Ljubljana, Beloved

This will likely be my last post, although our story of A Forest in Slovenia is not yet over. I've spent the last few days in Ljubljana trying to wrap up this visit taking photographs and making memories of this beautiful land and its wonderful people. Virtually everyone I've met has been interesting, from Gorazd, an out-of-work economist from the old communist system, to the boat captain on the Ljubljanica river.

I've been back to Postojna once this week to try to complete the sale of the forest to our neighbor and caretaker, Albreht Rajko. But unfortunately the Slovene system has thrown us yet another curve ball and I will have to do more paperwork back home before I can complete the transaction by mail later this summer.

This week the weather has gone from super-hot and humid to cooler (but still uncomfortably warm) with thunder, lightning and heavy rain! Before the weather turned, I had an opportunity to take a short cruise on the Ljubljanica - the river that winds its Seine-like way through the middle of Ljubljana.

These photos are what I saw along the way. And just so you know, Ljubljana is almost the same spelling as the Slovene word for "beloved" which is ljubljena. Now you know!

Another Family Day

Yesterday I took the bus from Ljubljana to Logatec to meet Helena, Elka and Katja for a day of exploring family connections. They met me at the bus station and we piled into Katja's minivan and headed to Helena's little house for refreshments and to meet Helena's sons Rok and Luka. They are gorgeous young men and speak great English so we had a nice conversation. Katja's two daughters, Ana and Meta were there, son Martin, and their father, Matej also joined us for a few minutes on his way to help a friend build a house. How are these people related to us? Louise (Lojska) had a sister named Jožefa that remained in Slovenia. Jožefa's son Jakob was Elka and Helena's father. So we are all cousins. One of the things we discussed was that several of us have music in common. Ana and Meta love to sing and Ana plays the piano. Luka plays clarinet and bass and Rok plays guitar. We think the music gene came through Louise's family.

We sat outside on Helena's terrace since it was already very hot by 11:30am. Fortunately there was a stiff breeze to give us a little relief. After some šnaps, cookies, coffee and juice, we cleared the table and piled back in the car and set off to visit another relative in Logatec, Mojca Tomazin. Mojca and her family are relatives on the Urbas side, so while they are related to me, they are not related to Elka and Helena. Fortunately, Elka and Helena are enjoying this discovery of our family heritage as much as I am and are generously helping me turn over as many stones as possible!

We arrived at Mojca's place, a kind of suburban farm setting, on the edge of town. I had been there three years ago and it seemed the same. A large house and two barns creating a central courtyard for parking cars and other outdoor tasks. Inside, we met Mojca and her husband Jože, son Gregor, daughters Mateja and Andreja, and Andreja's husband Kristjan. Kristjan spoke great English, so he gave Katja a break and acted as my translator. Katja has had a bad bronchitis over the past week, and all this driving, talking, translating and mothering of Ana and Meta is really taxing her energy. Anyway, Kristjan helped me understand the discussion that ensued in Mojca's kitchen over the photos of my 1970 visit to Slovenia plus the genealogy notes that Mojca took when her aunt Anica (Andy's niece) died in the mid 90s. As you can imagine, there were more coffee, snacks, wine and šnaps to enjoy with these nice people, too!

Eventually we said our goodbyes and pressed on to the cemetery at Liplje, the village next to Planina. Village is probably too grand a word for Liplje. Louise and her siblings were born in a house there, but the house has been demolished and another one built in its place. Her father Jože was called "the landlord of Liplje" and owned a significant amount of land in the area. Her mother Helena had come from another village nearby, where her father had also been a wealthy landowner, so I think it was a condition of his social class to create a personal empire.

At the cemetery we found the graves of Jožefa, Elka and Helena's grandmother, and Jakob, Elka and Helena's father (and Jožefa's son). We also found the grave of Jožefa and Louise's parents Jože and Helena Milavec, where it identified Jože as "posestnik" (landlord) of Liplje. Finally, we also identified the family plot of the Urbas family. One other thing I learned was that each house commonly had a name at the time our families lived. The Milavec house was called "Andrejčk" and the Urbas house was called "Vičji".

After leaving the cemetery we drove across the valley to the neighboring town of Laze where Elka had been born in a house on the edge of town. This is the house in which Olga and Louise stayed when they visited in the spring of 1971. Elka and Helena both remember Olga and Louise furiously swatting mosquitos during that visit!

