Ljubljana, Slovenia

July 26-27, 2008

After finishing up our finals on Friday night, we hopped a late train to Ljubljana, Slovenia.We had to sleep in Saarbrucken (our favorite) for four hours but luckily it was much warmer this time than on our first trip.We arrived in Ljubljana around 5:00 pm (about 18 hours after we left Metz) and headed to our hostel.Our hostel was very nice.Our room had six beds, a kitchen, and a full bathroom.One of our roommates was from Sydney, Australia and was going to have to head back "soon" because he was running out of money - soon to him meant three weeks - he'd been traveling for about 5 months and had originally been planning to return in November.

That first night we went out to explore the city a little bit.We really did not know much about what it had to offer since we picked that travel destination primarily based on its cool name and secondly because one of our professors said it was kind of an "outdoorsy" area like a small-scale Interlaken.We had planned to visit a nearby lake that Danny found online on Sunday and to see the city by a "romantic river cruise" Saturday night.Unfortunately, the weather forecast showed non-stop rain and thunderstorms all weekend so we weren't sure what we were going to do.

We walked around the city Saturday evening to find most things closed - and the man at our hostel told us most things would be closed on Sunday too…what kind of city closes everything on the weekends?The city, which is Slovenia's capital, is pretty much built around a central river, the Ljubljanica River.We walked past a few of the city's famous bridges including the Triple Bridge and the Dragon Bridge, which were very pretty.Also that night we ate the biggest pizza we've ever seen.For only 10 euros we got a 2.5 ft. diameter pizza.We were only able to eat ¾ of it, so we had the rest for breakfast the next day.After dinner we did end up going on the river cruise and were one of only two couples so we got extra "free" sparkling wine as we saw the city by night.

Sunday morning we woke up, checked out and put our bags in storage for the day.Once again it was raining, so we went to the tourist office to ask for a place to buy an umbrella or poncho and to see if any shops would be open.Danny bought a nice yellow umbrella, which had magical powers, b/c the rain stopped once we left the TI and didn't rain the rest of the day, even though it was forecasted to rain the whole day.We took "Yellow Fellow" everywhere that day to keep the rain away.

We had to catch a 1pm train to Lake Bled, so we quickly went up the funicular to the Castle Hill, where we watched a 3D video about the history of Ljubljana, and we climbed to castle tower to view Ljubljana below.Interestingly, Slovenia is a newly independent nation, only 17 years ago separating from Yugoslavia.After climbing the tower we headed back down the castle hill after finding a gift shop that sold a "Ljubljana" t-shirt.We really wanted a shirt with "Ljubljana" on it b/c it's such a cool name.Unfortunately they only had men's sizes so Danny only got one L.We were in luck though b/c in the city center there was a large market and one stand sold a lot of Ljubljana shirts so Laura got one too, along with her hand bag that has a huge, green dragon on the front.The city actually is very pretty with the mossy trees hanging over the river and all the small bridges that cross it.It's amazing what a blue sky can do to improve the looks of a city.

We then headed to the train station and took the 45 min. train to Lesce Bled, where we caught a 10 min. bus ride to Lake Bled.Lake Bled reminded us of Interlaken with it's beautiful blue lake surrounded by mountains.One of the icons of this lake town is the island in the middle of the lake that has a small church on it.There is some tradition that newly wedded husbands carry their brides down the 99 white stairs from the church to the lake for good luck.Luckily for us the Sunday we were there was the last of the "Summer Bled Days," an outdoor festival with traditional Slovenian folk music/dance and tents with beer on tap and food.We got to try the Slovenian beer "Union" and Laura got a bottle of "Union Smile" at the train station on the way back.We first headed to the "Alpine Slide" like thing that we saw on one of the faces of a nearby mountain.For 7 euros you take a chairlift up the mountain and ride a cart that goes along a rail, winding down the mountain…it was actually very fast and you controlled the speed by a little handle.We then ate and rented a row boat for an hour to go check out the island.After paddling out to the island Danny was ready to hop in the water, so we jumped in and enjoyed the refreshing water.It felt very clean, and at about 75 degrees, felt great in the hot sun.We then headed back and went to a swimming area with a diving platform and slide.As Danny went flipping off the diving board, a local from Lake Bled started talking to Laura.He said he loved living there, but the snow wasn't as good in the winter as it was when he was younger.

After lounging around for about an hour it was time to take the bus back to the train station.We got back to Ljubljana around 9:30 pm and had until 2:20 am for our train to Venice.We stayed at the hostel for a while checking emails and looking over Venice online.We then headed to the train station around 11 after walking all around the city and napped at the station's platform until our train arrived.