On Saturday we wanted to visit Bistra, a former Carthusian monastery, that is now the Technical Museum of Slovenia. Bistra is located in a very rural environment along the marshes south-west of Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, only about 90 minutes by car from home. We had bad luck though, the museum is closed until March.
Being already there, we decided to drive a little further along the road towards Borovnica, and from there a forest road up a mountain and to a church that we saw on the map.
And I’m glad we did! In that forest I have seen more Christmas Roses than before in my whole life altogether (Hey Flo, I found out all by myself!). The mountain is sprinkled with flowers. The Image of the Day and this image were both shot there, both with the Sigma 70/2.8 at f2.8. It was an extremely warm weekend with temperatures up to 20 degrees Celsius, and for the Image of the Day I actually lay on the ground, wearing Jeans and T-Shirt.
On top of the mountain there was actually a village and sure enough this church. Churches on Mountains and hills, that’s a very common thing in Slovenia, and much more apparent than in every other European region that I’ve seen so far. This is the only image taken with the Nikon 18-200 VR at 18mm. The foreground tempted me π
Borovnica is hardly more than a big village with some old industry. I don’t know what they produce, but at least I took this image of some industrial architecture. It does not look totally deserted in Borovnica, but also not very lively either.
We took our way back along a completely straight, narrow street through the marshes, parallel to the river Ljubljanica. Every once in a while a way goes right or left, many of them like this one with beautiful trees.
Shortly before you reach Ljubljana, the road leads through the long stretched village ?rna vas (Black Village, after the black earth in the marshes) with its famous church of St. Michael, built by the most important architect of Slovenia, JoΕΎe Ple?nik. We were not inside because it was already late, but we will certainly come back.
It was a warm day, but not clear at all. The air was full of haze, and this hazy sundown concludes our little trip to Slovenia.
The Song of the Day is “Where The Wild Roses Grow” by Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue, from the 1996 album “Murder Ballads”. See the video on YouTube.
mcmurma (2008-02-28)
Hi Andreas,
Great images, all of them, but especially the views of the forest in your part of the world. It always amazes me how similar, and yet, how different they can appear from those in my area. Also like the perspective and DOF that the 70mm gives you. The images from it remind me a lot of those from my 90mm. Which I suppose is not surprising, given that they are both macro lenses with similar characteristics.
Cheers,
Michael
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