I asked Elka and Helena if they recalled Olga and Louise being upset during their visit and at first they said no, they remembered having a joyful reunion. But then I asked if there was any tension over the forest and they recalled that there was some uncomfortable discussion between Olga and Louise and Andrej Kermavner (Jožefa's step-son) over the logging he had done without permission and over possession of the deed to the land. Elka and Helena recalled that this was the point at which Olga and Louise transferred the caretaking of the forest over to Anica Urbas.

Next door to the house that Olga and Louise stayed in, Elka's birth house, is another house/farm built in 1883 that Katja has recently purchased to renovate into a residence and inn. It is situated on a hillside and consists of a house, a barn and a large hayshed, with various little outbuildings such as a pigpen and other farm sheds. The view from the top of the hill is gorgeous and her plans sound very exciting!

We had a picnic lunch in the hayshed at the top of the hill. The breeze was nice and we enjoyed cevapčiči, chicken kebaps, pork cutlets, tomato onion and bell pepper salad, cherries, bread and an incredible potica made with herbs and cream cheese.

After lunch we toured the old house and tried to visit the family house next door, but the owners were not in.

The final event of the day was to drive to Ljubljana and visit Elka and Helena's old auntie, Angela, who is the daughter of one of Jožefa and Louise's other siblings, so Olga's cousin. Angela is now 87 years old but doesn't look a day over 65. She has a beautiful smile and tons of energy. We warned her when we arrived that we had just eaten a big picnic lunch, but that didn't deter her. She proceeded to put out a huge spread of snacks: cold cuts, cheese, bread, olives, beer, wine, homemade šnaps, etc. Her house was as neat as a pin and she clearly had spent time embroidering, knitting and crocheting many of the things in her apartment. Her hands also looked as if she had spent many years gardening. When we asked, she told us about her life as an army wife, traveling all around the former Yugoslavia, raising sons and grandchildren, life as a widow, and - surprise - her 22 months in a Nazi prison camp in the 40s.

In 1942, as a 20 year old single woman, she was taken by the Nazis when it was rumored that she was sympathizing with the resistance. At that time, she was in Grčarevec helping her pregnant sister, and while they didn't take the sister, they took Angela to Ravensbrück. After nearly two years, she was released and went home to her mother, who didn't recognize her due to the malnutrition and starvation, but did recognize her voice. Angela said the Nazis would humiliate and beat the women and many of them were also gassed just before the liberation. Fortunately, Angela made it home and reunited with her family.

So as you can imagine, it was quite a day of stories and memories. I said goodbye to Elka, Helena and Katja, but we agreed that we should visit together more often. I guess that means I will have to come back to Slovenia soon!

Heat Wave in Ljubljana

I've finally made it to Ljubljana. For the next week, I hope to get as much real photography done as possible. Originally I had hoped to meet with a local photographer who knew all of the sights. In fact, I found a group of photographers that created a niche tour company specializing in photography, but they are in Croatia with a group right now. So I have had to improvise and find my own opportunities.

I arrived in Ljubljana last night after a positively grueling day in Postojna. We had hoped that it would take minutes to finalize a purchase and sale contract for our forest. Indeed it seemed that we had dotted all of the "i"s and crossed all of the "t"s, but the local notary (in this system, similar to a lawyer) felt it was his obligation to shoot as many holes in our preparation as possible. So we were forced to reschedule with him for next Tuesday and run around to a variety of regional and municipal offices, plus make more translations of paperwork that had been completed for months before we felt we had accomplished everything the fellow could possible ask for. In addition to all of this, the weather has been unseasonably warm. Really uncomfortable.

So I hoped to sleep well last night and hit the city early and get a lot accomplished, photo-wise. Well, it was so hot that it was difficult to sleep, but I was up early anyway and headed out on foot for what turned out to be a 5km day. Unfortunately, it was nearly 90 degrees between noon and 3pm. I spent a great deal of time looking for cool church interiors, fountains, shady park benches and water to drink. It wasn't a very productive day, except that I enjoyed being in Ljubljana again.

Tomorrow I meet with the Milavec cousins who are planning to take me to the Planina church and cemetery, to a nearby town, Laze, where Louise and Olga stayed when they visited in 1971, and to visit a cousin of Olga, Teenie, Louise, Martha and Sophie, in Ljubljana. She is in her 80s or 90s, so I'm not sure how it will be, but maybe she will remember some stories or other family history.

