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Sketches from an Antique Shop Bled A thin membrane of ice embraces the water of the lake that reflects a garland of snowy mountain peaks on a sunny morning - the patriarchs that keep watch over this image of paradise under Triglav over thousands of years like faithful guards. Bled, a place entranced by never ending romanticism, which during a summer afternoon discloses a view on the gracefully spread wings of swans in the sunset. The romanticism is there when we listen to the silence of falling snowflakes in the darkness of a winter evening or when a grey curtain of melancholic autumn raindrops brings back a memory, thought and silhouette from the past. Numerous talented and respected personalities enjoyed the beauty of this place. Amongst them we can discover the following: Valentin Vodnik enjoyed working here as did the Austrian poet Anastasius Grun and later Rudolf Baumbach - who wrote his remarkable epic about a Goldenhorn, while Janez Jalen with his literary work Jezero (The Lake) and a description of a Venetian night on the water left his legacy to Bled. A masterpiece of architecture is the Epos villa by the architect Jože Plečnik, while his contemporary Maks Fabiani reconstructed the Grimšce castle and built the remarkable Belar Villa above Vintgar. Plečnik's student, architect Anton Bitenc inspired new life to the castle on the cliff and the island in the middle of the lake. In a modest fashion, in a wooden cottage on 'Čukci' where owls nested, Matija Jama created his brilliant impressions of Bled between the years 1923 and 1925. Amongst the children of Bled he was known as the man on an old bicycle with a painting kit under his arm. It still rains, one image following the other, we pass by the house that is not there anymore or has changed its front with an unfulfilling desire to preserve the bygone on numerous occasions. In our memory we still bump into the mathematician from Bled, dr. Josip Plemelj, the prominent historian of pharmacy, professor Franc Minarik, the writer Ivo Andrič, or the 1965 PEN president Arthur Miller. These are all personalities whose spirits still inspire Bled as described in the book "Bled, our Bled" by the author Božo Benedik, the great authority on local history. Karin Košak |
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