3: Slovenske Konjice // Peace and Horses
HORSES // © Cortyn / shutterstock
Peace isn’t easy to find. Even the smallest villages produce more noise than you first think, and sinking away into serenity isn’t achieved through clicked fingers and hope. The monks of yesteryear knew this even then, retreating into isolated monasteries that gave no option other than seeking tranquillity, pockmarked buildings that contained little more than flesh, mind, silence and peace.
But first, horses. Slovenian horses, to be exact. Not actual horses but bronze versions of the beasts, statues echoing the name of a town that gets official plaudits but little in the way of international attention. 100miles to the east of Ljubljana, Slovenske Konjice has gone about its merry way over the centuries, a cheerful town below the leisured slopes of Mount Konjice, pressing up against the Škalce Hills that produce some of the best wine in the country, a fact I cannot verify as my wine knowledge is non-existent. I’m not quite an oenophobe, but I could be.
I was in Slovenske Konjice as part of a research trip, a journey that had started with an emergency visit to the dentist and was hopefully going to end with a printed guide to the region, optimism that was easier to accept without a constant searing pain in my right molar.
The guide was the aim, but I was also curious to find out why the town was called Slovenian Horses. There must have been a terrific story to explain it.
“The town’s saint is St. George, and he rode on a horse when he killed the dragon. That is why the town has its name.”
That’s disappointing.
I think enough history has passed for towns to be able to make up some stories here and there, create a legend or three. How about saying that there was a particularly awesome horse who saved the day when the town was on fire? Or a horse that discovered the vineyards? Or a horse that did anything except act as a vehicle for men to wage war on beasts?
Don’t hold this against Slovenske Konjice though, please. This old town straddled a quaint stream with a decidedly un-quaint name, the so-called Zmajeva slina, the ‘dragon’s slobber’. There must have been a good story behind that name, right?
“That is all that remained of the dragon after St. George was done with him.”
Right. I should look into this George fellow. Maybe, more importantly, I should look into this poor dragon. What did he do to deserve his slaying? Was it another example of man putting sword to that with which it is unfamiliar? Read that sentence back in a Matt Berry style, please.
I wasn’t finding peace in Slovenske Konjice. The town glistened in the spring sun, the dense green of its hills providing a safe backdrop for the restrained hues of the town centre buildings, a perfect picture of grace, but the aesthetics dominated the intangible. The winsome charm of that main pedestrian street, the stream and the darling buildings either side, it was more than enough to send the heart a-flutter, but sometimes the heart wants serenity, not serenading.
If you’re looking for peace in Slovenske Konjice, all you need to do is travel 5km or so south, to the village of Žiče. Less than 500 people live here, but it is not the village that interests, cute as it is with an abundance of flowers encasing the church. The village’s namesake is a Carthusian monastery of the highest order, one of the finest sanctuaries in Slovenia, once resplendent but now largely ruined, although this shouldn’t be taken in the pejorative. Zice Charterhouse was established in 1165, after all. Nearly 900 years of history will leave you looking a little tired.
The ruins of Zice are among the most tranquil that I have encountered, almost to the point of gimmickry. They are perfectly spaced, leaving just enough of a memory to encourage images of what may have been, all those years ago. Mounds, rubble, chapel, memory. Peace, in short.
Before committing to a solid amount of time spent staring at ruins, I nipped into the information centre (cafe, really) to ask absent-minded questions of an unsuspecting waiter, hoping to glean a bit of knowledge from someone employed to exchange cash and conversation for coffee and cakes. My first question was in line with what seemed to be my standard in these parts, the name, why, where, a story?
“Oh yes, there is a funny story about that, although who knows if it is true. Before the monastery was here, the local military commander used the area as a hunting ground. One day he saw an enormous white deer, but he couldn’t get to it, no matter how fast he rode. The commander fell asleep under a tree, but he was awoken by an image of St. John the Baptist, who told him to build a monastery here. The commander then saw a rabbit, so the monastery became known as Zajec, rabbit, although that has changed over time”.
See, was that so hard? Give me a half-decent story and I’m all ears. You have a blank slate, after all, freedom to create, so go with the hunter and the rabbit.
Despite that interest, the story was almost wasted here. Žiče may have been the first Carthusian monastery outside of France or Italy, but it no longer functions as it once did. The walls of churches and chapels remain but the interiors are gone, replaced by a silence that resonates throughout the bones of the willing, a position and group that I was happy to sit in. Peace isn’t easy to find, but you’ll know when you find it.