Here's a picture of the town of Planina taken from the hills to the south (on the road to Postojna). The village is just above the valley floor, which fills up with water during the wet season.

Logarska Dolina

Logarska Dolina is a bit off the beaten path, but worth the effort. Dolina means “valley” and Logarska means something like “woodsman’s”. So I expected to see a lot of logging activity, but I was surprised to find that the local woodsmen live on small farms clinging to the sides of steep mountainsides. They not only log what they can, but they raise cows and sheep that must have legs shorter on one side than the other because of the way they stand on the steep slopes!

Many of the local people also engage in tourism businesses such as renting out lodging and providing meals to visitors. There is one main hotel in the valley (which is less than five miles long and only a half-mile wide at the widest point), and the rest of the lodging is in private homes and pensions. There are caves and natural mineral springs as well as waterfalls and gorgeous alpine scenery. I could easily spend three days here just exploring and relaxing!

Uroš and I arrived in the late morning after a two-hour drive from Dragomer. We took the winding road through Kamnik (which turned out to be a lot nicer, but indeed more challenging, than the Rick Steves recommended road through Šentrupert – which we took on the way home for comparison). The first thing we did when we arrived in the valley was head to the dead end of the valley road where the trailhead to the Rinka waterfall began. It was a moderately easy (but rocky and slippery) ten-minute uphill hike to the base of the falls, and when we arrived it was worth the effort! 

The waterfall was as pretty as it could be, but the thing that made it even more interesting was the “Eagle’s Nest” fast food place that was perched on the rocks next to the falls and above the lookout area. You had to climb some rickety stairs to get up to the little café and it was funny to see it in such a natural setting. 

On the way up the trail I had seen a power line through the trees and wondered what it was for, but when we got to the top, I saw that not only was there a power line, but also a gondola cable used to transport supplies to the restaurant! We even caught it in action!

Here are a couple of typical Slovene hikers that we saw on the way up the trail...

Later, after enjoying watching the weather come through the valley from a hotel patio for a while, we got back in the car and headed for the panoramic road above the valley. 

There we saw even more barns, creeks, waterfalls, springs, caves, farmers, cows and steep landscapes! It was beautiful and I couldn’t help but wonder how difficult it must be to live in this area, at such an elevation, with fairly primitive roads, during the long winters. 

Just before departing, we drove over what looked like a strong steel bridge with thick wood planks for a driving surface. I think every plank must have been loose because each one bounced up and down as we drove over. The racket was immense and it seemed the entire thing was going to fall into the gorge! But we made it over safely in the end.

So if you ever go to Slovenia, make sure to visit Logarska Dolina!

Oh, and as a final note for the day, I learned a new Slovenian word today. I know you'll all be impressed: it means "to whisk" and it is "razžvrkljati". Count the consecutive consonants - 7, yes, seven! Ask me how to pronounce it when I get home!

Škofja Loka and Idrija

The weather has been hot and pretty humid for the past three or four days. Today felt like the mid 80s and about 80% humidity. I've been wearing my hat all the time to try to avoid a repeat of the serious sunburn I got in Turkey last year. So far, so good.

Today Uroš and I visited Škofja Loka and Idrija, two old towns with lots of Slovenian history. Škofja Loka was a medieval walled town on a river and still has houses from the 16th century. It has a main square with a fountain, a couple of churches, and a castle on the high point of the city.

I've been having a hard time doing any serious photography, since most of my travel has been done with friends rather than on my own, but today I did take some time to look for street art and found some graffiti on the side of one of the churches. It seemed so inconsistent - the church arches, the old car and the harsh graffiti.

The main event of the day, though, was Idrija. I wanted to go for two reasons - the mercury mine and the local art of lace-making. The drive to Idrija was nice in itself. We wound our way through a hilly rural landscape until we reached the summit of a small mountain and crested the top. Once over, the road twisted and turned sharply down the other side and in places it seemed as if we could easily fall right off the side and down a couple thousand feet. We made it safely into town twenty minutes later and stopped for a nice lunch. I had the local specialty - Žikrofli - kind of like ravioli but stuffed with a mashed potato/bacon mixture. The sauce on top was not really sauce but melted gorgonzola cheese. Anyway the dish was really yummy.

