We had been warned that there wasn’t a lot do to in Ljubljana and, for us, that turned out to be quite true. I said at the end of the day “It might be a nice place to live, if you want to just go out and have a beverage or breakfast on the water front - it's quite pretty - but for a tourist, there's practically nothing to do here."
To check out we had to go back down the street, but at least we were able to leave our luggage there for the day. The accommodation was right next to the iconic “dragon bridge”, so we took some mandatory photos of that.
Our main port of call for now was to climb up to the castle which sticks out like a pimple in the middle of Ljubljana. At the base, we found a bustling local market, selling a lot of produce and food products, as well as plants and fruits and vegetables. It was pretty cool looking! In the distance, we could hear live music too which was playing something quite electro. It was a cool vibe. We found our way to the bottom of the hill to start the climb to the castle. We opted not to pay the €10 return for the cable car - that’s €20 we can spend on something else (probably wine…!). On the way, we overtook 3 ladies pulling trundler suitcases and I couldn’t quite understand why they perhaps didn’t buy the cable car ticket.
The walk up was steep but fine, and didn’t take very long. Every now and then we took photos of the city peeking through the trees. At the top, around the base of the castle, the ladies with the trundlers had overtaken us by taking another path and asked Dan to take a photo of them. Circumnavigating the castle, there wasn’t a lot to see, and the castle itself wasn’t anything much to write home about. We have definitely seen more impressive castles. As we walked around, we discussed how much we would consider paying to go in because there was a view point up the tower that might be a nice look over the city. At the front, it turned out the cheapest ticket package was €7.50 per person, and this was above what we had been willing to pay. We finished another half lap and started making our way down - we had wanted to go down the opposite way but ended up finding ourselves on the same path back to the market. No matter!
We stopped and listened to some guys busking for a while, they were playing electro music on sax and guitar and it sounded really, really cool. The music had resonated all the way up to the castle, too. Continuing on, we were looking for the square we could see up on the castle. Found it. Took some pictures.
By now, it wasn't even midday so too early for lunch, so we sat on a bench seat and ate some snacks. Dan had initially mentioned a train museum not far away, but after researching it had said it was a bit crap so didn’t want to go. Now we had so much time to kill that we decided to go to the train museum anyway, so after a bit of a sit down this was our next destination.
On the way was the “cyanometer” which I had wanted to see. It was slightly cooler than I expected - it was a beautiful brilliant blue - and I didn’t expect it to be so reflective. What is it? Apparently there’s been one on this spot for a long time, although the original wasn’t nearly so high tech! It reflects the colour of the sky, and this high tech one also gives pollution and other interesting air readings.
That was a photo and on we went to the museum, it was a 20 minute walk so not too long, but the sun was quite warm by now. There were road works at one stage which meant we had to back track a little way.
It was only €3.5 entry so that was nice and cheap. Dan had read there were only 8 trains on display but there were at least 12 inside and then probably about 8 or so outside. I had a little bit of a sit down in here while Dan inspected the trains.
Outside, there were a few more trains, some of which had started to be reclaimed by nature. By now it was time to go back - and for lunch. The place I wanted to go - Dan looked it up too and turns out it wasn't open on weekends. Damn! I lost track of days.
We found a place, it was alright...not too expensive but not crazy good either. I had the calamari which came with spinach and potato, it was a bit plan but alright. Dan had a lasagna and burnt his arm on the bowl. While here, we watched a crazy lady summoning evil forces or something - it looked like some possessed Tai Chi - she even whipped off her scarf and got that involved with the ceremony. No idea what she was doing!
The final thing I had wanted to do in Ljubljana was to visit the artist commune Metalkava. It was kinda disappointing, to be honest. I had expected more like Uzipius in Vilnius or Teufelsberg in Berlin. Instead it was just some graffitied buildings which are apparently bars at night time. Some people glared at us with our cameras, so we quickly left.
Dan realised we were right near our accom so we grabbed our stuff and just went straight to the bus station. Good thing! It started POURING as we entered the bus station. The sky opened up. We couldn't get tix for the 4pm bus (turns out, as I learnt later, you have to buy tickets 2 hours in advance), so we had to get tix for the 5pm bus instead.
This meant a 2 hour wait, and we didn’t know what to do with this time. Dan had spotted some seats at the train station next door, so while the rain paused for 30 seconds we ran across the road and set ourselves up on seats which we thought were for Maccas. I wandered off to the toilet, and popped into Maccas on my return to see what their ice-cream offerings were (more than usual, by the way!) and when I got back to the table I saw Dan being served. Turns out these tables were for a tiny station bar and so we had to order something. The drinks were super cheap, €1 for a glass of wine, so we ended up sitting here and ordering a few drinks over the next 2 hours!
And oh, did it RAIN. The sky was alight with lightening, and some of the thunderclaps were right on top of us. I think one hit the castle hill! It was truly amazing to watch. The tracks were flooding. Some of the platforms were flooding - all while we just sat back and enjoyed the view - it wasn’t even cold!
