Ask most Americans if they would like to visit Slovenia and they would probably look at you funny. I’m well traveled but knew nothing about Slovenia until it happened to be along our path from Austria to Croatia — 2 countries we wanted to see.
Ljubljana
Our first stop in Slovenia was Ljubljana, What an amazing surprise, this place is absolutely fantastic. After spending 3 days here, I would highly recommend a visit.
Ljubljana is the capital and largest city in Slovenia with a population of about 270,000. It is a very walkable city with well kept buildings, churches, and a river running through the middle.
On our first night, we dropped into the restaurant in the picture below. It was a river side restaurant and the food smelled great. We were shown to our table and the waiter (a Frank Zappa looking gentleman) says “let me guess: 2 wines and 2 beers!”. We broke up laughing, he thought he had us sized up (and he did). He was typical of the people we met in Slovenia. Warm, friendly and ready to clown around.
We liked that restaurant so much, we ate there 2 of the 3 nights. The town has lots of interesting art installations around town.
Notice the bumps in the street behind us. That is actually an art installation that are alien-like heads, check it out by looking closer:
They also have a bridge aptly named”Dragon Bridge”.
They also have a bridge of locks (similar to Paris).
At the highest point of the city lies a castle that dates back to medieval times (notice the castle at the top of this picture):
You can ride to the top of the castle or you can walk it. We rode up and walked down.
You are rewarded with beautiful views from the top of the castle.
Bled
Just a short drive from Ljubljana is Bled, a glacier lake set in an idyllic location.
There is a castle at the top of Lake Bled, complete with a small museum.
In the middle of the lake is a church that dates back to 1655, check out the island from the window of the castle (top right window pane).
To get to the island, you must take a gondola, as you would in Venice.
The owners of these boats are families who have passed it down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.
As you get closer to the church, you appreciate the effort it took for church goers to get there.
The view from the island is breath taking.
I’ll leave you with a final picture I took returning from the boat. Shouldn’t Slovenia be on your bucket list?
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