Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
After a nice breakfast set out to bike the opposite direction around the lake. Before we got too far, came upon the Dali exhibit and decided to go and check it out. Turned out to be a very interesting exhibit and the gentleman running the exhibit gave us some background on the life of Dali and some of his art. There were three rooms covering different periods of his art. The first was when he was commissioned to illustrate the Bible for a wealthy patron. Had never been religious so he read the bible and these paintings were his interpretation. He called this period Bulletism because to get inspiration, he would fill a shotgun with paint and shoot it onto the canvas, hence bulletism!
The next room was works commissioned by the Italian government to celebrate Dante’s 500th birthday. This created a scandal because the Italian artists got angry because Dali was Spanish and they felt they could do just as well. Lost the commission but a wealthy Frenchman gave him the commission. He did all the work with wood cuts and it was very interesting to see how many woodcuts it took to create one picture.
The third part was his homage to De Vinci and his inventions and this was especially interesting because we had seen an exhibition in Venice covering these same inventions. The other interesting thing about Dali was that he never saved any of his work and so when they got ready to do an exhibition, they had to borrow all the works for the exhibit!
Biked on from exhibit and when we got to Preseven stopped and had a cold drink and enjoyed the scene in front of us. Decided to make reservations for dinner and enjoy a little splurge. Continued around the lake and found a place that rents sit on top kayaks! Decided to eat lunch there because they had seating right out over the lake and views of the church and also watch the people in the beach area and all the water activities. The food was nice as well.
Walked to to the lake and Preseven and got our front row seat. This is a prime people watching spot and nice atmosphere as well. There was a mix up on wine choice but got that straightened out and enjoyed our dinner but do realize you pay as much for the view as the meal.
The next day we biked to the kayak rental place and got a tandem sit on top and headed straight out to the church because it looked like it might start raining. Kind of a mad house when you land at the base of the church with oar boats tied off and trying to find a place to get out and pull your kayak out of the water but some young boys helped stabilize our docking which was much appreciated except that some oriental tourists decided to use our boat as a glamorous backdrop as we were trying to get out!
There are 99 steps to reach the top where you can enter the church or go up into the bell tower. Decided to have a cup of coffee and try some of the pastries because they did not serve a real lunch of any kind. We were sitting on the wall overlooking the lake, watching people, enjoying the views and the rain started but the tree we were sitting under protected us from the rain. The pastries were delicious especially the apricot chive cranberry tart that was hot right out of the oven!
Were going to brave the crowds heading up to the bell tower but mix up with ticket man and he would not let us change from cash to credit card so headed back down, kayaked back across and bicycled back to Renata’s where we began our packing up as the rain finally came down in earnest! Had dinner at a vegan place that was quite delicious and back to Renata’s and off to bed.
2025-05-22