12895

Slovenia: CS Carantania Invasion: Day 2 - Ljubljana

After the meeting day (Click), the Carantania Invasion continued. Milton, Kim, Fons and David visited the Bike Week in Austria and we gathered again in the afternoon in Trzin, where Nada and me joined them. Together we did some sightseeing in Ljubljana.

Our guide Milton took us to Ljubljana Castle. The oldest mention of Ljubljana Castle is inscribed on a parchment sheet Nomina defunctorum (names of the dead), which is kept by the Udine Cathedral Archive. It dates from 1112 till 1125.

Full group of invaders: Fons, David, Tuši, Milton, Kim and Nada

When in 1335 the Habsburgs took over the area of today`s Slovenia, they demolished the fortress of the Spanheim family, which stood on the hill, and in the second half of the 15th century started building a new one that still stands today.

View from the castle

Walk through the centre of the capital of Slovenia brought us to Butchers' Bridge

Dragon Bridge, originally named The Jubilee Bridge of the Emperor Franz Josef I, was designed by Jurij Zaninović.

The dragon – city emblem: "The Ljubljana dragon is part of the City of Ljubljana’s coat of arms. It symbolises strength, courage and might. It is depicted on the Dragon Bridge and on top of the castle tower on Ljubljana’s coat of arms.

The Ljubljana dragon may have its origins in the legend of Jason and the Argonauts. Once upon a time, Greek hero Jason and his Argonaut comrades stole a golden fleece, the coat of a golden ram, from the King of Colchis on the Black Sea. On board the Argo they fled their pursuers and found themselves at the mouth of the River Danube instead of going south towards the Aegean Sea and their Greek homeland. There was no way back, so they went on, up the Danube and then along the River Ljubljanica. They had to stop at the source of the Ljubljanica and overwintered here. They then took the Argo apart and in the spring carried it on their shoulders to the Adriatic coast, where they put it back together again and went on their way. According to the legend, on their arrival between what is now Vrhnika and Ljubljana, the Argonauts came across a large lake with a marsh alongside. Here lived a terrible marsh dragon that Jason killed after a heroic struggle. The monster would have been the Ljubljana dragon. It is said that Jason should have been the first real Ljubljana citizen.

There are two more realistic versions of the dragon story. According to the first, it was taken from St George, the patron saint of the castle chapel. On frescoes and statues George is often seen standing or riding while killing the dragon with a spear. The dragon in the legends of St George represents the ancient ancestral beliefs that the new Semitic religion – Christianity – defeated. Castle Hill was in ancient times a sacred place, where the bearers of a culture of cremation funerals had a stronghold and worshipped their god. When in the Middle Ages the foundations of today’s castle were put down, they also wanted to symbolically overcome the ancient beliefs, so they also dedicated the castle chapel to St George. Alternatively, in Slavic mythology the dragon represents the god Veles, opponent of the supreme thunder god Perun, the highest of the Slavic gods. In the Slavic religion, Perun was usually worshipped on a hill; Veles lower down, usually near a market place." Reference: Click

CS Carantania Invasion trip to Ljubljana