Description: Glavni trg (pronounced "glowny turg" – the "ow" pronounced as in "how") is something of a misnomer; the name is derived from "glav" meaning ‘head’ and translates more or less as the "Main Square" but, with the changing shape of Maribor, it no longer feels like the heart of the city. The sixteenth century town hall with its striking clock tower and the magnificent plague column always look fantastic in photographs but the truth is that Glavni trg is a shadow of its former self, and is almost pushed to the edge of the city centre. Many of the shop units on Glavni trg are empty although with 2012 – when Maribor assumes the mantle of European Capital of Culture – fast approaching, a few have been taken up recently. The problem with Glavni trg is that one of the town centre’s main roads cuts through the square making it much less suitable for pavement cafes than other town centre squares.
The first mention of the square can be found back in 1315. It was the site of the town's main market in those days and often referred to simply as "Markt", and later "Hauptplatz" (this part of central Europe of course being under German or Austro-Hungarian rule for several centuries.) In 1918 when Maribor became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia the square took the name Glavni trg, and so it remained except for a brief spell during the Second World War when, under Nazi occupation, it was known as "Adolf Hitler Platz".
Glavni trg stands at the northern end of the "Stari most" – the Old Bridge and the eastern end of Koroska cesta, the old road out of the city towards the Koroska region of Slovenia. It was the construction of this bridge in 1913 that changed the shape of the square, so that it looks today more like a buffer between the buildings on the north side and Korosk cesta. When you come to the end of the bridge the main part of Glavni trg is to your left and the smaller part is to your right.
The centerpiece of the square is the Plague Column. The original column was erected in 1681 by survivors of the Plague, as a mark of their gratitude for having been spared. This replacement was designed by Jožef Štraub and erected in 1743 ; such monuments exist throughout central Europe but when I visited the Austrian city in Linz in 2010 I thought theirs looked very familiar and some investigation revealed that it too was designed by Jožef Štraub. Statues of six saints encircle the Virgin Mary, they are said to be intercessors against the plague.
A few steps from the Plague Column is the "rotovž" (the name is derived from the German "Rathaus"), the old town hall, still used today for weddings and formal events but no longer really for the administrative purposes of former times. The town hall dates originally from 1515 but it has had many changes made to it. Only fifty-odd years after it was first built it got a Venetian makeover which included the addition of the little loggia or balcony. The little clock tower with its bulb shaped top is a Baroque addition and local folklore says that the builder charged with erecting it did not consider himself suitably paid and so omitted the middle section of the tower. Although I haven't seen it, some Maribor friends have told me that the cold council chamber, where weddings take place, is beautifully painted.
On the edge of this part of Glavni trg is the Velika Kavarna, a coffee shop which sells unfeasibly gooey cream cakes, including some Slovenian specialities such as potica and rezina. The original Velika Kavarna was an important cultural institution and was housed just over the road in the magnificent Theresienhof, or in Slovene "Terezijin dvor", at the end of the Stari Most, later the home of the Maribor Casino. It was built in 1913. In summer they bring chairs and tables out onto the square and at weekends at least, when there is little traffic, it's a good place to see and be seen. (Incidentally, the casino is no more; it apparently went bankrupt in 2009. It no doubt suffered in the wake of the newer places near the border with Austria, and a super-casino in Nova Gorica on the border with Italy).
Passing the vaulted passageway which leads onto Trg Rotovž, you then come to a couple of beautifully painted properties that date from the second half of the nineteenth century. One of them is the old pharmacy, which is reflected in the plasterwork frieze on the facade.
One of my favourite Maribor buildings, situated at the entrance to Postna Ulica, is the Ludwigshof, or "Ludvikov dvor" in Slovene which was orginally purely a residential building occupied by a family of wealthy Maribor merchants who owned a mill in Melje, a district of Maribor.
Across the road behind some ornate iron railings is the former Jesuit Aloysius church. The building was designed by Johannes Fuchs and the interior was designed by Jozef Holzinger who was well known for his ornate carvings which were featured in many church altars in central Europe. Unfortunately the church can only be viewed by appointment but the staff at the tourist information office can help by making phone calls.
The building next to it was once a Jesuit college and is now home to the city archive where all of the city's old historic records and documents are kept. On the wall outside is a plaque bearing the image of Franc Kovacic (1867 - 1939) who was a Catholic priest and philosopher and writer. He had many strings to his bow and participated in the the 1919 Paris Peasce Conference, as an expert in ethnic matters when the borders of the new Yugoslavia were drawn. On the other side of the church is a building which is almost the twin of the Jesuit college, but this one houses the "Planet Bar", a place that is really nice when its quiet but can get very noisy in mid evening when the music gets turned up stupidly high, even when there's just one member of staff and an old man with a dog in there.
Moving along towards the Stari Most you'll come to the Stari Gril - the Old Grill. No matter what delicious, mouthwatering aromas emanate from the Stari Gril, it should be avoided at all costs because there are much better places not so far away in which to dine on Balkan specialities such as cevapcici and pljeskavica. You'd do much better to walk two minutes along Koroska cesta and eating at the Zlati Lev (the Gold Lion) instead.
At the Stari most we'll cross over, remembering not to stand on the cycle path while we wait for the cars to stop (we have lots of cycle paths all over the city) and go to the other half of Glavni trg., the smaller eastern side. Staying on the southern side of the square, notable shops include a wonderful little shop that sells intricate homemade mouthwatering chocolates, and "Kult" a boutique that sells eye watering (certainly the footwear) goth clothing. A small gallery is housed in a handsome building that adjoins the the former main pharmacy, recently closed down which ias a shame as the building is quite lovely. The gallery does not exhibit a great deal of pieces but is worth a brief visit if you're on the square. Across the road on the northern side is a monstrous building dating from the 1980s; it contains a small number of shops including a realy good shop selling fair trade gifts and homewares.
So we come to the end of our tour of Glavni trg. Usually the square is quiet but it is used as one of the focal points for festivals throughout the year. In September it is one of the sites for the Old Vine Festival; a circular bar is set up and you everyone rolls up to drink locally made wines and watch local bands performing on a stage in front of the rotovž. On Saturday mornings there are a handful of stalls where you can buy locally grown organic produce, and there are street performances from international musicians and dancers on the square in late may/Early June when the Lent festival takes places.
There are plans afoot to alter the square which should take the traffic away from it and restore Glavni trg to something more befitting a "main square". However, it had been hoped that this would have been carried out in readiness for 2012 and as no work has started, it does seem unlikely that this will happen.
Whatever happens, Glavni trg will still be one of the most handsome parts of Maribor. After four years of living there (part-time at least) I never tire of crossing the Stari most and seeing Glavni trg laid out before me.
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