Hey everybody! Stop what you’re doing and plan your trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia right now! Seriously. Of all the places we’ve traveled to, this European Green Capital Award City for 2016 is one of our favs! We spent five nights exploring Ljubljana and visited Lake Bled.
Walk along the river and you will find cafes, ice cream, restaurants, bars and probably several street performances.
Make sure to look up and see all the sculpture just hanging out on top of buildings.
They serve iced coffee like this! WHAT?!
Want to see some live music? Just stroll along the river or wander to some of the city squares until you find it. Jazz, string quartets, Irish dancers, stilt-walking interpretative dance horse people- they have a lot of options here. Maybe fire eating chainsaw juggling circus people are your scene. They're here too.
Stilt walking horse people perform outside of Town Hall.
Look! NO CARS. We watched the Euro Cup semi-finals on big screens outside here.
The Jazz Festival was happening when we were here. We saw a jazz orchestra circus and a tightrope walker. The musicians entered the stage balancing and rolling on gas cylinders while playing their instruments. It was the funniest thing I’d seen in a long time! Later Ryan was on stage for part of the show holding a rope with 25 other audience members, so the tightrope walker could do her thing. Fun times!
This is the alleyway we walked from the Airbnb, located down the hill from the castle.
The horse on the wall reminded me of the cave paintings of Lascaux, France.
Not all of the city is car-free. Just the inner city where the river and river side cafes, stores, shops, markets and entertainers are. Don’t worry! They have a free electric transportation service for people who need assistance moving around in the car-free zone.
Several street performances took place outside this plaza in the evenings.
Back on the car-free streets, there’s a guy with the giant bubble wand who entertains children and adults in the Town Square, everyday. Ice cream stands appear every 25 feet or so throughout the city. There are farmers markets and food stands and every Friday chefs from all kinds of restaurants set up shop so you can sample dishes.
He's delivering happiness with that giant, dual-wield bubble wand!
BUBBLES!
Meat market! With craft beers.
There’s also a medieval castle on a hill, called Castle Hill, and big old churches if that’s your scene. Don’t like walking up hills? Ride the funicular, like we did.
I think the outside of the castle looks more castle than the inside. The renovated inside courtyard looks like part of U Village to me, with its restaurants and outdoor terraces.
Did you know Slovenia loves bees? They’ve protected their native bee, the Carniolan bee, which is regarded as part of the natural and cultural heritage of Slovenia. And that’s awesome because one third of the food produced throughout the world depends on pollination, from pollinators such as bees! We learned about this stuff at the bee exhibit in the basement of Ljubljana Castle. There was also a National Geographic Photography Exhibit called “Rarely Scene,” which we saw, in the basement of the castle.
Pretty painted ceiling in the Chapel of Ljubljana Castle.
Down the castle spiral.
Ljubljana pano time! From the top of the castle.
This is what the other side looks like, in case you were wondering.
Outside the car-free zone is the Metelkova neighborhood, where all the artists and college aged bohemian kids set up shop in the old Austro-Hungarian military barracks. I thought it would be fun to walk over there at night, which Ryan thought was sketch and not a smart choice until we arrived. The scene was poorly lit but we could see there were some serious mural projects and reclaimed goods in the process of being transformed into art pieces throughout the barracks parking lot. Mostly there were a bunch of hostel youth smoking and drinking on the steps nearby the back alley bar. We opted out of drinking with them. Ryan felt we were not dressed correctly for mingling with the artsy squatters.
There’s highbrow art too in the newly refurbished National Gallery. We wandered through the exhibits one day, mostly by ourselves and were able to observe how the artists of Slovenia and nearby countries were influenced by the work coming out of Paris and Prague back in the day. The refurbished museum is beautiful site as well.
This is the real deal fountain. The one in front of Town Hall is a replica of this original by Francesco Robba.
We also strolled through Tivoli Park and visited the International Center of Graphic Arts to see Slovenian artist Karel Zelenko’s work. His paintings, ceramics, prints and illustrations were inspiring to see. I really enjoyed his line work and playful compositions.
Four tongueless dog sculptures line the stairs outside the International Center of Graphic Arts in Tivoli Park.
One of the last days of our stay we took a bus outside the city to the Julian Alps to visit Lake Bled. Our lovely friends RAVED about Lake Bled and said YOU HAVE TO GO THERE, so we did. And they were right! We were not disappointed by our visit, kayak rental and walk around the lake. Lake Bled is a very beautiful and scenic part of the world. Plan to go to there during the visit you’re planning to Ljubljana too!
Swans and light rays abound at Lake Bled.
This bird will eat your bread so watch out! Look at his sneaky feet!
A street cat would sometimes greet us on our way home. Other times, he looked at us and then walked in the opposite direction, like WHO CARES?!