Some readers of this blog will be familiar with the Traveling Salesman Problem: Given any set of points, what is the shortest path to follow that will visit all of the points? This is pretty easy for a few points, but gets quickly difficult as we add more. Ants are good at solving this problem - they leave trails of pheremones on their paths and eventually the collective efforts of the whole ant colony will find the right path. Not bad for animals with no real brain. Train ticket agents in Budapest, on the other hand, do in theory have a brain. But, it appears, they are no good at the TSP.
Despite my repeated objections, my not-so-friendly ticket agent insisted that the only way for me to get to my destination in Slovenia was to travel through Zagreb. This is akin to travelling from Vancouver to Winnipeg via Toronto. Thankfully, I like trains, so the journey wasn't so bad. And I got to get my passport stamped five times.
Finally, I did arrive at my destination - a small town on the banks of the Drava river called Ptuj. Ptuj is about as picturesque as it gets. Red roofed buildings are nestled between the river's edge and a central hill, atop of which sits a striking and terribly photogenic castle. Rolling green hills in the distance add to the general feeling that you are walking through a fairy tale. I stayed two nights here, at the simply incredible Krapsa Guesthouse, where the mother-and-daughter hosts are the dictionary definition of hospitable. Slovenia is an incredible value - $20/night at the guesthouse, meals for about $6 and 0.5 litres of the local beer (Zlatorog) for about $2.50.
I'd stay here for a week, but the Adriatic calls, and I am going to stay a few nights in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana on my way to the coast. I'm going to upload a few photos to my Flickr photo sets, then enjoy some time in the sun before I catch my train. Domer Dan!
