I am Saša, owner of Rohrmann Apartments and Day Trips. I will take care of your well-being while you are staying in the apartments, and if you decide to go on a day trip with me, I will also be your tour guide.
Travelling and exploring countries, getting to know their history, the people and their customs, tasting the local cuisine – these are the passions that my parents instilled in me in my early youth. First I travelled with my mother, father and sister, then with friends and for the last two decades with my husband and son. I was also fortunate enough to work for a multinational company in a global position for more than a quarter of a century. The business has taken me all over the world, where I have met many wonderful people from different cultural backgrounds.
However, we Slovenians like to say: “It’s beautiful everywhere, but it’s most beautiful at home”, and that is why I have been enthusiastically telling everyone who wants to hear about the beauties of my home country for many years. I really enjoyed organising business meetings in Slovenia. Every time I have hosted a meeting, I have taken the opportunity to show the participants a special part of my beautiful country or share unique experiences. Many colleagues, who have since become friends, have been enchanted by Slovenia and are always happy to come back.
When it was time for a career change, my life path led me straight to where I always belonged: tourism.
I bought a house in the old city centre of Ljubljana. A house with a history. The house has been completely renovated and well equipped so that both apartments offer everyone, whether tourist or business traveller in Ljubljana, everything they need – comfort and cosiness.
I acquired a tourist guide licence because I wanted to show my guests how beautiful, original, green, diverse, friendly, unique and interesting Slovenia is.
The itineraries for the day trips are worked out in co-operation with my guests to suit their interests and wishes, and are suitable for their physical abilities.
The Rohrmann house
The Rohrmann House is located in the centre of Ljubljana. The walls that probably enclosed the house in the 11th century, where a family of fishermen or sailors lived, have been preserved in the basement. The house was remodelled and renovated several times over the centuries.
The house, which is roughly the same size as the present one, was built in 1664. The owners of the house changed over the course of time. The first known owner was the butcher Matija Banko, who bought the house in 1710 and then sold it to the innkeeper Urban Zupan in 1865. Luka Zupan’s son sold it to the Czech Josef Strelba, who started soap production on the property. In 1861, his daughter Roza, who married the successful businessman Viktor Rohrmann, received the house as a dowry.
Viktor and Roza were extremely enterprising – they produced soaps, ran a wholesale business in natural fruits and owned two pubs where they sold Czech beer. They had eleven children, but unfortunately no grandchildren, so the family died out.
Most of the house was nationalised after the Second World War, there was no investment in maintenance and the house slowly fell into disrepair until I bought it and completely restored it according to the guidelines of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.
I am very proud that my efforts have been recognised with the School of Renovation Award for the renovation of Rohrmann House.
The partners of the School of Renovation are the University of Ljubljana – Faculty of Architecture, the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia and the Association of Historic Towns of Slovenia.
This recognition by the highest state institutions for the preservation of cultural heritage is further confirmation for me that it was worth investing all these efforts, resources and sleepless nights in a project that has produced such a beautiful and fulfilling result.
Today, the house lives to the fullest and is the pride of Trubarjeva Street. The house accommodates two shops for commercial and service activities and two large apartments, each with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, for tourists or business people visiting Ljubljana.
Milena Rohrmann - the "bride" of Cankar from Trubarjeva ulica
The large family of Roza Strzelba from Ljubljana and the successful merchant and enthusiastic nationalist Viktor Rohrmann (1858–1939) from Novo mesto lived on the former Sv. Petra cesta (renamed Trubarjeva cesta in 1952) in the first half of the 20th century. A long-standing romance developed between Rohrmann’s daughter Milena (1885–1945) and the famous Slovenian novelist and playwright Ivan Cankar (1876–1918). Milena remained faithful to the writer’s memory long after his death.
Cankar probably met the teacher Milena Rohrmann in 1907 at the Kessler family home. They were a respected bourgeois family in Ljubljana who organised salons and were a centre for cultural events. Milena fell in love with him, as she confided to her friend, in 1910 in Rožnik, where the writer had moved from the Bohemian community in the »Švicarija« in Tivoli Park. Milena and her sister Vera often visited Cankar in Rožnik or accompanied him on excursions. Their relationship was complicated; it ended several times because Cankar could not commit to her. Milena tried to get Cankar out of his bohemian life in Rožnik, and he moved in with Milena in Rohrmann’s house for a short time in 1917. Family and friends hoped that Cankar would finally settle down and marry Milena, but this never happened. After his serious fall at the end of October 1918, Milena took Cankar in again. However, his condition deteriorated rapidly and he died on 11 December 1918 in the Department of Internal Medicine at the hospital in Ljubljana.
At the request of his future bride, he was buried in the Rohrmann family vault in the western side wall of the Žale Central Cemetery in Ljubljana.
Cankar’s mortal remains lay there until 1923, when they were transferred to a grave in the »«Monument to Slovenian Modernism”, next to the remains of Josip Murn and Dragotin Kette, whose remains were transferred at the same time from the cemetery next to the Church of St Christopher (the modern Navje). In 1949, they were joined by a fourth set of remains, those of the recently deceased Oton Župančič.
The tomb was ordered by Milena at her own expense. It was designed by the architect Dušan Grabrijan from Karst stone based on an idea by the famous architect Jožef Plečnik. Milena looked after the grave until she was admitted to hospital, where she died in autumn 1945.
»And that’s how I feel with every letter I write for you. I feel uncomfortable, I do not know how and where to place the word. You know very well that I love you with all my heart. You would realise it, even if I would rather hide such things. «
Ivan Cankar, from a letter to Milena Rohrmann, 22 April 1914
Text: Dr Marijan Dović, Inštitut za slovensko literaturo in literarne vede ZRC SAZU Photographs: Archive NUK and Marija Ana Kranjc, INCHRS DS.
