In Maribor

October 2, 2021

Clean clothes again

The number one objective for our time in Maribor was to wash our clothes. After two weeks on the road almost everything we own is now in the dirty clothes bag. Close behind was to recuperate, plan the next few days and wonder around the town.

The first objective was managed very neatly by our host, Anita, allowing us to use their facility's washing machines. With our clothes washed and hung to dry, we walked down to the river and then returned to the main square in search of lunch. Although a bit cloudy and on the cooler side, we seated ourselves at a nice outdoor cafe and ordered the daily soup and a sandwich to share. The soup was described first as vegetable, then pumpkin and finally zucchini. Translation to English can be difficult but it was zucchini and delicious!

We had just started into our meal when our new friends from Germany passed by right in front of our table. Now the older section of Maribor is not large but the coincidence of continuing to randomly bump into Elfi and Michael was amazing. They joined us at our table as we finished our lunch. We swapped stories about our rides to Maribor the previous day. Somehow they had a slightly different route and missed the "bridge under construction" escapade. We all agreed that the ride from Podvelka should not be a major concern and Michael said that it was the best day of riding of their entire trip!

We really do not have much to report on the town of Maribor as others have been doing a better job describing the city that we could. We can offer that the centre is compact and easy to walk around. We did give Maribor a thorough look around as you can see a lot of the older centre in a few short hours. It was Saturday and many of the shops closed at 2 pm so the area seemed very quiet.

We returned to our hotel to plan our next steps. As the weather appears to be changing in a few days, it was important to understand our travel options. The internet in our room is non existent so we sat in the lobby and chatted with our host as she went about her many duties. Scott was looking through various resources to seek out options beyond Maribor and consulted other the Cycleblaze journals. We noticed Kathleen and Keith Classen's September 28, 2018 journal entry "Maribor - Up, Down, Up, Down, Up, Down...You Get the Idea!". They included a picture of our host in their journal. Scott showed Anita the picture below and she had a good laugh saying how much younger she looked then and recounted the circumstances of the picture being included in Cycleblaze.

And the Classens were right when they noted that, "Our lovely hostess Anita at the Hotel S. Quiet and right in the heart of the old town."

Anita. Twice made the Cycleblaze journals as host extraordinaire!

Finally, in the afternoon we fit in some time to have a nap!

For dinner, we returned to Baščaršija where we had dined the night before. The restaurant was quite busy and we waited about five minutes before being seated in exactly the same booth we had the previous night. We were looking over the menu and considering ordering our customary wine and beer when Elfi and Michael were being seated at a table adjacent to ours. Of course they joined us for dinner! We lingered over dinner with glasses of wine and entertaining conversation. This will be the last crossing of paths for now as they are catching a bike shuttle back to Toblach tomorrow, picking up their car and driving back to Germany. We wished them well and said good night.

Water feature in the main plaza in Maribor.

There was a big wine festival going on in Maribor this weekend and ample opportunity for wine tasting in this plaza.

Tomorrow will be a short ride as we continue to follow the Drava route and are off to the town of Ptuj. Our host Anita said Ptuj is pronounced by putting your lips together and with force, push out the sound of "putewee" in a spitting like fashion. Not sure that I will try that with anyone that I do not know!

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