Ljubljana

After three incredible weeks in Italy, we were excited to explore a new country- Slovenia. This was also pretty exciting for us because we booked all of our Italy accommodation a few months ago from the U.S, and Slovenia was the first country we were booking from the road (spoiler alert- it wasn't much different, and we found plenty of options, even without booking more than a week or so out).

From Venice, we booked a bus (in this case more of a van) to get to Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ljubljana, pronounced lube-ee-ah-nuh, is the capital and largest city in Slovenia with a population of ~200,000 people; the country only has about 2 million people total, it's tiny! Ljubljana is a very bike friendly city with a great bus system to navigate around. The hostel we stayed at was in the southern part of the city in the Trnovo neighborhood. We were outside of the city center, but a quick bus ride away. The hostel was large and spacious, and had a really nice garden and terrace which was nice for meals and relaxing. Our hostel also had a kitchen (it actually had three kitchens- one on each floor!) which was great for making breakfast and lunch and trying to reduce our spending after Italy.

Our first full day there, we went on a free city walking tour to learn more about the city and Slovenia in general since neither of us really knew anything about it. We saw the Pink Church, Triple Bridge, Dragon Bridge, main city square and much more. According to legend, the city was founded by Jason, the Greek mythology hero. After stealing the golden fleece, Jason and his argonauts fled across the Black Sea and up the Danube and the Sava until they reached the Ljubljanic River that flows through the city. On their way to the coast to sail back across the Adriatic to Greece, legend has it that they stopped at a large lake in the marshes near the source of the Ljubljanica, where a dragon was said to dwell, and Jason killed the dragon. Now, the dragon is the symbol of the city, and you can spot them everywhere you look.

The history of Slovenia is interesting, but quite different in recent decades than some of the other Balkan nations. Slovenia was a part of Yugoslavia, but in 1991, Slovenia was the first of the Yugoslavia republics to declare independence. There was a 10 day war that resulted in independence, but the war that carried across into Croatia and Bosnia was largely absent here (mostly because the Yugoslav army was preoccupied with the fighting in Croatia, and didn't want to waste resources on Slovenia). Unlike some of the other Balkan nations, Slovenia also joined the EU in 2004. Our tour guide was from Ljubljana and was born in the 1980's so it was really interesting to hear her and her family's personal accounts of this history and how the city and country have changed over time. Our guide (and most people we met in Slovenia) spoke exceptional english. She told us that it is required to learn this early on and throughout school, and that most people will learn other languages too (e.g., German). Slovenia is such a small country, that only speaking Slovenian does not get you very far outside of the country. In fact, we found out that while Google translate will translate written words, the audio pronunciation feature doesn't exist for Slovenian (we had to rely on good ole' Youtube to teach us the basics). That evening, we went to a local pub that was showing the individual women's gymnastics final. We were cheering on Simone Biles with an Irish couple while the rest of the bar was watching a local soccer game.

On our second day, we explored different portions of the city. We hiked up to Ljubljana's castle that overlooks the city. The castle and dragon are the main symbols on the city's flag, it's a pretty awesome logo. Carson was especially obsessed with it, and spent the rest of our time there searching for a hat with the flag on it (sadly he didn't find one. He did see an old local man with a hat he would have bought, but he didn't try to buy it off of him :). After the hike, we went to the central market which was booming more than on the previous day. Every Friday, the market has more vendors for crafts and food that last all day. The food options were overwhelming and very diverse. Carson ended up with a pad thai and Melissa got a hummus plate. With so many options we knew that we were going to come back to the market for dinner. After a brief cool down and nap at our hostel, we ventured out to explore Tivoli Park. The park was massive (it's actually larger than Central Park in NYC!) so we only were able to cover a sliver of it. It was fairly quiet with different areas for sports, gardens, bars, and walking trails. With all that walking, we knew it was time to go back to the market for more food. This time Carson got a Slovenia stuffed pepper and Melissa got an Egyptian sandwich. After dinner we met up with our new friend Luka from Milan and chatted over a few drinks before calling it a night.

Ljubljana was a small city with a lot of charm that reminded us of Minneapolis! Something about the river, bike and walkability, diverse food, nice people, and fun things to do felt really welcoming and familiar to us. Unlike Minneapolis, it also doesn't hurt that Ljubljana is also very close to the mountains (stay tuned for our next post!). We would definitely come back!