Slovenia: Ljubljana
6:27 PM
My second day in Slovenia, I stayed in Ljubljana and set about exploring the city. It's a rather small city with only 300,000 population, and the main sites could easily be covered in a few hours. But it is a very pretty and CLEAN city nevertheless and it is a simple pleasure to wander through the old town, sit by the river, sip wine or drink cocktails like I did...
To me, this acted like the main town square, before the triple bridge. The red building is the Church of the Annunciation followed by Presernov Trg and the Tourist Information building
Cafes along the River... heaps to walk around and take your pic from. At night almost every cafe becomes a pub/bar... but most have the dual function of restaurants as well.
Continued pictures of the streets!
Triple Bridge, the river and its surrounding buildings.
Look what I found while walking around!!! hehe :P
One of the more unique buildings that I saw... I can't remember what its name is... but I remember the guide pointing out the unique concrete and brick building design.
National University of Ljubljana
I paid 10 Euros to go on an walking tour, and it was quite worth it as (although I didn't realize it at that time), the tour included the furnicular ride up to the castle, and our entry to the clock tower where we could get a bird's eye view of the city... so pretty worth it in my opinion. Plus these walking tours are meant to be for smaller groups, so there were only like 8 of us in total.
From left: Furnicular up to the castle; Clock tower; Original entrance into the castle.
Castle grounds: Slovenia was once under Habsburgs rule, and while the Habsburgs never really stayed here, this castle was usually used by the governor general who oversaw Slovenia and reported back to the Habsburgs...so the furnishings are very sparse and even the architecture of the castle is very typical.
View of the city from the clock tower
St George Chapel: St George is the patron saint of Ljubljana
Flags of EU, Slovenia and Ljubljana above the town hall
Like Krakow, Dragons are legendary creatures in Slovenia as well, so much so that they have the dragon bridge in Ljubljana.
Of course, Slovenia is predominantly Roman catholic and it is of no surprise that they have a church they are very proud of. And in this case, it is the Church of St Nicholas. Slovenians are very proud of this church as Pope JP II visited this church a number of years back. The interior is typical of European church which I have gotten used to, but the note worthy part of the church are its carved doors which is actually a historical representation of the history of Slovenia.
Interior of the church.
Ljubljana is actually built on ancient Roman ruins, so throughout our walks through the city we could see numerous excavations taking place in the middle of the city like the ones below:
After my walking tour ended, I headed back to the hostel to have a rest. The hostel that I stayed in, while nice and clean, had no privacy at all, since it basically just consists of 2 open space dorms and anyone can walk in and out, and soon I found myself talking to this Finnish girl and German guy. The Finnish girl had decided to take a boat ride along the river and since I had no plans I decided to follow her anyhow. It was a rather amusing ride, our captain was like this happy go lucky guy who had a pot belly and drank beer as he captained the boat. As part of our ticket, we also had access to unlimited cheap wine and soft drinks. The interesting part was when he announced that he would have to stop at his house for 5 mins and so we watched as he anchored at one of the houses and suddenly came back bearing plates of Paela! It was very well cooked, but I was partly amused to find the finnish girl looking at the prawns in a little bit of disdain. She claimed that she had never eaten seafood still in their shell before. So naturally, being a seafood fan and an even bigger fan of using your fingers to eat seafood especially when it pertains to prawns and crab, I was like dumbfounded when I heard that. So I showed her that you eat it by peeling the shell off and then eating it... but I think she got a bit grossed out by the prawn heads and legs... So I tried peeling one for her and giving it to her to try. To give her some props, she did take a bite, and said it was nice (though we know otherwise), but I kinda basically ate all other 9 prawns on the plate (woo hoo!), though maybe I refrained from sucking the brains in front of her to prevent further freaking out.. LOL. She then tried to explain that she has a sensitive stomach etc etc. I accepted her excuse, but that was quite an interesting episode to me...
The start of my patronizing of the skeleton bar and I blame it on their 2 for 1 cocktail offer the entire wekeend. After boat ride we went down to the river to get a drink and that's where we ended up at.
Ljubljana at night
Ah yes... and to end off, I did try this Slovenian dessert: Prekmurian layer cake. Yum yum!!
