I have to start by saying that I loved Ljubljana. I'm seriously looking into the possibility of getting Martin transferred there so we can move there! It was somewhat reminiscent of Zürich with the Alps visible in the distance, a river bisecting the city, and tons of cute streets lined with restaurants and shops. Oh, and the fog.
Ljubljana was named as Europe's greenest city in 2016 and it's easy to see why. Almost the entire city is pedestrian-only. It was really nice to walk everywhere and almost never see a car or have to wait for traffic before crossing a street.
We wandered around the city a bit the first day we arrived but we saved the main touring events for the full day we planned to spend in Ljubljana. On this single day we went for an early morning walk around town and through the Tivoli Park, we did some shopping, we partook in the free city walking tour, we wandered up to the castle, and of course we found some good restaurants for lunch and dinner. It was a busy day but we definitely saw most of what Ljubljana has to offer throughout the day.
We started out with a wander through Tivoli Park, where I only took a single picture (below). Part of the park contains wide trails surrounded by manicured lawns and the rest of it consists of trails in the forest to the northwest of the park, including a good-sized hill you can hike up. This is a solid amount of green space to find in a city and I could have spent a lot more time walking there.
During our walk, we were distracted by an event occurring in Congress Square. There were a bunch of people on horseback in red coats followed by a carriage containing some important-looking men, plus a marching band and several hundred men in tuxes with white gloves standing by. There was almost nobody watching this event though so it couldn't have been anything too important. I'm still not sure what this ceremony was all about. We asked our walking tour guide what it was and she had no idea but she said anything that happens in Ljubljana happens on this square - including things like beach volleyball tournaments where they fill the entire square with sand. Congress square is enormous, all paved and pedestrian-only. Here's a picture of the square (with the castle in the background!):
And some pictures of the ceremony:
The white building in the background of the picture above right is part of the university of Ljubljana. It used to be an important government building but now it's just the university.
Next up was our walking tour. This tour is daily @11am, free (but they ask for tips on the end based on how much you feel like giving), takes 2-2.5 hours, and is very informative. Below are some pictures from around Ljubljana. I'm not going to go into all the history we learned on the tour because I'll ramble on for paragraphs. I'll instead focus on how beautiful the city is!
Side note, the dragon is a symbol of Ljubljana. There are several conflicting stories of how the dragon relates to Ljubljana. One belief is that Jason and the Argonauts traveled through Slovenia while fleeing with the stolen golden fleece. While near the location of present-day Ljubljana, they encountered a great marsh dragon (that had been terrorizing local citizens for years) that Jason killed. Then some of Jason's friends started a settlement that eventually became Ljubljana many years later.
Here are some more pictures from around town, including a few of the river Ljubljanica that runs through the city.
After the tour we had lunch at Paninoteka, which is a small place, perfect for lunch, and it had great pasta dishes and soup (just what we needed after being outdoors in the cold all morning). Dad and Martin had some irish coffee that was more of a dessert than a drink it seemed:
And, finally, we walked up to the castle. It's a very short - but steep - walk. Here I am, taking a break:
There isn't much to see within the castle itself. There are a few restaurants and a museum (that tells about Slovenian history, not the castle's history). There isn't really an "inside" to the castle that you can tour through. Below are some fall colors on the castle:
We really just walked to the castle to get a good view. In order to get good views, you have to pay to climb to the top of the bell tower. They kind of rip you off for this, but I wanted to get the view of the city and see some Alps! You can just barely see a few snowy peaks breaking through the line of clouds in the distance in the pictures below.
In this view, you can see Congress Square (the enormous stone rectangle towards the left of the picture where the city holds all of its events), and you can also see the big hill that is part of Tivoli Park, which includes the entire first hill seen in the picture:
In celebration of being named Europe's Greenest City 2016, all the bridges and the castle are lit up in green at night. The picture below is blurry, but you get the idea:
And here is a view from our hotel room at sunset. We stayed at the Lesar Hotel Angel, which is a very nice hotel. Our rooms were big and clean, breakfast was good, staff were friendly and helpful, and there was a nice cozy fireplace where we warmed up in the late afternoons after a long day of touring around. We had a few small complaints, mainly my shower didn't always work properly and my dad's toiletries and coffee weren't replenished when he ran out but they were minor things and I really liked this hotel overall.
Just putting this here, one of the wines we had that we enjoyed! We had this at "As Aperitivo", where we ate on our final night. The food (and obviously drinks) were all fantastic. Try the vegetarian pad thai there, and go for cocktails too! They have a big cocktail menu.
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