Lovely Ljublijana

September 5, 2024

Our entry point to Slovenia was Ljublijana.  This is an incredibly enchanting city that I had never heard of before we started researching this trip and certainly didn't know how to pronounce. What we discovered is that the 'j' is pronounced as a 'y' in Slovenian so Ljublijana is pronounced 'lee-you-blee-ya-na" (often shortened to 'loo-blee-ah-na' with locals). 

We spent two days in Ljublijana which, as lovely as it is, was enough to experience the fairytale like Old City and enjoy some of the amazing parks and restaurants outside of the tourist areas.  For serious, this place reminds me of Arendelle from Frozen!

We arrived early in the morning and our AirBnb was not ready yet so we wandered around the old town for a while, but soon got tired - we were working on very little sleep from the riggors of an overnight bus.  So when we stumbled across an escape room, we figured it would be a relaxing way to kill some time before we could check in.  Needless to say our brains were fried and we did not do very well.  We took nearly all 60 minutes to complete the two rooms of puzzles and only after A LOT of help from the escape room master.  It got to the point where I thought he was playing with us since he was giving us so much info.  But in he end, we solved it and then stumbled back out into the bright light and heat of Ljublijana. 

Not too far from our AirBnb, which was about 15 minutes from the Old Town, we discovered the amazing Trivoli Park.  Turns out this is the largest park in Ljublijana and boasts an amazing playground, a castle, a mansion, hiking and biking trails, basketball and tennis courts, soccer fields and a few restaurants.  We spent a lot of time there.  It's interesting how you can spend a lot of money on an event or excursion, but at the end of the day, kids seem to like the free stuff - like parks - the best.  Go figure. 

By the way, like in Mostar, we used rental bikes to get around the city.  There are a couple of companies you can use, but we found it easy to use the BicikeLJ bicycle-sharing system.

Typically I am not a group tour kind of guy and neither is Francesca.  And that goes double for if we are traveling with kids. Even the really good tours tend to pack in a LOT of information, most of which is way beyond the detail needed by most individuals. Even the curious ones.  Plus those types of group tours often include mandatory trips to a local vendor of somekind where you feel pressured to purchase something.

However, we had two really postitive experiences with tours in Bosnia and Sarajevo, so we went ahead and booked a walking tour of Ljublijana with the TIC, the official Tourist Information Center for Ljublijana . Well, our luck ran out it seems.  The tour guide was sick first of all and kept coughing throughout the tour, but he also was trying REALLY hard to be funny and it just wasn't working.  Lastly, in the 2+ hours of walking he took us to about 1.5 interesting places and kept us for 15-20 mins at a time at places that weren't particularly interesting telling stories that were even less so. 

But we got through it (at least I did, Francesca and the kids bailed on the last 20 minutes) and at least it included a free ticket up the funicular to the somewhat impressive Ljublijana Castle. 

One thing that was really cool were the milk refill stations in Ljublijana.  There was one in the Old City that we enjoyed.  Typically you bring your own glass milk bottle and fill it up, but since we didn't have one we purchased the bottle at the vending machine and filled it up.  Yum!

We ate out a couple of times in Ljublijana, mostly outside of the Old Town.  One restaurant near where we were staying, seemingly catering to a hip, young local scene, was called Zanoodle and offered a modern take on Japanese Ramen.  Note the artwork on the walls.  Apparently these were done by a well known local artist for an event they had and the owner just kept them up.  The kids thought it was hilarious and giggled throuought dinner while Mom and Dad sat uncomfortably throughout the meal.  At least the waiter seemed to be embarrased about it when we asked him what was up with the decor. :) 

Our visit to Ljublijana was short and sweet. If you like to suck the marrow out of each city you visit you may want an extra day here, but otherwise I feel that 2 full days is plenty to enjoy this fun, magical city.