Centered in Ljubljana

One of the nice features of the Smith College Alumnae Chorus’s tour of Slovenia was that we stayed for the whole week in Ljubljana in the City Hotel, just on the edge of the (mostly) pedestrian-only Old City. It was nice to be able to settle into our hotel rooms and walk to rehearsals, meals, shops, etc. in the Old City, only using our buses when we ventured further afield for sight-seeing or singing.

Because I needed to be in rehearsal, B had the chance to do more exploring than I did. I happily delegated picture-taking to him and want to share a few photos of places he/we visited.

One of the really nice features of our hotel rooms were that they had large murals of black and white photographs of Ljubljana by Slovenian photographer Žiga Koritnik. Here is the one in our room:

While walking around the city, B found the exact location and took this photo, with the river walls in the foreground and the castle on the hill above:

While I did get to go to the castle on the hill by funicular,

B walked up several times, enabling him to get some shots of the city and the Alps beyond:

And a close-up of the castle clocktower, flying the flags of Slovenia and Ljubljana:

The Ljubljanica River flows through the heart of the Old City:

where it is crossed by many bridges, including the Triple Bridges:

One of the most famous of the bridges is the Dragon Bridge, guarded by this fellow:

with the help of some griffins:

Every day in the Old City, there are farmers and artisans selling their wares from shaded booths:

And sometimes, just the walkway itself is interesting:

 

 

SoCS: floods

Our news here in the US is filled with coverage of the historic floods in the Plains and Midwest. Floodwaters have breached levees and overflowed banks, causing flooding for several miles on either side of multiple rivers. Many roads and bridges have been washed out. Much of the affected land is farmland and many farmers have lost livestock and crops, as well as equipment and buildings.

I live near the Susquehanna River near the NY/PA border. We are lucky this year that we haven’t had much snow, so we will probably be spared the spring snowmelt plus storm flooding. However, we are not immune to floods, having suffered two record floods in recent years. With the changes in weather patterns brought about by our changing climate, we will certainly have another record flood or very severe flood in the future. We just don’t know when.

For many years, we have carried flood insurance on our home. We are not immediately near the Susquehanna, but live near a creek that feeds into it. There is a floodwall behind our house because when the Susquehanna floods, the water back up into the creek. In the 2011 flood, the water came within inches of overtopping the flood wall.

We are lucky that we have never had to collect on our flood insurance. If the worst happens, we may have to either sell out our property or raise our home above flood level.

I’m hoping it won’t come to that, but only time – and storms – will tell.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is to write about the subject of the last piece of (physical) mail we received. In my case, it was our flood insurance bill. To find out how to join in the fun, visit Linda’s site here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/03/22/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-23-19/ 

One-Liner Wednesday: live like the river

“I would love to live like a river flows….carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
~ John O’Donohue

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/02/10/one-liner-wednesday-a-disco/