How Did Trieste Become Ljubljana?

Saturday 7^th July

OK so this entry is testament to what happens when I have an idea and instead of having someone to reign me in, I have someone equally as excitable. Let me set the scene. Last Wednesday I had a conversation with my friend, Alison, about what plans we had for our day off, Sunday. After a few suggestions we decided on a day trip to Trieste and a little visit to some caves located nearby. Since Alison had volunteered to drive we had no reason to check train times and I thought what a lovely day we will have. Apparently Trieste is a lovely sea side boarder town, and I’ve always been fond of an afternoon beer by the sea :- ).

It was this comment ‘boarder town’ which got me thinking. Maybe if we had more time we could cross the border and visit our neighbouring country, Slovenia, because ......... well ............ eerrrrmmmmmm ...... well ....... errrrrmmmmmm ........ because I just hadn’t been there yet. Maybe if we stayed overnight then Alison could have a drink, and we could stay in a new city. What a great night we’ll have I thought as I congratulated myself on being so damn clever. When I mentioned this to Alison she shared my enthusiasm and that was that, Slovenia would be happening this weekend! Looking at where we could actually stay we had two drivable choices. A big port town called Koper and a smaller seaside town callen Piran. Decisive as ever we chose Piran, as it looked nicer and the hostel was closer to the city centre. Unfortunately as I was trying to book the hostel my internet connection was having an ‘off’ day and I resided to the fact that I would have to book the hostel using the free wifi at the bar across from my camp site, later that night. Turned out this lack of connection was an act of god.

You see I then received a phone call from Alison asking me how my Saturday was looking, quiet as ever in case you wondered,  and suggesting that if we were going for 1 night, then we could go for 2 nights instead and try to get up to the Capital ‘Ljubljana.’  So that’s how a simple day trip to some caves near to Trieste turned into a full blown weekend city break to Slovenia. Don’t you love it when a plan comes together!

One unplanned night out, a massive lack of sleep, two hung over people and a pit stop for hangover food later I found myself embarking on a 3 hour chauffer driven ride to the Capital of Slovenia. Kept company by our friendly Sat Nav lady, I think I’ll refer to her as Sheila. I’d like to say she was very useful but she wasn’t. She kept taking us in the wrong direction and she wouldn’t even accept that Slovenia was a country, never mind that we wanted to visit there, with her direction. Still I guess I can’t complain. We had only decided less than 24 hours earlier that we wanted to go to Ljubljana. I guess she just couldn’t keep up.

Is It Just Me or Does This Remind Anyone Else of Channel 4?

The drive was otherwise pretty uneventful. Apart from when we drove past Ljubljana, think we blinked and missed it. Nothing to do with my directing skills. We had planned to camp as we had been recommended a camp site close to the city centre, but in our hurry we had not contacted them to book, or even looked at a route planner to see how we would find it. We decided that we would just stop at the first place we found. After driving through a lot of communist style tower blocks I began to realise why I had never met anyone who had visited this city before. The outskirts of the city weren’t nice, but practical, one can only assume. A little concerned about the lack of camping related signs we began to worry that we would not find ANYWHERE to pitch our tents. As if by magic we saw a sign for a camp site. It wasn’t the one we had intended staying on but it had a picture of a tent so we thought ‘it’s meant to be.’ Turns out after following the signs for about 5 minutes, the signs decided to play hide and seek, and we were back returning to our state of slight worry, without a campsite to lay our weary heads. Second act of god of the week is about to occur. The original site we had been recommended to stay on began to appear in the windscreen. I don’t think we could have planned it any better.

Checked in, tents erected and pastures new explored our thoughts turned to our stomachs. And the BBQ we wanted to have that night to fill them. It was time to go look for a supermarket. We were just like kids in a sweet shop when we got to the supermarket, Skittles, Angel Delight, Toberlarone and Lion Bars; we had to have them all! The supermarkets in Slovenia are so much better than in Italy, they sell things I want to buy. Things they sold were just a little more similar to what we can buy in the UK, you know like stuff to make Chinese food, and stuff to make Indian food and stuff to make Thai food. I think I could work in Slovenia, just a shame Euro Camp aren’t here anymore.

 Meat and salad bought we went home to cook it. Being the good law abiding Brits that we are, we abided by the camp sites rules to only BBQ in designated area, next to the shower block. We were the only ones who did this, everyone else sparked up outside their tent. They’re such rebels here! However it gave us chance to be a little more sociable and we met a nice Scottish / Canadian family who shared some of their local brew, and some of their stories on life. Lots of meat, some nice wine and mountains looking down over us, it’s fair to say, I liked Slovenia from that first night!

So the next day we wanted to head off and explore the city itself.  We had no idea what we expected to find and instead just hoped we would know when to actually get off the bus at the right place. Our experiences of driving through the city the day before had lowered are expectations drastically. My attempt at bus map reading had gone better than my attempts at Google map reading and we managed to leave the bus in the centre of town. Walking through the side streets we headed for the old town which we had overheard in reception earlier was the place to be.  We found that walking through the city the buildings seemed much less like breezeblock buildings and instead seemed to be rather charming. Each seemed to have its own unique sense of style and purpose. I think we may have judges Ljubljana a little too quickly last night.

