Ljubljana: 26th – 1st March

Ljubljana is one of the main cities in Slovenia and we merely chose it as a stopover place to break up the long trip to Venice. The Hostel was interesting as it was originally a prison, dodgy location but really cool place. The basement jail cells have been renovated and there are now daily tours run if you want to see how it originally looked. The remainder of the hostel was brightly colored and decked out in many different kinds of wood, bedrooms were upstairs and a bar and restaurant on the ground floor, it was great fun so were happy with our choice.

(Hostel)

(Graffiti rat, really pretty good I think)

The first day we felt like getting out of the city so Sarah organized a day trip to a small town called Bled. If you were picking places by their names this would not be a first choice, but some other people at the hostel recommended it so we thought we would give it a go. We were blessed with a sunny day and after an hour’s bus ride we arrived at a breathtaking location. The town was built around this superb lake that had an island with a church in the middle of it.

(Lake Bled)

(Island)

After a lovely lunch we decided to walk around the lake and found ourselves trekking through the forest up to a castle that was built on a cliff face overlooking the lake. We got such a great view of the entire town up there, and it was so peaceful (nice to be out of the bustling cities), all you could hear was birds happily chirping.

(View from the castle)

(Island and castle)

By the time it was dark we had finished walking so we found ourselves a nice café that served a life changing hot chocolate called ‘Antica Cioccolateria’. There were all sorts of flavors ranging from white to dark chocolate, infused with anything you could dream of, fruits, nuts, vanilla bean, chili, caramel etc. They empty the sachet into a jug with milk and froth it up, it ends up thick and delicious, so now I’m on a mission to import it to Australia.

(The Moon as the sun sets)

The following day Sarah and I went touring around the city of Ljubljana. First we went to see a Mansion which houses photography, it really was nice as it was built in the middle of a large park. Because it was a Sunday it was packed with locals strolling around and children playing, unfortunately the display was closed for the day but we enjoyed the nice walk.

After an hour or so we ventured to the monumental Castle that was built in the middle of the city on a large hill, it was really charming and again like most castles gave a good view of the city.

I believe that the outskirts of this city are just like any other, but the central area is quiet nice as it is divided up by a few canals that give it a bit of character. It was not a life changing place but a good one to base yourself at especially if you want to see some really cute towns. The tourist brochures listed some other really interesting day trip options that were between 30min to 2hrs away, so if you had a week you could explore the most beautiful parts of Slovenia. I would most definitely consider returning in summer and exploring the rural regions of this country.