I have no ćevapi regrets.
We sleep in past 07:00 and head for breakfast.
The waitress informs us there is a change to the way breakfast works this morning. My immediate thoughts are that these changes have been introduced to curb our ordering enthusiasm and I have a moment of embarrassment.
“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.”
Oscar Wilde
It turns out both the chefs have called in sick. We are served everything cold from the kitchen, the usual breads, cheeses and cured meats. Spreads and fruit. We are also served a bowl of granola each. This on its own is a beautiful breakfast, but someone from front of staff offers to cook us eggs. Of course we accept. He does an excellent job.
We order a few coffees and the man who cooked the eggs checks in on us. We engage in some small talk before he offers us a sparkling. I am shocked when Shell turns him down. Is there some confusion here?
I ask the man to clarify, did he actually mean sparkling wine?
He did, and Shell quickly changes her mind. It turns out she thought he was offering us sparkling water.
Wine for breakfast is a great concept. Sparkling. Obviously. I am not crass.
“In Europe then we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also as a great giver of happiness and well-being and delight. “
Ernest Hemmingway
The fog is thick again today. The train to Trieste is not until 15:25. I organise a late checkout. We had back to the room to read. In some ways Arguably is the perfect read. Short essays and articles that are the perfect size to digest. It helps that Hitchens is a genius.
We head out and buy some chocolates before going to Ferdinan for a coffee. There is not much to do but sit in the warm, drink coffee, and read. As I read through his essays, I am reminded of how brilliant Hitch was. His death was a huge loss, not just for his writing, but he remains one of the greatest orators of our time. Hitchens’ razor wit was remarkable. I could fill the blog with his quotes, but just now I read this comment regarding Gore Vidal, written for Vanity Fair in 2010.
In response to the souring relationship between the two, Gore had started accusing Hitch of claiming he was Gore’s heir, his dauphin or delfino. The opposite was the truth, Hitchens had an unprompted letter from Gore offering to nominate Hitchens as his living successor. Hitchens’ response was to write –
“I have no wish to commit literacy patricide, or to assassinate Vidal’s character – a character which appears, in any case, to have committed suicide”.
Christopher Hitchens
It is time to leave. We check out and walk to the train station. As far as train stations go, this is bland.
The train ride is comfortable, the scenery rolls past, snow capped mountains and farmland. I read between watching the landscape slide past. We cross the border and arrive at the first station it Italy. There are around six police on the Villa Opicina platform supported by two military with assault rifles. They board the train checking passports and documents. Over the next few minutes six passengers, mostly young men, are removed from the train and escorted away.
“A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in … And how many want out.”
Winston Churchill
At this point it occurs to me that we have left Slovenia. Ljubljana is a stunning city and as soon as I realised I had left, I wanted to go back.