I was only in Slovenia for six days. Less than a week! I’d read a blog post on it about a year ago, and had seen a few photos of gorgeous Lake Bled…and that was enough to me. From Budapest I booked a ticket on Flix Bus straight to Ljubljana (Loob-e-arna.. I think..), and after 1.5 hours, and a quick passport check at the border, I was there. I crossed about two roads before hitting the Old Town, where my hostel (Hostel Vrba) was. Walking through the main square in town was beautiful, cyclists were everywhere, and someone was blowing huge bouquets of bubbles through the gathering of children and their parents.
The forecast said rain and thunderstorms all week to my dismay, however it was beautifully sunny upon my arrival, and staff at my hostel advised me to make the most of it, just in case it turned. After checking in, first stop was the Skyscraper building – Nebotičnik, for a glass of wine and 360º views.
From here I could see the city, the mountains in the distance, and up high – Ljubljana Castle. A great place to watch the sunset, but it certainly did get quite chilly up there.
For dinner I tried a local dish, a vegetarian one, woohoo! Štrukjli is a kind of dumpling, or dough roll, which can be filled with meat or vegetables, or cottage cheese like the ones I had, with baked bread crumbs on top. Yes, it was pretty plain, but actually just what I needed. Comfort food on a cold night.
The next day I found a Free Walking Tour, which was pretty interesting, as we saw loads of buildings by the city’s pride and joy, architect Jože Plečnik, including the Library, the Triple Bridge (because one is not enough), the covered market buildings alongside the Ljubljanica river and the Cobbler’s Bridge. The tour even including free tastings of Slovenian liqueur. We tried blueberry, and elderflower, and then I went back to the shop afterwards and tried honey, honey and chilli, and some kind of herbal mix…
I wasn’t too fussed to visit the Castle, but I did walk up the hill and wander around the grounds, the view of the city below was lovely, but I headed down just in time to take part in the Graffiti Tour of Ljubljana, which I highly recommend! Especially after doing the regular tour, exploring the street art gives an entirely different perspective of the city. The group was quite small too, maybe there were seven of us, so our guide Nate completely welcomed questions and offered plenty of time to take photos. He taught us about throw-ups, tags and murals, about the different crews and their styles, and the development and “rules” of street art. The tour ended in Metelkova, an alternative, autonomous community area that reminded me a bit of Kristianina in Copenhagen. It’s actually an abandoned military barracks, from when Yugoslavia broke up and has been inhabited by rebels and creatives for about 25 years now.
There is so much to look at, and as we enjoyed a beer on an old children’s playground, my eyes were catching new artworks and designs, from the green and pink building covered in squid and jellyfish, quotes by Einstein, geometric shapes and patterns, and mosaics.
On my last day in Ljubljana, I wandered to see the famous Dragons on the bridge. Legend has it that a dragon inhabited the swamp land that Ljubljana was built on, and to this day fires in the city are still blamed on it. Caves in Slovenia are home to salamanders, and when they were first seen a few hundred years ago, these were believed to be baby dragons.
After a wander through the most amazing food markets I’ve seen in a long time, (they were tossing pasta inside a cheesy wheel of cheese, for real), I resisted (!!! there was somewhere else I was determined to go for lunch, and oh was it worth it…) and stopped riverside to write some postcards as I sat with a coffee. Ahhh. That was nice, and now for lunch!!!! The place was called Pri Škofu, and it was about 100m from my hostel. Perfect! The daily lunch menu was €9 for three courses, with a vegetarian option. Win! Soup + buckwheat and veggies (and salad) + dessert. Lovely. And then the waiter tells me the soup of the day is truffle. It was absolute heaven, sitting outside under a leafy tree, window boxes overflowing with colourful flowers, a light breeze… seriously. I decided nothing could make my day any better so I collected my bag and headed straight to the station – Bled bound.
Again the journey wasn’t long, maybe an hour, and I made it with enough time left in the day to walk around the lake. 7km, should take about an hour, the woman at my hostel had told me. I left at 6pm, and came back a bit after 8pm. I must have stopped every 50m with my jaw on the floor, thankful to have my camera with me.. Stunning. How can water be so incredibly clear? Turns out the only boats allowed on the Lake are wooden, with no motor, either row boats or pletna (traditional Slovenian boats that seat 12 and have a standing oarsman). You could see fish as clear as day, and I can’t even begin to describe the colour.
The next day I walked around again, but this time making the very steep climb to Mala Osojnica viewpoint. From there it was an easy 20 min walk to another viewpoint, Ostrijca, which had some rocks for perching for selfies, but was far more crowded.
Satisfied with my morning, I returned to the hostel via the supermarket, and as I cooked and ate lunch a storm rolled around. It seemed in Bled you had to make the most of oyur mornings, as rain often came through in the arvo.
Sadly during my visit the Vingtar Gorge was closed, but I walked up there anyway, up to the Rodovna River and bypassed the Gorge trail, encountered several small villages and looped around to see an amazing waterfall and stunning, rushing riverside scenes. 12km done, and back just in time before the rain set in.
Another day, some friends from the hostel and I decided we should get a rowboat, and visit the island. It was at the end of the day (the skies had cleared) and the owner was willing to rent us the boat for only €8 if we came back within half an hour. Massive ripoff obviously, but better than the regular €20/hr, and totally fine splitting it between four, so we grabbed some beers, rowed speedily out to the island, ran around then jumped back in the boat. That’s all you need in my opinion, and it was beautiful.
Bled was a bit of a base for adventure activities, and while I would have loved to have gone cave kayaking, it was a bit out of my budget, but I went rafting down the Sava River instead.
It was my first time, and I sat at the front. I was pretty nervous, and my friend Frances was there too, but she had done it a billion times before and just giggled watching my face whenever I was splashed or we hit a rapid. The water was freeeezing but thankfully our wetsuits took most of that hit. Or maybe it was adrenalin taking priority!!! We went with Life Adventures, and the rafting was €35 for about 3 hours (runs April-October).
There’s so much more to see in Slovenia, much more hiking, and caves to explore, however I think it would be much easier with a car, to go on your own time and visit the smaller places. I really hope I go back to beautiful Slovenia one day, and one day soon, before it becomes too popular!
CARMEN TOM 