So once again we found ourselves arriving into a country with nowhere to stay and much like Zagreb there were no friendly locals present to offer us digs. We decided to head towards an Internet cafe to see what we could work out, on route we stumbled across the centre square of Ljubljana where we decided to stop for a breather so that Nina could use the public conveniences. In the mean time I took a look through the Lonely Planet, despite the farce that was Sofia we had decided against binning it.
For once the book came in use and we soon had two beds booked in the Alibi hostel which was just a short walk away, never the less we still took about 40 minutes to find it, turns out it was neatly tucked away in the corner surrounded by bars, what a shame. We decided we were only going to stay for a couple of days in Ljubljana as it really was pretty small.
It was still only early afternoon when we were done with checking in so we decided we would make the most of the day and head out and explore a little. We had an ideal location right next to the river and about five minutes walk from the main square where a statue of one of Ljubljana's most famous people, the poet France Prešeren stands looking across to a building upon which is a statue of his desire peering from the window. The monument is surrounded by cafe-bars on one side the huge pink Franciscan Church on another and the famous Triple Bridge which was designed by another, and possibly the only other famous Slovenian the architect Jože Plečnik.
On our wonders we soon found the huge market square and also the very modern and awesome funicular which we took up to the castle which over looks the whole city, we were a little disappointed with the castle itself as although it looked awesome from the out side it had actually been heavily renovated and thus lost much of the historicity you would tend to attach to castles. Nether the less we went up the tower to take in some of the views and found that Ljubljana is a far prettier city from ground level, that being said it wasn't as though it was ugly, it was just not as impressive as some of the other tall views which we have seen on this trip.
We wondered around a bit more and found a few craft stalls along the river and managed to pick up a few bits and pieces but spent the rest of the day just exploring the various side streets off of the main square whilst Nina gave me Italian lessons in preparation for my up coming debut as a ski rep, we have also managed to hit every shop selling ski and board equip in most of eastern Europe without spending a penny. That evening we decided to check out the night life a little, this was after realising that we had barely had a proper night out since Varna, after hunting around a bit we found a club-bar-restaurant called Bachus and the bouncers looked just about threatening enough for it to feel like home so in we went absolutely drenched and in no mood to socialise due to the down pour which had found us at about 6pm that evening.
We approached the bar and promptly found ourselves in a cocktail bar, which was a bonus, we took a look at the list and found that they also did 1 litre jugs of Long Island Ice Tea, another bonus. Two things we learnt that night was that Slovenians like to load there cocktails and like to charge high prices for that benefit. We also learnt the following morning that 2 jugs between us and a 1 am bed time makes us both pretty grumpy, my God we are getting old.
Despite the hang overs we decided that we would still take an early bus to Postojna to go see the famous Slovenian caves, however having not realized that as it was a weekend we had missed all the early buses and there wasn't another one until 2pm our moods plummeted further. We opened the door of the hostel to head out anyway just to kill some time and were greeted by torrential rain, we headed out and got as far as the tourist information office where we were going to see the easiest and quickest other way to get to and from the caves before I yielded and finally brought a replacement umbrella for the one i broke in Romania when hitting Nina with it. The only choice of colours were bright yellow or bright red, since then I have been carrying my trusted bright red umbrella with me every where I go.
Not wanting to wander the streets in the rain we decided to find a restaurant and have an early lunch, we thought it would be best to head towards the bus station so at least that way we were not prolonging our time in the down pour, turns out that the only restaurant on route was directly outside the coach station, we managed to squelch our way into the restaurant and not for the first time this trip found ourselves ordering Pizza well before noon. We managed to stretch out meal over two hours assisted by tea and hot chocolate before heading over to catch the bus. The journey to Postojana only took an hour and when we arrive the rain had significantly lessened.
From the bus station the caves are about a 20 minute walk, we got there about 3.30 and had time to go into their exhibit of cave life before catching the 4 o'clock tour of the caves. The cave life exhibit was a bizarre experience, we were basically given a guide leaflet and a Duracell torch and spent time looking in buckets and beetles and other minuscule insects, however they also had a few large tanks with the Blind Salamander in them, these awesome little creatures are a weird pink colour, have no eyes and grow to be about 45cm long, they are better known as Human Fish, which is amusing considering they are neither human not fish, the cave guide later told us that they were given the name as despite being amphibious they spent most of their lives in water and lived for about 70-80 years, thus they lived like fish and lasted about as long as humans.
The cave tour itself was awesome, it started by boarding a train which resembled a runaway train ride that you would find in many a theme park and at certain points you felt you were on a runaway train too as it whipped through 8km of caves at high speed. We then disembarked for a 2km guided tour of the cave system where got to see their so called Spaghetti cave where the stalactites were so thin they resembled the pasta from which they borrowed their name, we also saw many beautiful curtains, which were basically where the cave had formed curtain style stalactites. Finally we got the the concert hall where Nina did her best wolf impression to check out the acoustics, it was much better than all the yodelling that was being done. Finally we boarded the train again for another 8km journey back to daylight and emerged absolutely soaked, i would recommend hiring the rain coats for 3€ however we didn't, to discover two things, one the sun was finally shining again, and two we had beaten the Aussies in the rugby, woo hoo.
That evening feeling pretty shattered we decided to stay close to the hostel as we were moving on the next day to Lake Bled and had to be up early, still as I said our hostel was right next to a load of bars so it wasn't really a major hard ship. We spent the evening drinking 1€ Slovenian Red Wine and watching the Kiwis get bashed by the French. Despite the weather and not doing too much we had really enjoyed Ljubljana but felt that 2 days was just about enough time to see everything and were excited about moving on to Bled for the day before heading on to Germany, for once we had a slight plan that covered more than a day ahead...
Sorry for the poor punctuation, i am using a keyboard upon which the pictures on the keys look nothing like what appears on the screen.....
The plan ... well really there is no plan, but there is a good reason ...
Watch out Europe here we come. After working in travel it's time to put in action what I've learnt!
I can't take you all with me but here's the next best thing - share our travel highlights and fun experiences as we check out as much of Europe as possible over the next 10 weeks.
