On Tuesday, Oct.23, our English class took a trip to Celje. It is a tradition that we go to some slovene towns every year; so we visited Škofja Loka, Novo mesto, Kras (Štanjel, Sežana, Ivangrad), Ljubljana, Kranj and this year we went to Celje.
Whenever we travel abroad, we admire the cities and their treasures, but we often overlook interesting and beautiful things in our own country. All the towns that we have visited fascinanted us with their cultural and natural heritage.
We always study some literature before the excursione. This time we have read about Roman Celea, the Counts of Celje, drama piece Veronika Deseniška by Oton Župančič, and different texts by Alma Karlin.
We expected a lot from this trip, but what we have seen and learned was beyond our expectations. The exhibition »The city under the city« in the museum in The Lower Castle (Knežji dvor) is so well presented that you can feel the Roman times.
On the upper floor the Counts of Celje (Celjski knezi) still fascinate the visitors, though at the end, what remained of them are only some skulls, kept safe in the darknes of a litlle chamber.In the Old Count’s Mansions (Stara grofija) museum the ground floor is dedicated to Alma Karlin, a best-seller writer and traveller. We were also impressed by the beautiful baroque ceiling in the Major Hall.
Our two guides were very knowledgable and enthusiastic. On our tour to the old part of the town in a pleasent autumn day we met Mr. Pelikan on his bicycle and Alma with her suitcase, we took lots of pictures, had coffee in the coffeebar of the new library and finish our trip with a lunch in the hotel Europa.
English conversation group and mentor Katja Bricelj

Photo by Miro Gavez
November 2013