Sežana, Lipica & Divača

Thursday 19 September

A bit of cloud early and then it brightened into the most beautiful morning: sun out, bright blue sky. We had breakfast of müesli and fruit outside in the sun.

I was away and on the bike about 9.20 a.m. and this time My Friend followed. He firstly had to extricate himself out of the tight laneway leading out of the castle complex!

We arrived in Sežana before 10.30 a.m. (only a 20 km ride I think: undulating quiet roads to Polje past vineyards then onto the busier 455 into Sežana).

We had planned to do the botanic gardens here but I recalled reading something about there being a training session at 11 a.m. at the Lipica horse stud (the 2nd of only two scheduled for the day) and the signs leading into Sežana indicated it was only 8 kms away so I realised that if we "moved it", it was possible to make this.

I tossed the bike into the car and we whizzed off to Lipica. Indeed my recollection was correct, and at 11 a.m. we were installed in the training hall where we spent a fascinating 40 minutes watching the horses being taken through their paces. A man by the name of Boris came over and gave us a run-down on how it all worked and what was going on. He spent a good 15 or 20 minutes with us, which was nice.

I am not really a "horse person" and had thought I might even give Lipica "a miss" when I was planning this trip. I had visited the Spanish Riding School in Vienna 35 years ago and was somewhat underwhelmed back then. But this turned out to be be very interesting. Making it in time for the training session turned out to be a real bonus, as our entry for the guided tour included this session.

This stud farm is where all stud farms started from. It is the original, founded in 1580 by Austrian Archduke Charles. Horses from here used to be sent to the school in Vienna. It is home to about 400 Lipizzaner horses. The original Karst horses of this region were bred with Spanish, Italian and Arabian horses & these became the foundation of the Lipizzaner breed. Despite interruptions due to wars and political changes, the breeding program has been preserved to this day.

The weather was really nice and we enjoyed the tour which took us to the foals and the stalls where the stallions are kept.

We spent a few hours here and then drove the 30 kms or so to Hrastovlje which I was very keen to see! We drove for the first time on a Slovenian freeway - incredible infrastructure stretching as an overpass for kilometres over a valley and then through a tunnel over 2 kms long! We even slipped over the border into Italy for a few minutes and back again - and we could see Trieste over on the coast in the distance.

Fantastic views! And the sun was shining as we buzzed along in our crappy car (bonus: it fits the bike in the back and it has so many scratches we don't have to really worry about damaging the car!).

In this little town of Hrastovlje there is a 12th century Church of the Holy Trinity adorned with many preserved medieval frescoes.

It is most famous for its "Dance of Death" fresco. Also, there are several biblical scenes (the twelve Apostles, the Holy Trinity, the Three Magi, the creation of the world, the Passion, etc.

I thought I may have to ring someone when we arrived to let us in, but we were lucky with our timing - there was a bus tour when we arrived and when they left, we popped in and got an English tour with the volunteer lady there.

Back along the freeway, we went to Sežana to visit the botanical gardens there that I had originally planned to stop at this morning before the Lipica plan took over. We had a coffee in town before setting out to find them. They were nice, but not the greatest thing in the world so we departed for our final destination today: Divača. My Friend's photo of the gardens:

Divača's ony claim to fame is the nearby Škocjan Caves but we had already decided to give these a miss as we had done the caves in Postojna which were great and these ones are apparently more strenuous anyway. Anyway, we have had a full day and are now enjoying a drink at our very pleasant hotel.

The clouds are rolling in. We will go to dinner soon.

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Dinner was a delicious pizza in a local pizzeria recommended by Tripadvisor. It was cooked in a wood-fired oven and the place was packed with locals; I also had another glass of the local red Teran red wine - very good! (and they don't export any of this stuff!).