Ljubljana

Thursday July 7, 2011

On Tuesday morning, Dylan dropped us off at the Voyageur bus station in Ottawa with our 2 main packs and 2 day packs. We each carry a big pack on back and a small pack on front. That's the best way. My 2 packs total 32 pounds while Anita's are 22 pounds. This will go down a bit as we go along since we'll use up sunscreen and throw away sections of our 2 travel guides as we no longer need them. This is all doable.

We got to the airport in Montreal in good time, found the Swiss Air counter with no problems and checked in. After a Burger King lunch we went through security and sat in the holding tank for a couple of hours. We were pleased with the Swiss Air plane - very modern, movies and lots of other entertainment on the seat back and pretty good food. We left Ottawa at 5 pm and arrived in Zurich at 6:20 am - 7 hour flight and 6 hour time difference. We were shuttled to another terminal, had to go back through customs and security and boarded a 50 seat plane for the hour and a bit flight to Ljubljana at 10 am. We flew over the Swiss Alps which were quite beautiful on such a clear day. Since we came from Switzerland, another Schengen country, we didn't have to go through any customs at Ljubljana. We caught a public bus from the airport for only 4 euros each and arrived in Ljubljana about 1 pm. Since we had only slept an hour or two, we were both nodding off on the bus even though we were excited to see the scenery and little towns we went through.

We found our hotel after less than 10 minutes walking and checked in. Our room wasn't ready so we went down to the local grocery store and bought wine and beer for happy hour. Anita's litre of local (I think) merlot cost 3.29 euros while my 2 tallboy cans of Slovenian beer (Union and Lasko, the 2 most popular here) were 1 euro each. We're staying in the Hotel Center, an 8 room renovated hotel on the 2nd floor (1st floor in Europe, they don't count the ground floor) of an old building only a few minutes walk from the old town. After a shower, we both slept for 2 1/2 hours.

After that we walked around the old town for a bit and each had a pizza at a patio restaurant right on the riverbank. For 2 huge pizzas, a big beer, glass of wine and tip it cost 24 euros, not cheap but in the range. It's all very pretty - old buildings nicely kept, lots of bridges over the river, cobblestone pedestrian streets and lots of trees. We listened to a few buskers but were in bed by 9 pm.

This morning we walked up to the bus station and got our tickets on the 10 am bus to Piran on the coast tomorrow. The tickets were only 12.9 euros each for a 2 1/2 hour bus ride - this is less than half the cost of buses in Canada. After that we walked down to the farmers' market by the river in the old town. It's a great setup with lots of cafes and shops selling baked goods, cheese, meat and fish around a square which has a huge market in the middle.

We wandered around the old town and bridges over the narrow river all morning. The pictures are of the river, the famous triple bridge linking 3 streets at Preseren Square with one street on the other side of the river, and the Dragon Bridge (with dragons that apparently wag their tails when virgins walk by) and me standing with a statue of the Devil (our good friend Dan Drost). Then we bought some tomatoes, apricots and "klobosa" sausage (from a Slovenian with an uncle in Vancouver) in the market. With really good buns from one of the bakeries we headed off to one of the parks for a picnic lunch in the shade. It's about 30 degrees but there's a breeze so it's hot but not unbearable.

We walked down to French Revolution Square and then back up to Preseren Square (named after their most revered poet - how many Canadian poets get statues and squares?) along the river. Although the Austrian Habsburgs ruled Slovenia for 600 years it was Napoleon who encouraged Slovenian culture and language when he was in charge for only 4 years. They like him.

Generally, Ljubljana is very Austrian looking. The streets are very clean, there are lots of trees, open space, and bike paths with very little litter. It's a little Mediterranean with Austrian efficiency - what's not to like?

The Slovenians also realized that since only 2 million people in the world speak Slovenian they better learn English to deal with foreigners so English is taught in the schools. For those of us lucky enough by accident of birth to be English speaking, we've once again lucked into speaking the language of the world.

We're just enjoying a cooling shower and late afternoon rest before we go out for dinner. Anita is feeling well but we're not going to rip around at a torrid tourist pace so she doesn't overdo it. Pneumonia is nothing to sneeze at.