It has been a week since I left Canada and I am finally over jet lag. Little by little we have got organized and settled into great accommodations. Joze lives in an apartment in a newly renovated house and I have my own apartment opposite his. There is one other apartment besides mine and Joze's. So it is a perfect arrangement, very practical and comfortable. During Tito's communist (socialist) Yugoslavia especially from 1965-1980, there was a building boom because the factories were busy, everybody had a job so they had money to spend. The owner of our renovated house made his money working in Germany in the 1970's. As an investment, he bought farm houses and barns and renovated them, One of the renovated barns is a small furniture workshop opposite our apartment. He also bought properties in the Doljenska region where he comes from originally. He built a house there and now lives there.
Renovations are done little by little so owners usually renovate the interior first but finish the exterior later. This is the case with our house which still needs to be finished on the outside. Houses here are built to last 500 years and are exceptionally well built! They use cement for foundations and cellars, cement bricks for ground floor while all other floors are built with clay bricks. The houses are reinforced by cement pillars with steel. All of the outside walls are covered with non inflammable insulation panels. The panels are covered with plaster and painted. So you can see how strongly built it is! No wood is used in the construction except for the roof.
The houses all look different, some are traditional and others have different styles, none are the same. In Marshal Tito's days, families decided to build three storey houses - the ground floor was for the parents, second floor for married sons and third floor for married daughters. They all have separate entrances and totally independent apartments.Nowadays, this is no longer the case and houses are single family dwellings. In the old days, farmers built houses with only a ground floor and attics high enough to walk in. Today, many of the farmers' descendants remodel the attics into apartments or additional rooms. In Tito's time, blue collar workers only worked from 6a.m. – 2p.m. Office and white collar workers worked from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. So they had free time to act as their own contractors recruiting friends and family to build their houses.
The village of Nadgorica was a farming community, 10 minutes drive to Ljubljana city centre, where houses were not nationalized under Tito's regime. Today there are few farmers but the great grandsons of those early farmers inherited their properties and are making the renovations. Only houses of 4 storeys or more in the city of Ljubljana were nationalized but later returned to rightful owners or their heirs. In Communist countries such as East Germany or the Czech Republic, all private properties were nationalized and not returned to owners without court battles. So some of the abandoned or delapidated houses here remind me very much of what I saw on my visits to East Germany and the Czech Republic when communists ruled.
It was very hot here (over 30 degrees) when I first arrived so we only ventured out to go shopping in Joze's air conditioned car and shop in air conditioned shops. Where we are staying it is about 25 degrees inside with no air conditioning needed because of the very thick walls. Finally it has cooled off so we went on a 2.5 km walk around the village and I was particularly interested in the houses and gardens. Today we went for a walk in the lovely nearby forest which has different trails. Below are some of the photos we took. We hope to go further afield next week visiting different places. My friend Mona who is married to a Croatian and lives in Oakville has invited us to visit them while they are in Croatia which is a 3 hour drive from here and my friend Marlene has invited us to Munich, only a 5 hour drive. That is the advantage of Slovenia, it is so close to other surrounding countries like Italy, Austria and Hungary.
There are many wildfires raging especially on the French Riviera (7 hours away) where 10,000 tourists had to be evacuated. Parts of Spain, Portugal and neighbouring Croatia,because of the severe drought everywhere, are on fire as well. Luckily, Slovenia has been spared.Tomorrow we are going to Smarjeske Toplice – try pronouncing that! It is a hot spring where you can have therapeutic treatments for whatever aches and pains you have as well as rehabilitation for sports imjuries and much more.
Check out links = https://www.terme-krka.com/us/en/home/ https://www.terme-krka.com/us/en/offer/health/
That's all for now and I hope you are all well and enjoying your summer!
Greetings from Tessa & Joze
My living
My living room, kitchen area in the background, bedroom near the kitchen and bathroom. Small but very comfortable and well-equipped, Only costs 200 euros a month!
Relaxing in Joze's apartment after our 2.5 km walk!
The owner's family house built during Tito's communist era where the owner's apartment is on the ground floor, his son's apartment is on the first floor and his daughter and her family live on the second floor.
This house was also built in communist period but is a typical single family dwelling which has 2 floors. Bedrooms are on first floor, living quarters on ground floor. Note attic is not finished because there is not enough space between the roof and attic.
Gardens do not have grass to mow! Here we see green beans and tomatoes mixed with flowers.
Hibiscus flowers are popular, so many different varieties of plants grow in fertile earth.
Hibiscus flowers which I thought were hollyhocks at First!
What fantastic vegetables!
Wide open fields surrounding the village in the background, great for walking!
Look how tall the corn is!
No houses are allowed on these fields surrounding the village.
Not sure what this crop is!
An abandoned house reminds me of what we saw in East Germany and Czechoslovakia during communist time. The territories of Czechoslovakia and Slovenia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1800's and the farmers in both countries built similar style houses.
Our neighbour, the furniture maker, was interested in buying this house He was ready to pay 50,000 Euros ($72.000 Canadian) but the greedy owner wants 150,000 Euros ($215,000 CAD)! So that was the end of that! To tear it down and build a new one would cost him an additional $350,000 and he would have to wait 3-5 years to complete the legal paperwork! Total cost about $500.000!
Renovated house next to abandoned one which could be sold to a buyer who would renovate it. No papers are needed to make renovations but the original design must be adhered to. If the house is torn down and a new one built from scratch it takes 2-3 years to get permission and valid papers and the buyer has to conform to strict building codes.
This is an old house beautifully renovated recently, adhering to the original design. All the houses in Slovenia have cement or stone at the bottom of the house to prevent water from heavy rain damaging the facade and insulation panels.
Another recently renovated house. To make the attic larger for additional rooms, Joze believes the owners cheated a little bit with the angle of the right side of the roof by adding a few lines of bricks on the right side making it higher than the left side. It is now a child's bedroom. Note the white stones on the bottom to prevent water damage.
Another recently renovated house where the attic was not changed.
This is a popular design built today. Everything is on one floor. Right wing are bedrooms and bathrooms, on the left are the living quarters. Two car garage is extra.