Very Gaudi esque Don't You Think?

Turns out, that Ljubljana is set on the Ljubljanica River and is spanned by LOTS of bridges. Some fancy, some old and some just very breeze blockesque, but thankfully very few of those. The most famous being an unusual set up of 3 bridges very close together. These bridges called Tromostovje (literally means triple) Bridge was designed by some architect called ‘Joze Plecnik.’ I’ve never heard of him either but even by my unprofessional opinion, the man can design good bridges.

Where are Those Bridges?

There They Are!

Whilst walking around town we discovered that the Ljubljanica River had tourist boats which sailed through the city. Presented with such an opportunity we had no choice but to jump onboard and see how the city looked from the river which presumably used to the be an integral (and no doubt still is) lifeline for the city.

God Himself Could Not Sink This Ship!

So we’re sailing on us boat and comment on how nice it would be to have a nice cold beer whilst we sailed. This is when the 3^rd act of god occurred on our trip. The skipper opened a secret cupboard (ok not so secret but I did not know it was there) and began selling beer, wine and soft drinks; he really was a bloody nice fella.  Maybe the beer had gone straight to my head but these river folk people are very friendly. It seemed that each time we passed another boat at least 3 or 4 of the ships inhabitants would wave at us. You don’t get this on the metro in Manchester! 

Na zdravje (Good Health in Slovenian)

Our ship mates had also joined us in sampling a local beer and then the strangest thing happened. They all broke out into song, some Arabian sounding tune, and they all knew the words! We assumed they were Ukrainian and they were merely singing the Ukrainian version of Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 classic single, ‘I Will Survive.’ How else would a boat load of strangers suddenly burst into song, and a sing a sing that everyone knew at least some of the words to, some even knew the dance. Turns out we were wrong. They were part of a Turkish folk singing group on a tour of Europe and were playing Ljubljana that night. They even had a date planned for Venice. We soon discovered those nice friendly river folk happened to be merely members of this folk group. Still, all of the Slovenian people we met seemed very friendly and helpful, even if they don’t wave at random tourists passing on boats.

Iceberg Straight Ahead!

Back on dry land, it was time to fill our stomachs again as mine had long since been rumbling. Trying to decide on which place to stop at we found a cute little cafe/bar along the banks of the river and decided this was as good a spot as any. Turns out it was a fabulous spot, as we had just stumbled upon a Mexican place. Mmmmmm burritos, I do like you, I really wish I’d have eaten them more when I could have done; I must make up for that.

Something to do With Drug Availibility

Stomachs refilled and feeling more human it was time to get on a little train and ride up to the top of this big hill (Castle Hill) which stands over Ljubljana. The Hill is the place where Ljubljana Castle (or Grad in Slovenian) stands and the trip up there gave us some great views of the city and the surrounding mountains. The Castle had undergone a huge renovation and looks surprisingly modern. I was a little disappointed but I guess that if people still lived in Castles today then this is kind of what they would look like. 

Choo Choo Thomas

View From Thomas

Being a little sight seeinged to death we decided that the cocktail menu was just far too tempting. I opted for my first (and hopefully not my last) Slovenian take on the classic ‘Cosmo.’ I know it isn’t typical local brew but they did use Grey Goose Vodka, and you know what, they made it well. Sat in the middle of the castle courtyard, drinking my Slovenian Cosmopolitan it was hard to imagine just what had been in this castle before our cafe had arrived. Everything was so polished and cleaned it was hard to believe this land has been some kind of settlement since 1200 BC and that the Grad has stood there since 1112. They certainly know how to tart up their old building in Slovenia.

I like my Castles With a few More Cracks!

'Why did we ever stop drinking these?'

Feeling as though we had truly spent as long on our feet as possible it was inevitable what would come next. A Power nap! So back of to our tent we took ourselves and caught up on 40 winks. 2 hours or so later feeling a little more human we began to think of food again. Since the night before we’d BBQ’ed and today had feasted on Mexican we decided we should at least try some of the local cuisine. Sat in the campsite restaurant we order their finest house white Slovenian wine and began to ponder the menu. Filled with lots of pasta, pizza and stews we weren’t sure what to order. Then we found something we couldn’t pronounce and decided that could be a good thing to sample. Turns out after we checked with the waiter that this was a Balkan States version of a mixed grill meant to be shared by two. Sounds good we both thought. Once it arrived it definitely had a distinct Eastern European influence. The platter was filled with burgers, pork chops, what looked like sheek kebab, a huge sausage each (honestly it was like 40 cm long!) and lots of grilled aubergine, courgettes and peppers. I really enjoyed it although towards the end I did struggle to finish it.

Unfortunately that is where our Ljubljana adventure ended. We had to be up and on the road the following day before 8 am to get back to Italy in time for a full afternoon of work. These holiday things always end too quickly!