Ljubljana

4th - 5th April 2010

We started our day of epic travelling, with the Tube to Victoria, followed by the 1.5-hour bus ride out to Stansted (It really is much easier flying from Heathrow, it's a shame the budget airlines don't think the same thing!). I managed to get some sleep on the bus, which was a nice morning nap. The 2 hour flight to Ljubljana was only about half full, and with no screaming kids I was able to grab myself an afternoon kip. I awoke to find us flying over the snow capped mountains of Slovenia. It was definitely a nice view to wake up to.

We found a nice little man with a shuttle bus who was prepared to take us into the city for 5 Euros each, however the one ATM in the airport didn't like Dan's card. We ended up having to trek to the other end of the airport to find another. When we came back we loaded up into the mini bus for the trip into the city. We had to detour to pick up some other passengers (Who never ended up getting on the bus anyway) but that meant that we were taken the scenic route through the little villages and the green fields. I would be willing to almost say that Slovenia is greener than Ireland. I cannot get over the colour of the grass - it's electric green if that's such a thing!!

Our hostel was only a short walk from the central bus station so we went and checked in - the owner of the small hostel was so friendly and pointed out heaps of places to eat and see. We set down the bags and went for a stroll through the tiny capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana. Being Easter Sunday, not much was open, and there were very few people on the streets, but we had a look through the old town with its three bridges.

As it was nearing dinnertime, we thought we'd have a go at one of the restaurants Damia recommended to us. Apparently they served traditional Slovenian food, which I was excited to try. I had been reading in the Lonely Planet on the way over (before I fell asleep) that poor old Slovenia is a little mixed up in the culinary stakes. Being wedged between Italy, Austria and Hungary has influenced the diet as well as the German aristocracy setting up here a many years ago. The menu (Which thankfully was also translated into English) highly reflected this. There were pastas and risottos, wiener schnitzel and strudel, bratwurst and sauerkraut as well as many different goulashes. The one item on the menu, I'd seen in other Slovenian type restaurants we'd walked past all had mushroom soup in a bread pot - I like mushrooms so I thought I'd treat myself to an entrée and ordered it. Dan was less inspired and went for Beef and noodle soup. My soup was incredible - it came out in a bread bowl which was shaped like a mushroom, while Dan's was disappointing; some noodles in beef stock!. Our mains were delicious to; I had wiener schnitzel while Dan tried a mixed grill. We had to order our sides separately so we got some fried potatoes and some cottage cheese dumplings. The cheese was nice, but I couldn't eat a great deal of it so Dan polished that one off for us.

After dinner, we had a bit more of a stroll around the city before putting our tired little travelling heads to bed.

The next day we were up early as we had originally planned a day trip to the northern part of the country. But it was overcast and we'd checked that the forecast for tomorrow was much nicer, so we decided to hang out in Ljubljana for the day.

We were out on the streets by 9.30 but as it was Easter Monday nothing was open and the streets were deserted. After 10 things started to open so we decided to be lazy and take the funicular (cable car) up to the top of the big hill in the middle of the city to check out the Grad - Castle.

There actually wasn't that much to see and do in the castle. We'd brought a combined ticket for the funicular, the watchtower and 'virtual' museum, so after checking out the small gift shop and chapel we headed up the double spiral staircase to the top of the water tower. The view of the city was incredible. I'd overheard an annoying American teenager reading a guidebook that said that over 1/3 of Slovenia can be viewed from the watchtower on a fine day. The city is completely surrounded by mountain ranges, some still with snow on the top. In the town itself its not difficult to see the historic old town and then the contrast of the socialist buildings of Yugoslav days. We made our way down and into the 'virtual museum'. We were given 1980's style headsets programmed to English and 3D glasses. Woo. But it was just a terribly, boring presentation about the history of Ljubljana. They'd really made no effort to make it exciting at all. And they left out all the 'modern history', which I most wanted to learn about. Combined with the fact that I struggled to see 3D at the best of times, these graphics were just blurry and I ended up with sore eyes and a headache.

After catching the funicular back down (We did intend to walk, but our ticket gave us a free return journey!) we headed for McDonalds to try out the Slovenian fare. We both tried a 'McCountry', which appeared to be a pork burger, but I'm still not convinced that it was. Our dining experience was ruined by a group of young English lads that had either had too much to drink the night before, or were still giving it a go.

After lunch we strolled through the markets that were 90% closed. I would've loved to go back and visit them on a non holiday, because the crafty type gifts they had were beautiful.

We thought we'd better try to work off the McCountry with a stroll along the river and out to the big park, Park Tivoli. Basically the front of it is a nice general park, backing onto massive national forest. According to our maps there was also a zoo back there somewhere. We figured that we'd go and check it out for the afternoon as it looked as though it was only a couple of Euros to get into.The zoo turned to be miles away, and we gave up not even halfway there, so we spent the rest of the afternoon hiking through the forest and then back through the park. We thought we were heading from home (Which should've only been a 15 minute walk from the park) but someone couldn't read a map (Yeh it was me) and we took a wrong turn and headed along the road out of town. It took usa while to realise we were heading the wrong way, but we eventually did so we turned and headed for home. It seemed to take even longer because of the urgency I was needing the toilet. But unlike Dan, I manage to hold it in during these times!!!

We spent an hour or so at the hostel just filling in the late afternoon void before heading back down to the river for dinner. We found an unbelievably cheap pizzeria where we fed up good before strolling back to the hostel. Dan had to stop along the way for an ice cream. What he pointed to he thought might be caramel, but turned out to be Whisky flavoured ice cream. He enjoyed it so that's all that matters!!