The rain had been pretty hard the night before so Garth was taking one for the team and going to sleep in the slightly wet tent while Holly was joining me in cosy Betty. Garth’s backup plan was that if it got to wet, he’d join us in the campervan, which we knew could sleep 3 in a pinch from our windy last night in Croatia. Well he lasted about 3 minutes. I guess every time he tried to find a drier spot, he got more and more wet. So for our last night together, we all spent it together in Betty...seemed fitting.
The next morning we head off for the capital, Ljubljana (“Lee-oob-lee-anna”...at least that’s the way we were saying it!). It’s only a city of about 200,000 people (in a country of 2 million) and it is quite beautiful. The old town area has many pedestrian only streets lined with old buildings. We found the small funicular to head up to a castle with a bit of a view of the city (it was Garth and Holly’s first time on a funicular). Apart from the view, there wasn’t too much to see in the castle apart from strange off the wall art exhibitions. If you know me, this is not my forte so I’m having a hard time of even describing what they were about. One claimed to view the struggles of life of a Muslim in areas of conflict. All I saw was a couple of projection screens plus some projected films on the floor in the shape of a large hopscotch game accompanied with some trippy music. The images ranged from the top of mosques to deserts and various pics of people. I was about to check out when in came a young family and two girls and a boy, all under 7, ran out onto the floor projections. The girls began to dance around and obviously had been to the odd ballet lesson. The younger boy tried to touch the images on the ground while the girls did pirouettes. At first I thought “Parents, get control of your kids!” but then they really added to the exhibit and provided a true human aspect to it...or more likely a naive, pure and unprejudiced kids point of view.
The interesting parliament building, statues of many naked people in all kinds of poses (most of them different kinds of professions...and not the oldest one!):
Garth and Holly walking in a main square:
One of many beautiful building in the capital:
By the river:
Garth and Holly on their first funicular ride:
Beautiful trio on the top of the castle:
Looking down from the castle:
The kids dancing in the strange exhibit:
We left the castle with an ice cream in hand and headed down to the old town to find some lunch, which proved a bit harder than expected. The restaurants were overpriced and the menus didn’t seem that appetizing. In the end we found a take-away kebab place and headed to a cafe to add a drink to our meal. Holly then headed off to an art museum so I said good-bye to her as I decided that I was done with the capital and would head back to Kobarid that evening. Garth and I had one more beer and also parted ways. They were flying out to Vienna early in the morning for one day and then off to Canada. It was a fantastic 2-3 weeks that I spent with them in the Balkans...I would travel with them again anytime, anywhere.
A monument on the old town:
I took a different route back to Kobarid and although it wasn’t as mountainous as the way we had traveled to Ljubljana, it was still quite pretty. Most of the time I was following closely to a river and hence many curves and switchbacks interspersed with gorgeous little towns with quaint houses and churches adorned with blossoming rhododendrons. Slovenia is stunning.
Returning to Kobarid:
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