Before we learned to pronounce Ljubljana, we had to learn how to spell it so to me and Jon, Loo-blee-aa-nuh is still referred to as L-jub l-jana more often than not. We traveled via train from Zagreb to Ljubljana on a rare rainy day, arriving to better weather.

I started marveling at the beauty and postcard-perfect nature of Slovenia from the moment the train crossed the border. Each town we passed looked like an artists rendition of a charming town outfitted with a perfectly uniformed train station attendant standing out at each station as we passed through. Arriving at the under-construction train station in Ljubljana didn’t even break the spell.

We stayed in an airbnb right in the old town area just a block from the river. Our living room window overlooked one of the main pedestrian thoroughfares for some good people watching.

We spent a lot of time wandering the streets of the old town and the banks of the river enjoying the delightful late August weather.

 

There is a castle on a hill, a common enough site in small towns in the countryside of Slovenia, but a bit more distinctive in a midst of an actual modern(ish) city. We discovered a comedy festival was taking place at the castle on our first visit so we got tickets to the English show the following night and made our way up again for a hilarious evening.

I am not sure if I just started noticing fountains more or if Ljubljana really has more fountains that most cities, but here are just a few of the ones that caught my eye as we roamed the streets.

The last fountain was one of many in Tivoli park, a massive park a short walk from the old town.

There are a lot of bridges that cross the Ljubljanica River each with a theme. The Dragon Bridge was the closest to where we stayed and obviously the best. 99% of the tourist merch agreed, featuring dragons aplenty.

 

Thanks to consistently gorgeous weather, we enjoyed dining outside. Some of the traditional food overlapped with Croatia, they had their own version of the dumpling štruklji  we tried in Zagreb, and lots and lots of sausage.

More to come on our day trip adventures from Ljubjana.

Zagreb is the capital of Croatia with a population just over 750K. During our short 2 night stay, we explored the major sights and luxuriated in our fancy hotel with a shower I never wanted to leave. We stayed in the “Lower Town” area which was a short walk to the “Upper Town” area. We often made our way around via the Zrinjevac park, a lovely oasis in the city.

We really enjoyed walking around Zagreb. Funny side note on the Zagreb Cathedral (first pic below), I read on Reddit that it is almost always under construction. Someone who grew up in Zagreb posted that they’d only ever seen it without and work going on once in their life.

There was an extensive market, Dolac, that we walked around while avoiding the bees swarming the watermelon. I only got a picture of a small snippet of the market, this was the fresh flower area. There were also areas with fruits, veg, meats, souvenirs, etc. The market umbrella is a basis for a lot of tourist merch.

As always we checked out the local craft beer scene which was thriving.

We also enjoyed a couple more Croatian treats including zagrebački štrukli which we had as part of the free breakfast at our hotel. It is a ridiculously rich cheesy pastry delight.

We also finally tried burek which is available at bakeries (pekaras) which are everywhere you look. It is also delightful pastry, this time with a meat filling.