After lunch we were just in time to catch the 3pm tour of the Antonijev Mercury Mine. It was a 90-minute walk through several levels of the 500 year old mine, and included a short video and a guided tour and description of features and practices in the mine over the years. If you ever get a chance to tour a mine, do it. It is truly amazing the conditions under which miners must work, even in "safe" contemporary environments. This photo is the first view of the mine shaft as we entered. It soon got MUCH creepier!

At the end of the entry shaft, before the main descent, there is a chapel hewn out of the solid rock. It was dripping with surface water - as wet as a shower stall, but it was the main stop for all before each descent. This is the last of the photos since the mine was really too dark for photos. But I really learned a lot and can't believe how hard these guys worked, day in, day out, until they died of mercury poisoning, lung disease, heavy equipment injury, or tunnel collapse.

Lake Cerknica and the Pivka River

Today I visited Albreht Rajko in Planina. He has been the caretaker for our Slovenian forest for about 30 years and is interested in purchasing the land. Now that the forest is officially registered in the names of the current heirs (Joyce, Jeannie, Larry, Joanne, Carol, Debbie, Mike, Travis, Tyson and myself), we are free to sell. Anyway, we are discussing terms and plan to finalize something mutually acceptable on Thursday. After saying goodbye, Janez and I visited a nearby area famous for its "disappearing lake" - Lake Cerknica.

During the wet season, the water cannot drain fast enough through the open network of sinkholes and caves under the surface, so the relatively flat valley fills up with shallow, marshy water until it is a lake several miles long and wide. It's a wildlife and recreational haven. Kids come on school field trips to study the ecosystems. Bears even live here. There is another similar lake near Planina, but it is not as large.

We also visited a nearby recreational area (Rakov Škocjan) where the Pivka River flows into a large cave and then further underground. It was gorgeous!

More news later this week, I hope!

Three Eventful Days

I’m falling behind on blogging due to some eventful sightseeing and business days. After Piran on Tuesday, Uroš and I went back to Postojna on Wednesday, hoping to see the caves and the castle. We got a slightly late start, but arrived at Postojnska Jama (the caves) just in time for the 11am tour. There were several hundred people there already, but the line moved quickly and we were herded onto an amusement-park-style people-mover that whisked us through the first couple of kilometers of cave. Keep your head and arms inside the car, and we mean it! There was literally no safety mechanism for any idiot that decided to stand up or lean to the side or reach over his head. If the train happened to be entering a narrow passage or heading under a low overhang, you’d be toast.

Ten minutes later we arrived at a large cavern, disembarked the tram and headed toward a sign that said ENGLISH. Eventually a nice young woman in an official-looking red cloak picked up a microphone and began speaking a language I could understand. A group of twenty-five or so gathered around her and she began explaining the origins of the cave system. We walked up down and around for about a kilometer, viewing all kinds of great formations. Stalactites, stalagmites, ribbons, spaghetti, mushrooms, columns and more. The colors varied from yellow and pink to white with small bits of green here and there. There was a fair amount of black and gray also, due to soot from the torches of cave explorers and burns caused by soldiers destroying caches of petrol during WWII.

The final formation was a large white column that looked like a vanilla ice cream cone. Uroš seemed to think it tasted like one, too! After the walk, we got back on the tram and headed back to the entrance/exit of the cave. After a nice lunch, we intended to head to the castle near Postojna which is called Predjama Grad (castle in front of the cave), but it began raining really hard and we decided not to try it and headed back to the house.

That same evening around 5pm, some of our cousins from Grandma Louise’s side of the family came to pick me up for an evening of visiting. Before she came to the US, Louise was known by her Slovenian name: Alojsija (or Lojska). She had five siblings: Janez, Joze, Jozefa, Antonija and Marija. Their parents names were Janez and Helena Milavec. Louise’s sister Jozefa was about a year older than Louise and three of Jozefa’s granddaughters, Elka, Helena and Marija were my hostesses for the evening! Elka’s daughter Katja picked me up after she got off work in Ljubljana and we then picked up Helena and Elka and Katja’s two adorable daughters. We then headed over to Marija’s house in Grcarevec, near Planina.