The original intention was to buy a Maccas ice-cream, so I went inside to order this. What ensued was a bit of an argument - I ordered the “jagoda” and the “chocolate” supreme McSundae, pointing to the pictures. The Jagoda had pink soft serve and the chocolate and had chocolate soft serve. When she returned, both had vanilla soft serve. I was like “It doesn’t look like the pictures?” And she said, well, you didn’t say that you wanted different soft serve. And I said, you didn’t ask me. So she got all huffy and made them again, this time like the pictures.
When I returned, we ordered another €1 wine from the bar lady, and when she saw our ice creams, she exclaimed, "Oh icecream and wine! That'll send you to the toilet!”
The rain miraculously stopped by the time we had to walk out to catch our bus to Bled. We grabbed ourselves some seats near the front, and in 1 and a half hours we were at Lake Bled. The sky looked very, very angry and there was more lightening on the way. It was drizzling in Bled when we got there, and we tried looking for an ATM to pay for our accommodation but failed, so just went straight to check in, hoping they’d point us in the right direction.
Thankfully at check in they allowed us to pay later! Our accommodation was in another building and we had the main kitchen below us. A lovely lady showed us the map and all around the area, as well as letting us know prices of things (such as the row boats) and estimated walking times around the lake. I mention all this, because I think her information may have been a little out, as we were to find out later!
The shop next to accom would close at 9pm, so we went in there to get dinner for the night and snacks for the morrow. Took us FOREVER as we couldn’t decide what we wanted to eat for dinner. We figured salads for lunch again and settled on cheap tinned soup and fluffy bread for dinner - we weren’t overly hungry.
Back at accom we didn't make dinner straight away as there were too many people in the kitchen. We went down a little while later, and prepared our gourmet tinned soup! It was actually ok, with rice and vegetables, and we ate it with some buttered some soft bread. While we were preparing our dinner, we chatted with and got to know 2 Aussie ladies who were also staying here - they were reasonably elderly, far older than the normal hostel clientele (probably 50+?)! One was sick so she had decided to just up and travel around the world (she didn't go into details) and the other has been living in Hungary for the last 7 years doing up a world heritage home, and travelling in between times. It was fun and interesting to talk to them, very different! The older lady who lived in Hungary couldn’t quite grasp the fact that we had been living in London and Berlin statically, and worked career progressing jobs. She seemed to still think we would be wanting to work on bars or farms, and working as we travelled because she herself employed young people to help with her house.
We excused ourselves and had an early night. Originally, we were looking forward to a sleep in but when we looked up the weather for the next day - storms were supposed to roll in from midday, so an early start around Lake Bled it was!
Til next time,
xx
To check out we had to go back down the street, but at least we were able to leave our luggage there for the day. The accommodation was right next to the iconic “dragon bridge”, so we took some mandatory photos of that.
Our main port of call for now was to climb up to the castle which sticks out like a pimple in the middle of Ljubljana. At the base, we found a bustling local market, selling a lot of produce and food products, as well as plants and fruits and vegetables. It was pretty cool looking! In the distance, we could hear live music too which was playing something quite electro. It was a cool vibe. We found our way to the bottom of the hill to start the climb to the castle. We opted not to pay the €10 return for the cable car - that’s €20 we can spend on something else (probably wine…!). On the way, we overtook 3 ladies pulling trundler suitcases and I couldn’t quite understand why they perhaps didn’t buy the cable car ticket.
The walk up was steep but fine, and didn’t take very long. Every now and then we took photos of the city peeking through the trees. At the top, around the base of the castle, the ladies with the trundlers had overtaken us by taking another path and asked Dan to take a photo of them. Circumnavigating the castle, there wasn’t a lot to see, and the castle itself wasn’t anything much to write home about. We have definitely seen more impressive castles. As we walked around, we discussed how much we would consider paying to go in because there was a view point up the tower that might be a nice look over the city. At the front, it turned out the cheapest ticket package was €7.50 per person, and this was above what we had been willing to pay. We finished another half lap and started making our way down - we had wanted to go down the opposite way but ended up finding ourselves on the same path back to the market. No matter!
We stopped and listened to some guys busking for a while, they were playing electro music on sax and guitar and it sounded really, really cool. The music had resonated all the way up to the castle, too. Continuing on, we were looking for the square we could see up on the castle. Found it. Took some pictures.
By now, it wasn't even midday so too early for lunch, so we sat on a bench seat and ate some snacks. Dan had initially mentioned a train museum not far away, but after researching it had said it was a bit crap so didn’t want to go. Now we had so much time to kill that we decided to go to the train museum anyway, so after a bit of a sit down this was our next destination.
On the way was the “cyanometer” which I had wanted to see. It was slightly cooler than I expected - it was a beautiful brilliant blue - and I didn’t expect it to be so reflective. What is it? Apparently there’s been one on this spot for a long time, although the original wasn’t nearly so high tech! It reflects the colour of the sky, and this high tech one also gives pollution and other interesting air readings.
