Ljublana, Slovenia

View of river and market area

On our first day of our trip, we took the train to Ljubljana (pronounced: "Lyoo-blyah-nah") for a quick day there. Although the city was quiet, we were impressed with all the creativity that we were met with. The city has a nice old town district to walk through and reasonable boutiques have sprung up throughout that area. Most of the shops were filled with unique, local crafts that aren't the usual kitschy tourist junk. It was inspiring to see some of the work these people were doing.

Greg with first cheese burek of trip

Greg and I strolled through the city and then hiked up the hill to the castle, which was not very impressive although said to be one of the biggest tourist attractions in Slovenia. That's not saying much about the rest of the attractions in Slovenia, I think. It was sort of off-and-on rainy that day so we ended up chilling in the afternoon alongside the river with cups of tea, listening to jazz and watching the rain splash down.

We also got our first cheese burek in Ljubljana. For those who have not had or seen a cheese burek before, it's basically a cheesy pastry that is pretty greasy, but oh so good! It's filled with a salty cheese like feta, but a little lighter. While we didn't have this treat every day, we did relish it fairly often on this trip. As vegetarians, sometimes it was one of our only options at restaurants or cafes.



Here are some more photos from the city:

Dragons guarding the Dragon bridge

View of city from the hilltop

Greg, ready to go up the hill

Back from Croatia

Croatia's current tourist slogan is "the Mediterranean as it was." And that is so true. It reminded Greg and I a lot of the Mediterranean-esque places we've been to - Israel, Italy - and pictures of other places - California, Greece. However, it has a unique vibe all its own - not really picture perfect, but very much real with all the good and bad that goes into being real.

For example, Zadar was our last stop. A beautiful city with old, twisting marble pedestrian streets lined with cafe tables and chairs. People sitting out at all times of the day and night chatting over kava (coffee) and pivo (beer). Spotless? Not exactly. Well-preserved buildings? Mostly not, due to wars (WWII and 1990s conflicts). Variety in food? Not enough for vegetarians, but the cheese burek, pastries, pizzas, and fresh fruits and veggies were delicious. Safe? Definitely. It also didn't hurt that the city was steps from the sea shore. 

That example best depicts our time during our slow trip south - we traveled by train, bus and boat from Munich to Ljubljana, Slovenia, to the islands of Cres and Mali Losinj to Plitvice National Park to Zadar all in one week (and then took an hour and a half flight back to Munich ;-). There is still a lot more to see in that region, but it was a fantastic week-long trip.