A While in Ljubljana

I'm a little behind with my BLOG and out of sequence. Phil and I arrived in Ljubljana late last Tuesday afternoon after a short flight from Zurich. We took the bus into town and it dropped us at the railway station. We asked the driver where our hotel was and it turned out be close by. The Grand Hotel Union Executive (words in that order) was a 100 yo beautiful Art Nouveau structure with elaborate internal decorations and rooms massively large in tune with the age.

During our 3 days / nights. we ate out at the wonderful smorgasbord of pavement restaurants. On the second night it was Slovenian food - rather heavy in the German style, and washed down with a local beer. On other occasions there was an Italian influence. Street life was both plentiful and exotic and peopled with huge numbers of young people: street performers, bars, a basket-ball extravaganza, and so on. That reminds me that I came across a busker in Maribor playing the Didgeridoo! And the streets were closed to traffic except for a lot of bikes.

So, it was a joy to walk around during the day or at night, and along the river in the middle of town or around the backstreets. We rapidly got the impression that it was very safe. The town centre was full of nice old buildings, some with interesting architecture (see picture). There were street markets, grand buildings like the town hall (where the piano recital took place), lots of bridges across the river, an interesting castle precinct reached by a cable train, and spacious squares. The Friday was spent generally looking around, partly on a rain-drenched guided tour, and on our own. Have a look at the pictures attached.







AS