Ljubljana, Slovenia – Dragon City

When arriving in Ljubljana (Lube-lee-ann-na) I was stunned by the sophistication and beauty this city had. I’m not going to say it looked like Venice but the many bridges and pedestrian only walkways that dominated the main old town reminded me of it.

That said, we arrived on a Saturday afternoon and the city was dead! It was eery and sure the weather was bad, but all the shops were closed and we passed by only 2 people on our street to the Hostel, right in the middle of town. The rain started to pour so we used our time in our hostel to nap and catch up on blogs. We thought we’d save our energy, for this was Saturday night, and we had read this capital had some hotspots.

To our dismay however, after our amazing and break the budget dinner, errrr Euro, we found the only bar that seemed to have any energy in order to get this nightlife started. The bar unfortunately however didn’t take long to clear out though after a soccer match ended. And So we headed to our inn keepers suggestion, a place on the other side of the train station, outside of the main town. When we arrived it was a livelier scene, but super weird as kids were wearing all black. Every bar was playing goth music and people were just hanging outside loitering. We went into one warehouse club, had a drink, tried to get into it by trying to dance to some weird music but it just was not our scene.

**Doing some research the next day we found out we visited a commune of squatters who had some angst against the government.

 

Day 2, while a bit cloudy and chilly did have some breakthrough sun. Again most every place was closed on our street, yet this was more our expectation given it was Sunday. We spent our last full day in the capital grabbing food at a nearby cafe and swung by any tables open in the market where we managed to pick up honey brandy – the Slovenians LOVE their homemade brandy and schnapps and it comes in a variety tastes and flavors.

We then made it up to the castle. The view was great however the highlight for me was the food at the top. This restaurant was reasonable and the best food I’d had in awhile. An unforgettable fish sandwich we ordered will haunt me as the main reason I must visit Ljubljana again. Sooooo good. The restaurant also provided us shelter when a quick thunderstorm sent castle visitors running for cover. http://www.nagradu.si/en/

We walked around a bit more, saw some more sights and the sun managed to come out.

Then we had a very romantic candlelight dinner at another great but too pricey for our budget restaurant, then tried to squeeze some kind of nightlife into an already dead city on a Sunday night. Lucky for us our expectations were low, but we did find a cool bar with a penthouse in the commercial area with 360 views of the city at night. There we sat, our last night, looking at the castle, overlooking the town, bridges and river all lit with lights, as well as the full moon. It was really special.

Day 3, we woke up and I had a rough morning. As i got in the shower, I had less than a minute of warm water to have only ice for the rest. Once ready we then couldn’t find our inn keeper so it looked like we were tied to our bags until we caught the train in a few hours. Ugh.

The Good news is that the market was open and I was able to get the fried fish I wanted from the famous cart. I loved it – Aaron however, couldn’t muster the taste of the sardines.

Finally, we went to the last place on my list, a dessert bar along the bank, Lolita, where I had some cappuccino, Aaron a beer, and together we shared a really delicious chocolate cake filled with honey. With that we headed to the bus station to pick up our bus to Bled.

Notes:

walking, walking streets, bikers even hit pedestrian traffic

But also bike towns -everyone rode cute Euro bikes

Squares and streets lined with cafes, tables often in the middle of the street

A bit empty so much potential, needed more people which would have a totally different experience – in high season