2023 Italy / Slovenia: Ljubljana

(see previous parts: part 0, part 1)

There’s no great way to get from Venice to Ljubljana by air or train, so I decided to book us on Flixbus. The bus left from the Venice central station, which wasn’t far from our hotel. We took a taxi after the first two city buses we wanted didn’t show up. When we got to the station, it was like being in an anthill– tons of people, all milling around in unpredictable patterns. I was getting a little panicky because the bus wasn’t anywhere to be found at the specified location, but we eventually found a queue of other people who were waiting for the same bus, and it showed up about 15 minutes later.

Pro tip: Italian train/bus stations have pay toilets. Take a couple of €1 coins, just in case.

For about €40, we had a clean, safe, quiet, and comfortable 3-hour bus ride. Both of us were surprised at how quiet the atmosphere on the bus was– much quieter than a typical commercial airline flight. Flixbus bought Greyhound in the US, which I didn’t know, so maybe “riding the dog” will come back. It’s hard to beat the price. When we arrived in Ljubljana, we quickly found our way to Pension Slamič, our lodging for the night. It was much nicer than I had expected– a modern, clean, quiet hotel only a few blocks’ walk from Old Town. After checkin, we headed out to see some sights and immediately fell in love with how walkable that area of Ljubljana is. Big, wide sidewalks, with bike paths and plenty of trees, make it easy to get around comfortably. We found a post office and bought some postcard stamps, then found a Spar and bought a few extra bottles of water for the hike. Because we’d missed lunch thanks to being on the bus, our first important stop was dinner at Patrón for tacos. This might seem like a weird choice but having tacos in foreign lands is kind of our thing, and I’m really glad we did it here. The fish taco I had was one of the best I’ve ever enjoyed anywhere, and the carnitas taco was as good as anything I’ve cooked myself. We enjoyed sitting out on the street and people watching for a while, then set out to go hit our major objectives.

Ljubljana has (at least) two well-known bridges: the Dragon Bridge and the Triple Bridge. You can probably guess how they got their names…

The old city itself isn’t that large, so we made a circuit across the bridges and then climbed the hill to the castle, which is a really interesting tourist-ized version of its former self. There are several exhibits and museums in it, including a really interesting section dedicated to Slovenian history, a topic as complex as you’d expect from a central European country that’s been passed around from empire to empire over the centuries. There’s a nice mix of original and restored structures and artifacts, and you can climb the clock tower to look out over the city.

After our castle visit, we only had one more planned stop: the rooftop bar at the Nebotčnik. This was lively, even at 6pm, and we had to wait a few minutes for a table, but the views were worth it. I had some kind of cocktail which appeared to be a glass of Windex, and we split two delicious pieces of cake.

After our rooftop visit, we headed back to Slamič to make sure our day pack was ready for the following day’s hike, then hit the bed early.