90 minutes in Maribor?

Posted by Joel (Northeast Ohio, USA) on 04/23/19 12:42 AM

Wife and I are going to splurge on a Daytrip shuttle from Ljubljana to Budapest, and there is an option (for an additional fee) to stop in Maribor for 90 minutes on the way to Budapest. We have heard that Maribor is beautiful, but are wondering if a 90-minute stop would be enough to give us any real sense of the place.

Has anyone had a similarly brief stop in Maribor, or any other town, that they thought was worth doing? This would be very unlike our usual travel experience, but it is tempting.

[Edit: I mean a stop to try to get a sense of a whole town, rather than a specific sight such as a small castle (like Doune in Scotland) or the Scrovegni Chapel; we've done this during short stops, and it was fine.]

Thanks

Posted by sargan8

04/23/19 12:49 PM

75 posts

I had once a similar stop(about 1 hour) driving from Slovenia to Budapest and to be honest I found Maribor meh. The only thing I was really impressed with was the old vine.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-old-vine-maribor-slovenia

It must add that I'm a local of Europe and I'm living among centuries old buildings like Maribor has, so it has to be something special for me get thrilled about an old city. The old town of Maribor is a dime a dozen in this part of the world and there are much better cities around. There is a good reason that Maribor couldn't really put itself on the tourist map.

As you're from the New World you might have a totally different impression of Maribor and fall head over heels with the city. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I think a 90 minute stop will give you a real sense of the place since the old town is not that large. Much better to have a stop in Maribor than spending the whole time in the car.

That said if you can arrange it I'd stop in Ptuj instead of Maribor. I had 2 brief stops(1-2 hours) in that town and I found it much nicer than Maribor. It adds only 30 miles to the trip. It's a tiny town compared to Maribor and in 90 minutes you can see pretty much the whole old town(except going inside the castle museum).

Posted by Joel OP

Northeast Ohio, USA

04/23/19 01:20 PM

707 posts

sargan8, thank you very much! That information is really helpful.

We live in Florida 7 months of the year, where a 1970 building is very old. (St. Augustine excepted.) We spend the rest of the year in New England, which has a few centuries of history, but nothing like Europe of course. So we would probably enjoy Maribor. However, I think the shuttle company might be flexible enough to allow us to put Ptuj on the itinerary, and if so we will visit there.

(We'd like to see that vine too.)

Posted by Emily

Vienna, Austria

04/24/19 10:18 PM

5511 posts

We like to have lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Maribor when we drive through. A bit of New World for us expats tired of Old World food.

Posted by Joel OP

Northeast Ohio, USA

04/24/19 10:38 PM

707 posts

Emily,

Mexican food is something that had not occurred to us! But good to know. And how cool BTW to live in Vienna.