After a relaxing time in the pool, it was time to head to the canal for lunch and then a cruise along the river…
…and what lunch beside the canal would be complete without a serenade!
I was the only one on board! Normally there are whole groups, but this day, this cruise, it was aaaaaallllll mine! This is the captain – who had a wealth of knowledge about all of Slovenia and Croatia. Fascinating fellow.
If I have my bridges straight, this is Shoemaker Bridge – named as such because there used to be a law that if you were on the mainland you had to pay taxes – so the shoemakers moved onto the middle of the bridge over what was then a river!
The reason that some of the buildings are only two windows wide and others three or more – from the medieval period until I think the 1700s, one was only permitted to have a building two windows wide – the wider ones were subject to huge taxes and were reserved for the wealthy of the city.
This terraced area is known as the Beach… It is beautiful!
This little critter (I saw seven of them during the entire cruise!) is the European beaver (Castor fiber) and is an indigenous species in Slovenia!
