I FEEL sLOVEnia

April travels with Megan Part 3: Slovenia 

We made a lot of jokes about Slovenia as the promised land… people will probably hug us as soon as we get off the train clucking “Oh I know where you’ve been”… we’ll cross the border and a Pegasus will fly across a rainbow in the sky etc etc. 

Triple Bridge, Ljubljana

But here’s the thing, it IS a wonderful magical land of happy friendly English speaking people, where you feel nothing but love and warm happy feelings about your life. Outside of my adopted “I wish” homeland of France, it may be my favorite country I have ever visited. In fact, Slovenia’s slogan is I FEEL sLOVEnia. How darling is that? It’s true! You DO feel love there! 

We had ½ day and 1 night in their capitol Ljubljana (pronounce the j’s like y’s and your life is a lot simpler). We walked through the old town and marveled at the pretty architecture. We were stopped outside an Argentinean restaurant where a young man attempted to persuade us to eat there. When we explained it was our first night and we wanted to eat traditional Slovenian he got his friend to translate “we are having a big party here later tonight, come back and you can eat and drink whatever you like!” Then, I kid you not, he gave us a hug and his friend gave us les bises, and they didn’t even try to steal anything from us during the whole exchange. Our joke “Slovenia is so lovely, people just hug strangers on the street to make them feel welcome” turned out to be reality. That evening we had our first hot meal in 3 days and a few glasses of wine. In the film version of our adventures, our mothers were cheering. 

Hungarian Goulash.

 Slovenia is a tiny little country, so if you situate yourself in Ljubljana (dead center) day trips are quite simple. The following morning we checked out of our campsite/hotel and when the man at the desk realized we would miss the complimentary breakfast, he pulled out two packed lunches and asked us if we wanted them. Uhm yes, kindest people on earth, we would love those lunches. Then his coworker, who had helped us out the night before when we had a bit of a problem, offered to take us into town to the train station. Uhm yes, kindest people on earth, thank you for the lift. 

Dragon Babies

We took a bus for about 1hour to Postojnska Jama and Predjama Castle. Postojnska Jama is a massive cave system, and while a bit touristy, thoroughly enjoyable. We felt it worth every penny of what we paid for the tour. You start out on this little train like you are entering Gringotts to get your wizard gold for Hogwarts. Then you have an hour walking tour of incredible awesome stalagmites and stalactites, ending with an exhibit of blind dragon spawn cave creatures, and a final train ride back to the surface. We then got a taxi the 11km to Predjama Castle (again, our mom’s were cheering for our decision not to hitchhike as is recommended by Rick Steves). 

Spaghetti Hall, because these baby stalactites look like pasta

 Predjama Castle makes my list of one of the Top 5 most Impressive Unbelievable Things I Have Ever Seen in the Entire World. It’s a castle built into a cliff with an extensive cave system underneath. The knight that once lived there was under siege for over a year… instead of dying from starvation as his castle was surrounded he simply used a route within the caves out to a neighboring town, and then returned. He was finally killed when a money-hungry servant signaled to the enemy as the knight went to an exterior portion of the castle to do his business. A cannon was fired into his bathroom and that was that. Now you can scramble all over the castle enjoying the juxtaposition of cliff/cave and living quarters. 

Photo Credit: Megan

 Back on a bus to Ljubljana, where we picked up our packs from the convenient and cheap luggage storage at the train station and hopped on a bus up to Lake Bled for two nights of blissful camping. 1½ hours later we are kindly dropped off at an Alpine Lake surrounded by snow capped mountains, swans, clear blue water, pletna boats… is this real life?

Photo Credit: Megan

 It started sprinkling when we arrived at our campsite and the ever so kind Slovenian working the front desk asked us if we needed a bigger umbrella to set up our site. At dinner that night, I not only got to eat trout with its head still on that I am almost certain came from the very lake I was currently looking at, but we were also treated to free blueberry mead “just to warm you girls up”. Slovenia is seriously home to the nicest people in the world. 

 

Our full day in Bled involved morning cappuccinos on the terrace near the lake, a leisurely stroll, a hike up to a viewpoint near the castle, traditional Slovenia desserts and savory lunchtime pastries, Cockta (the communist era version of Coca-Cola),a bottle of wine said to have healing properties, and a rowboat to an enchanted island where if you ring the church bell 3x it’s said that all your wishes will come true. Quite frankly I'm not sure the people of Slovenia even have any wishes, because they live in the greatest place in the world. We weren’t really ready to leave… ever. 

 

But back to Ljubljana we went for a day of exploration before catching an overnight train to Munich, Germany and then another train onto to Paris, where flights and trains back to the real world were awaiting us. We got rid of all our leftover Croatian Kuna coins making wishes in various fountains throughout the day. My favorite sites in Ljubljana were:

     1.       The Dragon Bridge (a dragon is said to have been slayed near the city so it’s the city mascot. I have no doubt that if magical creatures do/did exist, it was in Slovenia).

    2.       The Library, the only building damaged during WWII from a plane crash. The Slovenians didn’t want to lose their book collection and formed a human chain to save their precious books from the flames. The door handle to enter the library is shaped like a Pegasus head... to soar you into enlightenment. You enchanting little beautiful darling place Slovenia you.

Before our late night train we enjoyed a few communist-era Slovenian Beers and said Hvala for a truly wonderful end of our trip…

Which turned out wasn’t the end of our trip at all, since our overnight train didn’t arrive on time to Munich, making us miss our connection to Paris, making us miss our flights/trains home. It says a lot about a friendship when you can spend 2 straight weeks together, go through a mini transportation crisis, spend the night drinking beers from McDonalds in the Paris airport and pushing chairs together to make a “fort” to sleep in, but still be terribly sad to have to say goodbye the following morning. Nonstop adventures since the ages of Four and Five.