We're home. Now I need to update what happened once we left Macerata.

Thursday morning (the 11th), Filiberto drove us to the train station in Civitanova, about 30 minutes away. We could have taken the train from Macerata, but with 2 suitcases and 3 carry-ons, he wanted to make it easier for us (no need to transfer trains). We took the 9:30 a.m. train and arrived in Venice (Mestre) at about 2:30 p.m. The walk to the hotel was not far but I had to make several stops because of the bags. Once we dropped our luggage off at the hotel and headed back to the train station to head into
Venice, it seemed like the train station had gotten closer to the hotel :)

We were able to spend a few hours in Venice just walking around. Despite having been there before we still managed to see things we hadn't before, such as a visit to the Church of San Geremia where the remains of Saint Lucy are kept. We also visited both the old and new ghetto. Lighrt rain - no pictures.

We returned to our hotel (we were very happy with it) to meet up with Martin and Mary Catherine, who had driven down from France that day. We went out for a late dinner then prepared for the next day.

On Friday, we drove to Slovenia. Martin was pretty tired of driving highways, having spent much of the previous day in bumper-to-bumper traffic, so the three of them "conspired" to take back roads to our hotel in Slovenia. We went on some mountain roads that I would NOT recommend. What Michelin said should take 3 hours to reach took us 5. But, we were in no rush, and we did see some beautiful country, but I sure was nervous for much of the ride. Kim took the video - despite Martin's excellent and safe driving, I was holding on.

We arrived at our hotel about 2 p.m. but the desk wasn't staffed until 3, so we decided to get something to eat. Found a local gostilna (restaurant) and had authentic local fare. Slovenia is a beautiful country that we fell in love with when I did my 1995 Fulbright and have returned to multiple times since. I was excited to show it to Martin and Mary Catherine. The structure to the left is a hay rack, used for drying. Of course it's not hay season, so the slats were empty.

As I have mentioned so many other times, pictures just won't give you a good idea of the place. You really have to see it.

On Saturday we drove down to Ljubljana, the capital, about an hour from our hotel. It was a glorious morning. The sun came out and the place was crawling with tourists. I heard lots of English speakers, but Italian, German, Spanish an Asian language (sorry - I can't tell Mandarin from Korean or Japanese) and an Eastern European language (Czech or Romainian, probably).

Ljubljana has done something great recently. They turned several blocks around the center of town into a pedestrian area - no cars. It was fabulous to just walk around.

After sightseeing there was business to attend to. Kim and I needed to get back to Mestre on Monday to catch a train to Milan to get our plane on Tuesday. At the train station I had a big shock. Only one train per day to Mestre - leaving at 2:22 a.m. Looked into renting a car from Ljubljana and leaving it at the Milan airport - that would incur a 350 Euro drop fee (over $500). There was a bus that left Ljubljana at 8:15 a.m.,

and Martin told us he wouldn't mind taking us even at that early hour, so we bought two tickets.

One very important agenda item for the day was a trip to Kamnik, about 30 minutes north of Ljubljana, to visit two friends, both former students from my Fulbright.

Helena just bought a brand new flat and was very active in designing a lot of the options, such as the layout of the kitchen. In addition to having been my student in 1995, Helena and her sister Andreja came to stay with us for three weeks when we lived back in Ames, then Helena made another solo visit to Muncie for a couple of weeks (she jokingly asked when we were moving so she could see another part of the US). In addition, it is Helena's grandfather's farmhouse where we have been hosted on two previous visits. Her family lives in Ilirska Bistrica, about an hour south of Ljubljana. Since Helena works in Lju, the

commute was very tough on her. She would have bought in Lju, but the porices are ridiculous. Every multinational corporation that wants a presence in Slovenia buys there and have driven the rates through the roof. So Helena got a brand new place in Kamnik. It's very nice - two bedrooms, a large balcony and underground parking. As you can see from the photo, she prepared a meal for us. She's quite a cook. Kim continued to pressure Helena with personal questions about her love life, but she expertly side-stepped them.

