Day 47

Dobro jutro,

The weather has changed since we have travelled North. It has been overcast and raining most of the time. We have heard that there was heavy rain in Firenze and Venezia. Today it drizzled most of the day. The temperature is still double-digit, so it is not freezing cold, unless you are Grandma.

We finally got to see the city of Ljubljana in the daylight today. We booked a walking food tour of the city.

What a beautiful city Ljubljana is. The streets are wide, and it is so clean. The centre of the city was closed to cars in 2007, so now it is pedestrians and bicycles only. No scooters either! It is really pleasant being able to wander the streets and not have to watch out for those noisey and smelly scooters driven by homicidal maniacs.

Over 60% of the country of Slovenia is covered in trees. Sloveniens take the environment very seriously, and are very focussed on reducing energy use and recycling.

We met our guide for the food walking tour in the centre of the city. As well as our guide and Grandma and Koro, there were three young French sisters on the tour. And Buzzy Bee, of course. Buzzy Bee was very excited to be on tour with five pretty ladies.

The Ljubljana river runs through the middle of the city. There are six bridges within the centre of the city that cross the river, including the Dragon Bridge. Compare that to Cambridge which has one and a half bridges. Or Hamilton which has six bridges in total in the whole city.

Slovenia has a real thing for dragons. The legend is that there is a dragon still living in the basement of Ljubljana castle. Apparently when Saint George splayed the dragon, that occurred in Slovenia.

Our guide took us all around the centre of the city, trying different wines and different foods from around Slovenia. Trout from the rivers. Salami and sausages are made locally. Štruklji are dumplings that have either a savoury or sweet filling, and they are delicious.

Every day in the centre of the city is a food market. Farmers and producers come to the market to sell fruit and vegetables in the outside stalls. Inside there are stalls selling fish, meat, poultry, cheeses, herbs and spices and nuts.

We’ve seen markets like this before, especially in Italy and Sicily. But the the market is Ljubljana is spotlessly clean and does not have stray cats and dogs wandering around.

If you ever get a chance to visit a market it is well worth your time. They are similar to a Farmers Market in New Zealand, just much, much bigger. Many of the vendors come from families that have been selling at the markets for generations. You will see foods you have never seen before and many of the vendors will let you try their cheese or sausages or nuts.

We tried Slovenian beer (craft beer micro-breweries are huge all over

Europe).

Pumpkin Seed Oil is made from pumpkin seeds, in a similar way to sesame oil or sunflower oil. Surprisingly, it is very dark, almost black in colour, so you expect it to be heavy in taste. But it has a very light flavour, and tastes like the pumpkin seeds that we sometimes eat.

Then it was time for coffee and, yes, ice cream. The funky little gelateria we went to had all sorts of interesting flavours, and the selection changes daily. Koro tried pumpkin seed oil ice cream, and India pale ale sorbet. The ice cream was very creamy, and the sorbet tasted like an ice cold beer - delicious.

The tour lasted about four hours. Buzzy Bee was sad to be saying good bye to all the pretty ladies, leaving him once again with that miserable grey old Koro.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around this very pretty little city. We found the Dragon Bridge. We found a bridge partially made of glass panels, so you could see the river underneath you as you walked across.

We even came across a puppy bakery - a bakery that only sells hand baked dog food and treats. Rufus, Toby, Gus and Flynn would have been very impressed. Zac would have eaten the whole shop. Ollie and Otis would have agreed with Koro: “how ridiculous”.

We almost didn’t need dinner after eating all afternoon, so we just had a light meal, then caught a taxi home to bed.

We really enjoyed our day.

Grandma’s €5 umbrella got dumped in a rubbish bin as we were stepping into the taxi. It has done its job, but it was looking very sad and broken. Koro’s is not quite as bad, but it is getting there. Koro’s is going rusty very quickly. Hopefully we do not need them tomorrow.

Love to you all from Grandma and Koro and Suave Bee. XXX OOO.