Marija has two sons, Mitja and Aleš. They are my third cousins. Aleš was just coming in from work on the family sawmill when we arrived, so we all gathered around Marija’s kitchen table and drank šnaps and red wine and ate pršut, cheese, bread and pickles, all homemade. I brought out my old photos and we all peered at them trying to decide who was who in each. There was a lot of laughing and lively conversation. Katja did most of the translating and did it very well! Aleš seemed to understand a lot of English, and I am learning to understand a few words of Slovenian… words like oče-father, stara mama-grandmother, dobro-good, nasdravje-to your health, etc!

After a nice visit, we headed across the highway to the neighboring farm where we had a similar visit with Mitja’s family. Mitja is Marija’s elder son and was four years old when I visited in 1970. I have a photo of Mitja (or Mitko, as Grandma Olga called him) and me milking a cow together. Mitja’s daughter Judita greeted me in English. She is a lovely 24-year-old university chemistry and art student, and we all headed for the kitchen where her mother Irena put out more šnaps and red wine, plus pršut, cheese, bread, pickles, beef tartare and cookies. All homemade, and all really yummy! Irena’s sister Simona also joined us and as we looked at the photos we realized that not only were we related to Mitja through the Milavec family, but we were also related to Irena and Simona through the Urbas family! They are granddaughters of Antonija, Grandpa Andy’s sister! So that means that Mitja and Irena’s daughter Judita is related to us through BOTH family lines!

Well, as you can imagine, after an evening of this mind-bending relationship figuring, I was exhausted and ready for some sleep. But not before we agreed to meet again to explore the family cemeteries and homes as well as visit an elderly cousin of Olga, Teenie, Louise, Martha and Sophie, who lives in Ljubljana. This is scheduled for Saturday the 12th, so I will report on that later.

All of that was Wednesday. On Thursday Janez and I headed out early to visit a solar heating expert with a factory and experimental demonstration site near the mountains in the north part of the country. Janez has had heating systems in both his residence and his rental apartment go bad in the past month, so he is looking at replacing them both and trying to decide if he should continue to heat with oil or replace them with alternative systems. We had a nice visit with a fellow who is part heating system entrepreneur and part helicopter pilot. He showed us around his factory and sent us off with his promotional material. I kept wondering if I might turn his company into one of my clients someday – he needs all kinds of aerial photography for his brochures since part of what he does is deliver these big heat exchangers/tanks and solar panels to remote locations around Slovenia and the Alps. Interesting!

Since we were near the mountains, we decided to make a day of visiting some of the mountain sights that were on my list. We began with views of the highest mountain in Slovenia (Triglav) from the golf course in Radovlice and the old town of Radovlice.

Then we headed to the castle at Lake Bled, which is high up above the lake, on a cliff with beautiful views!

After that, we descended to the shore of the lake to see the pletna boats and the swans that live all over the shore.

And then it was on to Lake Bohinj and Savica Slap (waterfall). It was a steep 30 minute uphill hike, but the pictures are worth it! The video of the button-box player from the previous post was taken at this trailhead. Afterwards, we drove through a couple of old villages and stopped at a pizza restaurant with a view of ski slopes and cross country trails – this time of year, they are covered with grass and wildflowers. It was gorgeous and the pizza was really good! This is the first Slovenian pizza I have tried, and they use some unique ingredients – we had a “Mexican pizza” and they put large blobs of spicy cheese-whiz on each quarter of the pie, PLUS two extra large blobs of something like butter. Of course there was the regular sliced ham and salami as well as some type of regular cheese, so it really did resemble a pizza as we know it in the US, except for the blobs. Anyway, it tasted good!

Today we headed back to Postojna (Janez and I), to pick up the court order paperwork and post the public notice of intent to sell the forest. We also visited Predjamski Grad (castle in Postojna), since I missed it yesterday. It’s a beautiful castle, built around a thousand years ago inside a cave. As the fortress beacame larger, it outgrew the cave and now spills out the front of the cave. There is a really unique system of water collection and delivery inside the cave – they collected the seepage using a system of gutters and collection panels, then using gravity send it to all parts of the castle.

There is an extensive cave system behind and below the castle, so even when it was under siege, the enemy wasn’t aware of the secret network of tunnels the castle dwellers used to re-supply. Here is a photo of the surrounding countryside from inside and high up in the castle.

After the castle, we stopped in Podlipa to visit Joze and Valentina Brencic, cousins from my father’s father’s father’s family. We have more visiting to do and I hope to see more of them before my trip ends.