After our visit with Helena, we went just a short distance in Kamnik to visit Dragana and her daughter Tamara. Dragana's husband Ilija happened to be in the US at a conference so we didn't get to see him, but we had spent several days with them at the end of January when they drove down to visit us in Macerata. Dragana had been out that very day looking at a pre-fab home that had been built nearby. They're thinking about building a "duplex" sort of home - not uncommon in Italy or Slovenia where the price of land is so high. You can put two families on less land but still have something that is a house rather than a flat.

We drove back to Bohinj and looked for a place to eat. The restaurant associated with our hotel (in the neighboring village) was entirely reserved for a party. We drove around a little bit, then almost by accident came upon a place that we all thought was great. It was filled with locals, although during season the tourists must overrun it (the menu, as many in Slovenia, was in 4 languages). The singing you hear on the video below is from the people in the back room who had obviously been there for a while.

Our hotel was actually apartments located in Triglav National Park. We began our day Sunday by exploring the area around us. Kim and Mary Catherine were quite taken by this part of the woods. Again, the picture doesn't do it justice, but the combination of the leafless trees, white rocks and green moss growing on them almost looked like a surrealist painting.

As you might imagine, being in the mountains there are plenty of quick-moving waters, in the form of rivers, brooks, creeks, waterfalls - you name it. Of course the lake itself is fed by the mountain runoff.

The lake is fantastic. It's very clean and while there are lots of rentals nearby (ours was about 500 meters from the lake), none are actually ON the lake, keeping it rather natural. Kim shot this video to show the waterline is not discernable because it's so clean.

Kim took this picture after our visit to the lake. Martin was rather proud of his Renault Kangoo - rather large by European car standards. Fortunate, too, since Kim and I had all our luggage, in addition to the four of us.

We then went to Skofia Loka, between Bohinj and Ljubljana and visited a great museum there, walked around town and had another great, local meal.

I've been at this for hours, so no more pictures. I just want to tell the story of getting home.

Monday morning we left Bohinj at 6:15 to make our 8:15 bus in Lju. I knew that with traffic it would take more than an hour, so I wanted to be on the safe side. It's a good thing I did. We made it to the bus just in time. I was so nervous (are you surprised?) as it got closer and closer to the time. Martin thought we'd have time to sit and have coffee but we jumped out, grabbed our bags and waved. I was so relieved. I don't know what we would have done had we missed the bus (probably paid the $500 for a car).

The bus to Mestre felt almost middle-eastern. The music played on the radio sounded that way, and a number of the passengers were neither Slovene nor Italian - probably Albanian or Romanian. We arrived at Mestre at 11 a.m.

The next train to Milan (11:30) had no reserved seating, so we opted for the 12:03 (less hassle with luggage that way). That gave us time to eat. We had our first American fast food in 100 days (McDonald's) at the train station. I don't feel guilty. It was convenient.

Our train got into downtown Milan at 3 p.m. We then took a shuttle bus that got us to the airport at 4 p.m. The driver honked at every car that got in the lane in front of us. How dare they? He was on a mission, and drove like it.

Our choice was to kill 2 hours at the airport for our free hotel shuttle or spend approximately $30 on a cab. Guess which I chose. It wasn't too hard to kill time. Our shuttle driver got us to the hotel quickly and we never left the room. Showered, Kim reorgnaized the bags and we watched satellite TV.

The next morning we ate breakfast, shuttled back to the airport, then had fabulously uneventful travel from then on. Our Milan - Philly flight was less than half full so we could spread out. We did have to get our bags and go through customs, but that went smoothly and we had time. Philly to Chicago was packed but on time. In Chicago we had time to grab a sandwich before our Chicago-Indy flight. Small plane (70 seater) with every seat filled, but we were only in the air 30 minutes. From the time we left Bohinj, it was 46 hours to get home.