To me, this acted like the main town square, before the triple bridge. The red building is the Church of the Annunciation followed by Presernov Trg and the Tourist Information building
Cafes along the River... heaps to walk around and take your pic from. At night almost every cafe becomes a pub/bar... but most have the dual function of restaurants as well.
Continued pictures of the streets!
Triple Bridge, the river and its surrounding buildings.
Look what I found while walking around!!! hehe :P
One of the more unique buildings that I saw... I can't remember what its name is... but I remember the guide pointing out the unique concrete and brick building design.
National University of Ljubljana
I paid 10 Euros to go on an walking tour, and it was quite worth it as (although I didn't realize it at that time), the tour included the furnicular ride up to the castle, and our entry to the clock tower where we could get a bird's eye view of the city... so pretty worth it in my opinion. Plus these walking tours are meant to be for smaller groups, so there were only like 8 of us in total.
From left: Furnicular up to the castle; Clock tower; Original entrance into the castle.
Castle grounds: Slovenia was once under Habsburgs rule, and while the Habsburgs never really stayed here, this castle was usually used by the governor general who oversaw Slovenia and reported back to the Habsburgs...so the furnishings are very sparse and even the architecture of the castle is very typical.
View of the city from the clock tower
St George Chapel: St George is the patron saint of Ljubljana
Flags of EU, Slovenia and Ljubljana above the town hall
Like Krakow, Dragons are legendary creatures in Slovenia as well, so much so that they have the dragon bridge in Ljubljana.
Of course, Slovenia is predominantly Roman catholic and it is of no surprise that they have a church they are very proud of. And in this case, it is the Church of St Nicholas. Slovenians are very proud of this church as Pope JP II visited this church a number of years back. The interior is typical of European church which I have gotten used to, but the note worthy part of the church are its carved doors which is actually a historical representation of the history of Slovenia.
Interior of the church.
Ljubljana is actually built on ancient Roman ruins, so throughout our walks through the city we could see numerous excavations taking place in the middle of the city like the ones below:
After my walking tour ended, I headed back to the hostel to have a rest. The hostel that I stayed in, while nice and clean, had no privacy at all, since it basically just consists of 2 open space dorms and anyone can walk in and out, and soon I found myself talking to this Finnish girl and German guy. The Finnish girl had decided to take a boat ride along the river and since I had no plans I decided to follow her anyhow. It was a rather amusing ride, our captain was like this happy go lucky guy who had a pot belly and drank beer as he captained the boat. As part of our ticket, we also had access to unlimited cheap wine and soft drinks. The interesting part was when he announced that he would have to stop at his house for 5 mins and so we watched as he anchored at one of the houses and suddenly came back bearing plates of Paela! It was very well cooked, but I was partly amused to find the finnish girl looking at the prawns in a little bit of disdain. She claimed that she had never eaten seafood still in their shell before. So naturally, being a seafood fan and an even bigger fan of using your fingers to eat seafood especially when it pertains to prawns and crab, I was like dumbfounded when I heard that. So I showed her that you eat it by peeling the shell off and then eating it... but I think she got a bit grossed out by the prawn heads and legs... So I tried peeling one for her and giving it to her to try. To give her some props, she did take a bite, and said it was nice (though we know otherwise), but I kinda basically ate all other 9 prawns on the plate (woo hoo!), though maybe I refrained from sucking the brains in front of her to prevent further freaking out.. LOL. She then tried to explain that she has a sensitive stomach etc etc. I accepted her excuse, but that was quite an interesting episode to me...
The start of my patronizing of the skeleton bar and I blame it on their 2 for 1 cocktail offer the entire wekeend. After boat ride we went down to the river to get a drink and that's where we ended up at.
Ljubljana at night
Ah yes... and to end off, I did try this Slovenian dessert: Prekmurian layer cake. Yum yum!!
Hey, so lovely to see you in Ljubljana, you blend in perfectly :) I like the pic near the dragon. I guess I should reference your posts about Slovenia to my Asian friends, who want to know more about my country. I could not write it better :)
Oh, and that building with red brick facade is called NUK or National University Library, the architect is our post famous Joze Plecnik, he also did the 3 bridges.