This weekend there are more birthday parties – Meta’s birthday is Sunday. Then Monday we meet with a possible buyer for the forest and the notary to negotiate a contract. Things are moving along and I am getting to visit with many people and see lots of interesting sights!

Slovene Music

Here's a fun video of some music Janez and I encountered near Lake Bohinj as we were about to hike up to Savica Slap (waterfall).

Piran: The Seacoast of Slovenia

Today was my first "travel" day in Slovenia. Uroš kindly offered to accompany me on local day trips to see some of the great sights here in Slovenia. It's less than 90 minutes from the seacoast (very much like southern California) to the Alps, where you can ski to your heart's content! Janez' place in Dragomer is right in between the two areas, so it's easy to go either way.

Today we visited Piran, an old Venetian town, built on a small peninsula and protected from the rear (land) by a large fortress or city wall. The photos will give you a good idea of the layout of the town and how it was protected from the Turks and other marauders.

Janez and Meta have a small vacation apartment in a very old building right near the tip of the town. Uroš and I visited it today, just to peek in and see. It's on the first floor (just above the ground floor) and in the rear of this small building. That's Uroš standing in front of the entrance.

We visited the old church near the top of the town. The main doors were open, but a large gate kept me from entering. Fortunately I could get my camera lens through the iron bars for a photo. The churches in Slovenia are just beautiful!

After a leisurely lunch at a small seaside restaurant, where we had fried calamari, french fries and salad, we walked to the boat harbor and asked a local fisherman why all of the fishing boats were flying homemade black flags. He replied that it was part of a regulation to identify the boats. I had imagined that they were all part of a funeral flotilla. Guess the imagined story was more interesting than reality in this case!

The coastline of Slovenia is only about 35 miles long. It's really tiny, squished between Italy and Croatia. This week, there is a referendum in the country to decide whether or not to allow international arbiters to decide the results of a border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia regarding where the border lies in the coastal waters. There has been a conflict in recent years regarding the traffic of fishing boats, etc. and tempers are flaring on both sides of the argument. In this photo, you can just barely see the city of Venice behind the two boats in open water, just west and north of Piran.

After leaving Piran, we drove into the hills and found a little vineyard town in a small valley that had an old Romanesque church surrounded by fortress walls. It didn't look like much from the road, but I had heard that the town, Hrastolvje, had a small stone church with amazing frescoes painted on the walls inside. Indeed, the walls and ceilings were completely covered with medieval (1475) scenes of both everyday life (farming, family, etc.) as well as Biblical scenes. The paintings were intended to educate the illiterate population, and they were beautifully preserved. I'm really glad I made the effort to go off the beaten path for this particular site. Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow any photography. Fortunately, there is a good website with 360 degree panoramic interactive images of the interior. Click here to get to the website and then click on the word "interior" in the descriptive text to get to the images.

Tomorrow, Uroš and I will likely go to one of the cave systems and maybe a castle near our Urbas family ancestral land. The caves we will likely visit are in the municipality of Postojna (Postojnska Jama) and the castle is called Prejamski Grad, which means "castle in front of the cave". Tomorrow evening, I will be picked up here in Dragomer by our cousins, who will take me visiting other cousins for the evening. I'm looking forward to that very much.

Finally, here's a photo of Janez and Meta's house in Dragomer. It is typical of a middle class home and made of large bricks (kind of like our cinderblocks, but of red clay), which are then covered by a rocky stucco-type material. It is troweled on and stroked horizontally in 4-6 inch strokes. This is evident by the paths of the small rocks in the stucco that are dragged by the trowel as it is being pulled along the surface.

This house is a three-story split level. There is a single car garage here on the left front corner as well as another 1.5 bays on the right front corner. The first level (half a floor down from the front entrance) is a daylight basement, where Uroš lives. A half floor up is the main living level... an office, a half bath, a living room, kitchen, dining area, and the outdoor terrace you can see on the left of the house. The upper floor is two large bedrooms, a small room and a full bath. The balcony you see on the upper floor at the front of the house is the bedroom I am occupying. It is very comfortable and Janez has put a small bistro table and chairs on the balcony for me to enjoy. However, it's the main terrace just off the kitchen that I enjoy the most. It's a beautiful home and very comfortable!