Kamnik - Saturday

We are staying at the Pri Cesarju in Kamnik, named thus because Emperor Franz Jozef allegedly stayed here in 1883, visiting from Vienna, I guess.  Franz Jozef, as you may recall, was the uncle of Franz Ferdinand whose death by the Serbian fellow started WWI.  FJ did not have a happy life--first his brother was executed, then his son committed suicide (after killing his girlfriend), then nephew FF was assassinated, then his wife was assassinated.  He didn't seem all that bothered by his nephew's death, though.  They had never got on so after FF was killed, FJ said it was a relief because he was sure things would get better without him.  This was in 1914.......

To top it all off, Emperor Franz Jozef had to sleep on this rock hard bed at the Pri Cesaru when he visited Kamnik.  We had such good luck on our first three accommodations--well, our luck ended.  Hard bed, small sink (it's like washing your hands in a teacup), noisy traffic outside the window, really annoying American in the next room--we're turning into complaining American tourists.

But we had a wonderful day.  Found a great taxi driver who drove us to the next town to the Volcji Potok Arboretum--slovenia's largest horticultural park dating from 1882.  The bus schedule was described in our travel book as "bizarre, and, quite frankly, useless" and that was right on.  The bus goes out there at 4 pm and returns at 9 am.  But there's no place to stay overnight.  So we hired Alma to take us there in her taxi.  What a find!  She's turned into our private tour guide.  More about her tomorrow.

We got back to Kamnik in time for the accordion extravaganza on the Gravni Trg bandstand.  Wow!!!

On the way home we did our daily stupid thing.  It was raining (again).  We stopped in a store and put our umbrellas in the umbrella stand that sits by the front door of every business in Slovenia.  When we came out, I pulled my umbrella out of the stand and it was full of water and crud.  Water poured out all over the floor.  We had put our umbrellas in the doggy dish!

Top photo:  the French garden at the arboretum
Bottom photo: Accordion band playing during Kamnik's fall festival