Ljubljana

 

Ljubljana

18 December - 2 January 

Greetings from Ljubljana in Slovenia.
We left Certaldo and caught a train to for an overnight stop north-west to Trieste.

It's right on the edge of where Italy meets Croatia, and it's only officially been part of Italy since 1954.

Trieste is a really interesting place. We enjoyed a self-guided walk around the city and learnt, of course, that the Romans were there (from 33BC.)
It looks like a really interesting city. If on a future European holiday we're passing through, we'll try to spend more than the one night here to have a better look around.



The next morning we caught a bus from Trieste to Ljubljana.
We're happy with where we've chosen here.
Accommodation in the old town itself over Christmas/New Year was thousands of dollars for the two weeks, so we're just out of that area.

Ljubjana is a city of 300,000, about the size of Wollongong or the Central Coast, and fortunately our accommodation was on the edge of the city closest to the rural fringe.
Depending on how you choose to travel, the old town is a 

• 20 minute stroll along the river,
• 5 minute bus ride from close to the apartment, or a
• 10 minute bicycle ride using the Ljubljana city bike rent - 1 € per week to join for unlimited 60 minute bike rides with stations all over the city.

We're joined here in Ljubljana at different times by our elder daughter, Emily, who flew in from Sydney, as well as John's brother and his wife who arrived by train from Salzberg.

Over this past two weeks, both as a group as well as independently, wandered the city (old town), done a free city walk, visited the castle, enjoyed Christmas day together, visited Lake Bled, Postojna Cave and Castle, been to nearby towns like Kranj, which has a  ski jump and more.

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, with just 300k residents was a good opportunity for Emily to get in a bit of driving on the wrong side of the road practice. 

While we had snow at Lake Bled, unfortunately we didn't have a white Christmas (despite the weather forecast and constantly looking out the window with crossed fingers!)

After a few days together, Geoff and Julie took the car to visit Trieste in Italy and Zagreb, and Emily caught a bus to Florence and Venice before we all met up again for New Year.

A few pics...

Ljubljana sits on a river, and the 5 bridges that cross it, connecting the old town to the new(er), are beautiful

Ljubljana's fabulous bike hire scheme. Not electric, admittedly, however the city is very flat. 

1 Euro for a week of unlimited 60 minute bike rides (3 Euro for a year!) #Clover

We went to Bled for a (snowy) day

Ljubljana has an old Soviet building in the city that has a viewing platform and a bar 

Our accommodation was in the suburbs. This bridge was a few minutes from our house.

My favourite little alley in Ljubljana... these little brass sculptures each represent a poo in this alley that became a sewer!

Ljubljana castle is (I guess, naturally) a on a hill overlooking the city. It was terribly run-down and the restoration has been really we done.

Santa comes to children's houses on Christmas Eve, and Grandfather Frost visits on New Year's Eve for another round of presents for young children.

The main (Catholic) church in Ljubljana has the most enormous Nativity scene we've ever seen! A water feature, hundreds of sheep and other animals, crusaders... it had it all!

Geoff and Julie left to head to Vienna for a few days on their own, and on our final day the three of us drove to Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle. The cave is enormous, and is the most visited thing in Slovenia outside of Ljubljana. We entered the cave via their railway cars and proceeded to a tour on foot. Like most caves, photos don't do it a scrap of justice... it was quite pretty.

Predjama Castle is built into a cave. It's cold, damp, dark and a horrible place to live, as various families and outlaws have done for hundreds of years. They are better at life than me (John). I'd have thrown myself off the battlement before the end of my first winter I think.

And so time to leave Ljubljana and head east towards Budapest. Which brings us up to date... John, Robyn and Emily are on a train to Budapest with an overnight in Vienna, while Geoff and Julie will join us in Budapest soon after stopping in Vienna for three days.