That was a photo and on we went to the museum, it was a 20 minute walk so not too long, but the sun was quite warm by now. There were road works at one stage which meant we had to back track a little way.
It was only €3.5 entry so that was nice and cheap. Dan had read there were only 8 trains on display but there were at least 12 inside and then probably about 8 or so outside. I had a little bit of a sit down in here while Dan inspected the trains.
Outside, there were a few more trains, some of which had started to be reclaimed by nature. By now it was time to go back - and for lunch. The place I wanted to go - Dan looked it up too and turns out it wasn't open on weekends. Damn! I lost track of days.
We found a place, it was alright...not too expensive but not crazy good either. I had the calamari which came with spinach and potato, it was a bit plan but alright. Dan had a lasagna and burnt his arm on the bowl. While here, we watched a crazy lady summoning evil forces or something - it looked like some possessed Tai Chi - she even whipped off her scarf and got that involved with the ceremony. No idea what she was doing!
The final thing I had wanted to do in Ljubljana was to visit the artist commune Metalkava. It was kinda disappointing, to be honest. I had expected more like Uzipius in Vilnius or Teufelsberg in Berlin. Instead it was just some graffitied buildings which are apparently bars at night time. Some people glared at us with our cameras, so we quickly left.
Dan realised we were right near our accom so we grabbed our stuff and just went straight to the bus station. Good thing! It started POURING as we entered the bus station. The sky opened up. We couldn't get tix for the 4pm bus (turns out, as I learnt later, you have to buy tickets 2 hours in advance), so we had to get tix for the 5pm bus instead.
This meant a 2 hour wait, and we didn’t know what to do with this time. Dan had spotted some seats at the train station next door, so while the rain paused for 30 seconds we ran across the road and set ourselves up on seats which we thought were for Maccas. I wandered off to the toilet, and popped into Maccas on my return to see what their ice-cream offerings were (more than usual, by the way!) and when I got back to the table I saw Dan being served. Turns out these tables were for a tiny station bar and so we had to order something. The drinks were super cheap, €1 for a glass of wine, so we ended up sitting here and ordering a few drinks over the next 2 hours!
And oh, did it RAIN. The sky was alight with lightening, and some of the thunderclaps were right on top of us. I think one hit the castle hill! It was truly amazing to watch. The tracks were flooding. Some of the platforms were flooding - all while we just sat back and enjoyed the view - it wasn’t even cold!
The original intention was to buy a Maccas ice-cream, so I went inside to order this. What ensued was a bit of an argument - I ordered the “jagoda” and the “chocolate” supreme McSundae, pointing to the pictures. The Jagoda had pink soft serve and the chocolate and had chocolate soft serve. When she returned, both had vanilla soft serve. I was like “It doesn’t look like the pictures?” And she said, well, you didn’t say that you wanted different soft serve. And I said, you didn’t ask me. So she got all huffy and made them again, this time like the pictures.
When I returned, we ordered another €1 wine from the bar lady, and when she saw our ice creams, she exclaimed, "Oh icecream and wine! That'll send you to the toilet!”
The rain miraculously stopped by the time we had to walk out to catch our bus to Bled. We grabbed ourselves some seats near the front, and in 1 and a half hours we were at Lake Bled. The sky looked very, very angry and there was more lightening on the way. It was drizzling in Bled when we got there, and we tried looking for an ATM to pay for our accommodation but failed, so just went straight to check in, hoping they’d point us in the right direction.
Thankfully at check in they allowed us to pay later! Our accommodation was in another building and we had the main kitchen below us. A lovely lady showed us the map and all around the area, as well as letting us know prices of things (such as the row boats) and estimated walking times around the lake. I mention all this, because I think her information may have been a little out, as we were to find out later!
The shop next to accom would close at 9pm, so we went in there to get dinner for the night and snacks for the morrow. Took us FOREVER as we couldn’t decide what we wanted to eat for dinner. We figured salads for lunch again and settled on cheap tinned soup and fluffy bread for dinner - we weren’t overly hungry.
Back at accom we didn't make dinner straight away as there were too many people in the kitchen. We went down a little while later, and prepared our gourmet tinned soup! It was actually ok, with rice and vegetables, and we ate it with some buttered some soft bread. While we were preparing our dinner, we chatted with and got to know 2 Aussie ladies who were also staying here - they were reasonably elderly, far older than the normal hostel clientele (probably 50+?)! One was sick so she had decided to just up and travel around the world (she didn't go into details) and the other has been living in Hungary for the last 7 years doing up a world heritage home, and travelling in between times. It was fun and interesting to talk to them, very different! The older lady who lived in Hungary couldn’t quite grasp the fact that we had been living in London and Berlin statically, and worked career progressing jobs. She seemed to still think we would be wanting to work on bars or farms, and working as we travelled because she herself employed young people to help with her house.
We excused ourselves and had an early night. Originally, we were looking forward to a sleep in but when we looked up the weather for the next day - storms were supposed to roll in from midday, so an early start around Lake Bled it was!
Til next time,
xx
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