Lippizzaner Horses of Slovenia

Sascha Gottschalk

Six months ago when I went on the Adriatic and Italy cruise, I was determined to come back and post all my photos and memories while they were fresh. I did do a lot of posts when I first got back, but one post I really wanted to do was about the Lippizzaner horses of Slovenia. I had taken a beautiful photo of a little girl riding a model horse in the museum of the stud farm. But I wanted to post her name, as I told her father I would. The little piece of paper I had written her name on was lost for the last six months. 

Today, cleaning my office I found it. So above is the photo of Sascha Gottschalk, a product of a US father and a Russian mother. I met them on the tour. They now live in Russia, where her father teaches English and her mother works for the government. I was perplexed why a child of an American guy couldn't speak English, so he explained to me that she had lived most of her life in Russia.  I love how I meet the most interesting people on my travels!

Info from the Lipica Stud Farm Museum

This stud farm in Slovenia is the oldest Lippazanner stud farm and has been operational for more than 400 years. More information on this beautiful place with wonderful horses can be found here.

I still prefer the horses of Andalucia. The horses we went to see near Sevilla back in 2003 took my breath away, and we were able to interact with them much more, but the Lipica horses are also beautiful. I especially enjoyed the time before the show when we were able to watch them in their natural setting.

Lippizzaner horse with baby

Note how the horses are born black and turn white as they grow older. 

Our tour group was also quite colorful. I met a wonderful couple who divides their time between Canada and California. They were quite taken aback by our guide, who practically blackmailed us in to writing favorable reviews of the tour.

Our tour group in Slovenia