Happy Road 69, Matic!

• Manja Maksimovič

I wish you all the gardens and all the beers and all the roads and all the languages and all the poems and all the harmonicas in this world.

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While my sister is having a beer + pizza party with you back in Ljubljana, our city of birth, I’m here in rainy Tuscany which you know well, raising a glass of your favourite Ichnusa non filtrata (at least in my mind until I buy some for real).

Here is a look back at the past year. I was lucky to spend a month and a half in Slovenia in the summer and enjoy your garden in Ljubljana, even while you were in another garden, that of my parents’ house in Piran.

And then in September you came over here for two weeks and so are officially the last visitor that we had.

Let’s have a look at all this in pictures.

  • You know this wall well. You pass it to reach your garden.
  • This is a most excellent garden.
  • Every year you let us have our card tournament here.
  • Japanese maple and wild vines.
  • Your sister – who is by amazing coincidence also my mother – is making the garden even prettier.
  • Whereas bestia makes it louder.
  • But you spent much of the summer in another garden, in Piran on the coast, looking at the kiwis.
  • Like this.
  • You stayed away from this corner since they advertise the wrong beer.
  • This is better. Your Union, while your sister is having an Aperol spritz.
  • And then in early September you drove all the way here. In Porto Ercole.
  • You brought me this bag made by a friend and you took this photo.
  • Your favourite bar, with a very good gelato too.
  • Then we went to Tarquinia on a door hunt. This one is on sale.
  • We had Flavia with us to make it even better.
  • This part of town is called Porta di Castello.
  • Tired and thirsty in front of the church Santa Maria di Castello.
  • Empty table? No good.
  • Much better.
  • Next was the Santa Severa castle which houses a youth hostel and a museum.
  • We waited for the sunset.
  • On your last day here we had a walk across the Orbetello lagoon.
  • The light was golden but there were no birds around.
  • We cruised Porto Santo Stefano for a parking space but everything was full and we had to park far.
  • And then I took you to see this, “Beloved space” installation. The last time I was there it was gone.

Dear uncle, I hope you can come back this year and maybe take me to Slovenia again. Cin cin, na zdravje and cheers in all your present and future languages!

22 thoughts on “Happy Road 69, Matic!”

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