Ljubljana, Slovenia

Our next stop after Budapest was for three nights in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia. Ian Walker had recently spent a week there with friends and was very impressed with the city, so we decided to add it to our itinerary.

Our Airbnb was also a bar/cafe hosted by a delightful Agan, whose father and grandfather both still worked in the business. In fact, his grandfather was still working in his mid-seventies, getting up in the middle of the night to bake delicious croissants, cakes, and Slovenian delicacies for the cafe, which opened at 5.00 am every weekday and closed about 9.00 pm. Long days for those family members. We had some great chats with Agan, quizzing him about his life and his country in general.

The city is very pretty with the Old Town straddling both sides of the Ljubljanica River and the picturesque castle looking down on the town from above.

Once again, the geo-political history of Slovenia is hugely complex but most recently, in June 1991, Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia and became an independent sovereign state. It is mostly mountainous and forested, has a population of just over 2 million people, and there are 46 dialects spoken there.

Highlights of Ljubljana:
Walking tour with Minka, who treated us to all sorts of Slovenian delicacies, including brown bear pate, which was delicious! Evidently whenever the bear population reaches 1000 bears, they start to encroach on human habitation

with subsequent negative effects, so the government sanctions a cull back to approximately 850 brown bears and, only at that time, is brown bear pate produced and available for purchase at the local markets.

The city's symbol is the Ljubljana Dragon representing power, courage and greatness, and there are hundreds of dragons depicted all over the city, on buildings, statues, everywhere. There are lots of origin explanations but the most likely is that of the legend of Saint George, where the dragon represents the old ancestral paganism overcome by Christianity.

We stumbled upon a street performance by the Bob Cole Conservatory Chamber Choir from California, followed by an invitation to attend a free concert in the stunning Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, accompanied by the local madrigal choir, such a treat.

View from the Skyscraper Restaurant of the Old Town and overlooking Castle. The huge Central Market with traditional Slovenian folk music and dancers.

Dispensing machines for fresh milk, yoghurt and cheese.

The production of honey is very important in Slovenia with 5 beekeepers per 1000 inhabitants.

There's a vineyard for every 70 people. We can vouch for the quality of their wine but evidently they drink most of it and only export about 9% of their production.

There are 8000 caves in Slovenia but, unfortunately, we were not there long enough to get out of the city to visit one of these.