Ljubljana

Slovenia: the final country I needed to visit in the former Yugoslavia. Did you know yugo means south and slavia means well, Slavs, so the federation of Yugoslavia was created for Southern (south of Russia) slavs? Fun fact. Ljubljana is the capital city of this small but potent country. With a population about the size of Idaho, the city has around 300,000 residents. There aren’t many other big cities in this country, so most others live in smaller villages. 

The City

We took a three hour train from Zagreb to Ljubljana. Our hotel was smack dab in the center of town where all the tourist destinations are. Except there weren’t that many tourists or tourist destinations. This city was such a welcome relief from crowds and lines! Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of people here, but you could tell a lot of them were locals just chilling at the cafes. A river runs right though the city and the two sides are connected by numerous bridges. My favorite two (there were seriously a lot to have to narrow it down to two) were the dragon bridge chock full of dragons, and the triple bridge, which is actually three bridges right next to each other. 

Ljubljana was also part of the Austro-Hungarian empire so its buildings have the same vibe as Zagreb, Vienna, Budapest, etc. An architect in the 30s designed the city the way he would like a city to feel, so the result is that it is very walkable and full of interesting things to look at, like a giant pink church and the afore mentioned bridges. 

After wandering around for a couple hours after we arrived we hopped on a boat ride of the river. This was very calm, kind of like riding around on a canal in Amsterdam. We had great views of the buildings and bridges and even saw some swans and otters.

Castle and park

Our stay in Ljubljana was extremely chill, and we spent most of our time wandering. This is saying a lot because we had three full days there and it isn’t that big of a city. We went to a great green area only about fifteen minutes from our hotel called Tivoli Park. People bike everywhere around here so there were cool biking trails through the park and around the city.  We walked up the hill to the castle and at B’s request did not visit the Puppet Museum there. 

Food

We had two cool food experiences. One was visiting Druga Violina, which translates to second violin. This restaurant serves typical Slovenian food but employs people with disabilities. We also went to the Open Kitchen festival that hosted loads of local restaurants in the market area of town. I opted for Greek, but I really could have had just about any cuisine I wanted. 

Caves and Castles

We took a day trip to visit these two destinations. To be fair, there are a lot of caves and a lot of castles around here, so a myriad of combos could have been made.

Predjama Castle

Predjama Castle is the largest castle built with a natural cave. Did you know that was a niche? Nope, me neither. But it is very smart because you can save on costs. This one looks like a castle but then some of the walls are clearly a natural cave. There is a famous story about one of the rulers of this castle. The place was basically impregnable and they had a secret cave tunnel they could use to get food in and out when they were under siege. But then one of the maids spilled the beans that the bathroom wasn’t fortified. She (or he) signaled to the enemy that the guy was in the can and they shot a bunch of rocks at it and it collapsed, killing the guy. What a way to go!

Postajna Caves

Postajna Caves are the largest tourist caves in Slovenia, which is a country with a whole lot of caves. They are tourist caves because in the 1800s people found them and used them for parties and concerts and built a train track in them. This definitely would not fly nowadays with rules to protect nature, but I gotta say I’m glad the train exists because it was SO COOL! I haven’t seen this before, but my Disney expert sister tells me it looks just like the Snow White ride at Disneyland. We took a 20-minute train ride, then went on a paved path walk inside the tunnels and then took the train out. The caves were huge and filled with stalagmites, tites, and pillars/columns. I usually get claustrophobic going into caves but this train ride was so fun I forgot to be scared. In the future, if a cave doesn’t have a train ride, I’m not sure it is worth my time. 

Conclusion

This stop was probably my most chill of my whole trip, excluding Santiago de Compostela. I really enjoyed the vibe of the city with the architecture and bike lanes and numerous second hand stores. Everyone also speaks perfect English so it is really easy to get by. I definitely would be happy to come back here in the future.