Day 11 – Touring Around Ljubljana

The morning started with a guided walking tour around Ljubljana. We started at the “new” town hall – built after the old town hall became too small for the city. There was a lot of thought put into the construction of the building – which contains a map of the city at the time it as built on one wall in the main courtyard. The photo is a view of a typical street near the town hall. Next it was on to the triple bridges (which we had already seen several times) and to the central market. Around the corner was the cathedral of St Nicholas, with the most amazing doors – which were commissioned in 1996 to celebrate a visit by the Pope. The door was really a sculpture depicting the history of Ljubljana from Roman times to the visit of the Pope John Paul II.

It was then finally up the hill (by funicular this time) to Ljubljanski grad (Ljubljana castle). The castle was a bit of a let down – except the views over the city. From the top, our guide explained the three key parts of the town (old, medieval and new) and gave us some history about how the city had grown over the ages. During the Second World War, the place was completely surrounded by Italian troops – and there is a 35km walk around the city, where the old wire was, to commemorate the event. We wove our way back down to the city from the castle – following the same path that was used in medieval times.

We finished the tour on the cobblers bridge (or shoe makers bridge) – Čevljarski most. The guide told us how there used to be shoe makers shops on the bridge, and also told a story how bakers who cheated used to get dunked in the river over the side of this bridge from the 15^th to the 18^th centuries. The photo is a view up river from the cobblers bridge.

After the tour, we went back to the markets for a look and tried a local thing for lunch. It was called a Burek. Neil and Sandra had a meat version and Karla had an egg and cheese version. They were kind of like large pastry things. Very filling!

From there all went our separate ways to do a spot of shopping (the girls) and Neil went to the museum. We met up after our excursions and headed for a drink in the old town at a place called Romeo Plus. What a magic view. We could have stayed there all afternoon in the sun – just people watching and chatting.

We finished the evening with a traditional Slovenian meal – Sandra had deer medallions and cherry sauce, Neil had a game plate with deer, wild boar and veal; and Karla had a local steak with grilled cheese, salad and dumplings. We probably had the best wine on the tour to date – both pre-dinner drinks and the wine we had with the meal were from the same local vineyard. We had strudel and prekmurje gibanica (a local specialty with poppy seeds, cottage cheese, walnuts and apples) for desert. Then we headed to the apartment to write the blog for the day. Hope you are all enjoying it!!!