We spent the entire day just wandering around this beautiful town. In the morning we walked through a "modern" neighborhood of homes --probably none over 100 years old. The most striking thing about Slovenia to me is the number of flowers. There are flower boxes hanging out of almost every window. And the yards in this neighborhood! Every inch is packed with roses, hydrangeas, begonias, you name it. But mostly roses of every color. The homes are colorful, too. Most are stucco painted in pastel colors. Homes advertised in the real estate office go for around $100 to $200,000.
We had a tasty lunch at an outdoor cafe on Slovenski Trg. Trg means Square. I had to ask how to pronounce "Trg." Would it be trig or trag or trog? No, they tell me it's "truck." (Someone really needs to send them some vowels.). They didn't have an English menu and the waitress didn't speak English so it was a surprise lunch but turned out to be chicken noodle soup and mixed salad. I asked for a dark beer but couldn't get that across, so I got a Slovenian lager, Lasko, which is my new fav.
After lunch we explored the old town--and old it is. Ptuj, like Ljubljana, was started by the Romans 2000 years ago. It also has been ruled by everybody and their uncle but made it through. The old town is very compact, with narrow cobbled streets, colorful very old buildings in some kind of style I don't know (baroque?) but I find it all charming and of course full of flowers.
We actually have a TV so are collapsed in front of it tonight waiting for the US vs Slovenia basketball game to start. It some kind of big European tournament. They are really big on basketball here. Surprisingly, basketball is their number one spectator sport.
Pictures: top-old town. Bottom-typical home and garden
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