscribe
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment