Ljubljana, Slovenia

We loved Slovenia! The landscape reminded us a bit of the Foothills and Rockies west of Calgary, and we enjoyed the fresh air and less populated city of Ljubljana (compared to London). We loved it despite not making it into the mountains or to picturesque Lake Bled to go hiking, so I think we will be returning. As requested by my sister, we have posted more photos from this trip.

Our flight left midday on Friday, so we spent a leisurely morning drinking coffee and eating porridge as the sun streamed into our apartment. We should however, have been a bit more on the ball, checking for tube closures and delays online. We got to our nearest tube station at 10:15 and we needed to get to Baker Street for 11:00 to catch our bus to Luton Airport. We realized when we got to the station that we should have left sooner. Despite this, we still opted to take the slower, cheaper commuting option of the tube, vs the fast train in. As soon as the tube pulled away, we realized we should have taken the train. I spent the entire journey stressing and fretting about the possibility missing our bus and flight. Usually in cases like that I am thinking of all of the possible contingency plans but this time I was just willing us to get there in time. Plus, I wasn’t sure what our other options would be. I was a basket case. We sprinted through tube stations and through the streets of London with our backpacks on (Amazing Race style) and made it to the bus with two minutes to spare!! Just enough time for me to zip to the loo. I returned to John and the bus only to discover that we were booked on the 11:20 bus and not the 11:00! So, sweaty and frazzled we awaited the 11:20 bus. It only took us a few minutes to be able to laugh about it.

We made it to the airport in plenty of time. We traveled on Wizz Air from Luton Airport, both of which were more pleasurable experiences compared to Ryan Air and Stansted, despite the plane smelling of someone’s BO (reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode).

Slovenia is a miniature country and flying into the capital, Ljubljana (pronounced by us Libiana), gave us a good lay of the land. We flew over snowy mountain peaks and then things flattened out, except for many tree covered hills popping up all over the place. The flat land between the hills is treeless to make room for farming and towns. We got a great view of beautiful Lake Bled and its lone island with a church on it (photo at http://www.bled.si/).

It was dark when we arrived in Ljubljana, and cold. My toque didn’t come off my head the entire weekend except to sleep and shower. Before and after dinner, we roamed the downtown area admiring the Italian Baroque buildings. A river runs through the middle of the town; branches of willow trees hang over its edges and they are lit up at night. There were still a few leaves on the trees and plenty on the ground to romp through. Slovenia used to be part of Yugoslavia and we were expecting more ominous Soviet influence but it wasn’t there at all.
Both nights there we had long, big, hearty traditional Slovenian dinners; soup, sausages, bread, various meats with rich sauces. The food wasn’t cheap, nor expensive, but very good value for our money. John became a “Union” man – he really enjoyed the local brew called Union.
We stayed in a hostel, and yes, I survived. Cons: Bathrooms that smelled like pee (I’d like to believe the cleaning solutions were pee smelling), uncomfortable dorm beds and not very much sleep the first night. In the first four hours of the night, people were coming to bed about once every hour, and in the second half of the night people were getting up about once every hour. As a result, it seemed everyone was tired by the second night because lights were out in our dorm room at 11, there were no mid night interruptions, and people didn’t start getting up until 8 – yeah, a good sleep for us. Pros: Good chance to meet other friendly travelers (we had a beer with a guy from England on Friday night and got some great travel tips from a woman from London staying in the bunk next to us), very central location, cheaper than hotels and less dodgy than cheap hotels.

Saturday, met with sunshine, we were up to catch an 8:30 bus to Postojna (pronounced Postoina, check out http://www.postojnska-jama.si/?cat=7&lang=en). The one hour ride took us through villages, farms and hills dusted with snow. In Postojna, we did a two hour tour of underground caves, seeing about 3km of the 21km network. Stalactites, stalagmites, broccoli and spaghetti formations, fish with four legs, a bridge over a crevice that looked like it was in Lord of the Rings; not things you see every day.

After that, we took a cab 9 km up into the hills to Predjama castle, a castle built up on the side of a cliff. The site of the castle was much better in person and the inside of it greatly exceeded our expectations. From a room on the top floor of the castle, there was access to a large cave in behind. My imagination was picturing old rituals and ceremonies taking place back there (too cool!). We enjoyed a walk to the creek and up the side of the hill, and took in the views of the surrounding countryside.

We got back to Ljubljana at 4:30, as the sun was setting. So, we ran through the streets and up to the hilltop castle. From there we had a 360 degree view: mountains, hills, city, and SKY. We lucked out with a gorgeous orange sunset!

Sunday we did walking tour of Ljubljana. It gave us a good taste of the region’s history and of the architecture – the downtown buildings, the university (there are 250K people living in Ljubljana, 60K of which are students), the philharmonic academy, the Roman wall (those Romans were everywhere!) – and we ended the tour with a little boat journey up the river.
All in all, a great weekend exploring Slovenia. It gets the J&L recommendation.

It was Guy Fawkes’ Day in England on Sunday when we returned. The Brits celebrate Fawkes’ failed attempt to blow up Parliament by setting off fire works and having bon fires. As we flew in, we could see fire works sparkling across the country. The air in London was thick with smoke.