Confirming we had left the edginess of the first three destinations on our Balkan tour behind, Ljubljana was just as pretty as Zagreb and even cleaner. Like Zagreb it had a history as part of the Hapsburg empire that had left behind a legacy of elegant buildings, many of them painted in pretty pastel colours.
The train — a daytime train this time — took us through the most prosperous looking countryside we had seen on the whole trip, with big white painted villas set among verdant farmland or wooded hills. The railway ran alongside the river Sava for part of the journey.
Although Slovenia is one of the smaller ex-Yugoslav states, it had 20% of Yugoslavia’s industry before the split, and its secession was accomplished after barely a week of fighting, unlike the years-long wars that tore other states apart.
Across Dragon Bridge
Arriving in Ljubljana, our entry to the compact city centre was across Dragon Bridge, an arch over the Ljubljanica River with two dragons guarding it at each, and 16 smaller dragons on the bridge.
After pottering around the pretty cobbled streets and stopping off for coffee at an outdoor cafe, we took the funicular up to Ljubljana Castle, an old stone castle with a terracotta roof on the hill that towers above the city cente.
It started as a medieval fortress atop Castle Hill, though has been rebuilt many times, with most of the current buildings dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. We explored the museum inside, but for me the best part was strolling round the castle walls. Up the spiral staircase into the observation tower, we had an even more beautiful view of Ljubljana and its surroundings.
Pizza with a side of flirtation
In contrast to the drama of our Zagreb hostel, we were among only three guests at the Hostel Azur located above a pizzeria in a leafy suburb of the city. We celebrated our last evening of travel with huge pizzas washed down with Slovenian white, and some flirting with the handsome waiter.
During our time in Ljubljana, the only exceptions to the peaceful attractiveness of the city were the extremely aggressive cyclists — we actually saw one knock down an elderly man as he stepped off the pavement. We witnessed that from inside a small bookshop we’d ducked into to see if we could find any books by Slovenian authors translated into English.
Those books — mine was titled “The Land and the Flesh” — provided a disturbing contrast to our positive impressions of Slovenia as we read them on the train to Maribor, from where we were flying back to Luton. Tired and hungover, the tales of death and mutilation gave us uneasy dreams when we dozed off sporadically as the train trundled through the wooded hills to the end of our holiday.
Tour of the Balkans
Ljubljana was the fifth stop in our five-country tour of the Balkans. Read about the rest of the trip here:
Late 20s angst and a tour of the Balkans
Bucharest changed almost beyond recognition in nine years
Steppe in Style 
Leave a comment