One night in a prison cell in Slovenia
Well, we've been back in London for almost 2 weeks now. We spent 10 glorious days soaking up the history of old walled cities and lazing on luxurious beaches on mediterranean islands in Slovenia and Croatia. Now we're back to the "real world" of the 9 to 5 (charming) where I've got over a week's worth of stuff to catch up on, and where Tam's been busy hitting the pavements and cyber-pavements seeking a new job. Enough of that for now, here's what we got up to...
First stop was to Ljubljana ('loo-blee-arna'), the capital of Slovenia, frequently described as "the new Prague, without all the tourists". Ljubljana is definitely beautiful and Slovenia would be one of the places in Europe I would consider moving to. Lush and green with amazingly picturesque vistas, mountains, lakes, castles and clean fresh air. The locals appear to be very outdoors-y and active, and a lot of things are less expensive than London (which is always a good thing).
This is the pretty Frančiškanska Cerkev Marijinega Oznanjanja (Franciscan Church of the Annunciation) on the Prešernov Trg (Square) with the cool little tourist train (for those of us who are too weary to walk) that takes you up the hill to the Castle.
We arrived in the early afternoon and were all set for a cheap feast on fresh seafood but we got barred from the Lonely Planet recommended restaurant under the Tromostovje (Triple Bridge) near the Square as they were (almost) closing, so we popped into another local favourite for some Slovenian cuisine.
We had the exquisite garlic squid...
And Tam thought we should try this 'interesting' Slovenian Krvavica sausage with cabbage and turnips - which unfortunately happened to turn out to be black pudding (gross!)
Slovenia has a healthy fascination with dragons (well, doesn't everyone? Dragons are cool). And the green dragon is symbol of Ljubljana. This is one of the dragons on the Zmajski most (Dragon Bridge).
This is the Rotovž (Town Hall) with the (currently under refurbishment) Robba Fountain encased in perspex on its left.
We strolled inside the Town Hall building (like we owned the place cos we weren't sure if we needed to pay or whatever)...
And we found some cool and weird art exhibitions.
A very cool piece of art.
Up the Ljubljanica River.
The next day we joined a small tour group for a day trip to Slovenia's number one tourist destination, Bled (about 54km north of Ljubljana), to visit Bled Castle (on top of a 100m high cliff - no need for moats here!) and the blue blue lake with the tiny island of Blejski Otok which pretty much only has a church on it. The extreme blue-ness of the lake is due to the funky algae there.
After visiting the castle, our tour guide decided to take us for a walk through the Vintgar Gorge.
A dragon's head peeking out of the Radovna River.
The water is so clear you can even see the fishies!
And then we went back to Lake Bled for a quick rest and some sustinence.
This is the famous Bled Kremna rezina (cream cake) - Mmm tasty.
Afterwards, she drove us to a small village where we sampled some traditional Slovenian food, including kaša or buckwheat groats and some kind of curdled milk. We also tasted some delicious complementary home-made Blueberry schnapps.
After our 'snack' (and feeling pretty much full) we set off for Bohinj where our tour guide had a nap and we went wading through Lake Bohinj.
A mixed grill plate from the Raca (Duck) on Lake Bohinj. No, that's not poo poo on my plate. That's Čevapčiči, a Slovenian delicacy similar to shish kebab that you eat with chopped raw onions and that red sauce. Nice :)
And Tam had the freshest of trouts.
After "lunch" it started to rain heavily. And it was time to head home to our hostel back in Ljubljana, just out of town where we watched some Italian diving and Zinedine Zidane headbutt an Italian man on TV.
The next day we planned another excursion to the Postojna jama (Caves, 50kn south of Ljubljana), a huge underground network of caves. We had to catch a little train to through the tunnels to get inside and deep into the caves where there are heaps of stalacmites and stalactites. Which is which again?
"Stalactite: Hold on tight! Stalagmite: Might poke you in the ass" - Tenacious D
Oh, and the bit about the prison cell? Well, we stayed in our little hostel outside of town for the first two nights and then we spent our last night in Metelkova near the train station in a "cell" at Celica Hostel, a former military prison.
First stop was to Ljubljana ('loo-blee-arna'), the capital of Slovenia, frequently described as "the new Prague, without all the tourists". Ljubljana is definitely beautiful and Slovenia would be one of the places in Europe I would consider moving to. Lush and green with amazingly picturesque vistas, mountains, lakes, castles and clean fresh air. The locals appear to be very outdoors-y and active, and a lot of things are less expensive than London (which is always a good thing).
This is the pretty Frančiškanska Cerkev Marijinega Oznanjanja (Franciscan Church of the Annunciation) on the Prešernov Trg (Square) with the cool little tourist train (for those of us who are too weary to walk) that takes you up the hill to the Castle.
We arrived in the early afternoon and were all set for a cheap feast on fresh seafood but we got barred from the Lonely Planet recommended restaurant under the Tromostovje (Triple Bridge) near the Square as they were (almost) closing, so we popped into another local favourite for some Slovenian cuisine.
We had the exquisite garlic squid...
And Tam thought we should try this 'interesting' Slovenian Krvavica sausage with cabbage and turnips - which unfortunately happened to turn out to be black pudding (gross!)
Slovenia has a healthy fascination with dragons (well, doesn't everyone? Dragons are cool). And the green dragon is symbol of Ljubljana. This is one of the dragons on the Zmajski most (Dragon Bridge).
This is the Rotovž (Town Hall) with the (currently under refurbishment) Robba Fountain encased in perspex on its left.
We strolled inside the Town Hall building (like we owned the place cos we weren't sure if we needed to pay or whatever)...
And we found some cool and weird art exhibitions.
A very cool piece of art.
Up the Ljubljanica River.
The next day we joined a small tour group for a day trip to Slovenia's number one tourist destination, Bled (about 54km north of Ljubljana), to visit Bled Castle (on top of a 100m high cliff - no need for moats here!) and the blue blue lake with the tiny island of Blejski Otok which pretty much only has a church on it. The extreme blue-ness of the lake is due to the funky algae there.
After visiting the castle, our tour guide decided to take us for a walk through the Vintgar Gorge.
A dragon's head peeking out of the Radovna River.
The water is so clear you can even see the fishies!
And then we went back to Lake Bled for a quick rest and some sustinence.
This is the famous Bled Kremna rezina (cream cake) - Mmm tasty.
Afterwards, she drove us to a small village where we sampled some traditional Slovenian food, including kaša or buckwheat groats and some kind of curdled milk. We also tasted some delicious complementary home-made Blueberry schnapps.
After our 'snack' (and feeling pretty much full) we set off for Bohinj where our tour guide had a nap and we went wading through Lake Bohinj.
A mixed grill plate from the Raca (Duck) on Lake Bohinj. No, that's not poo poo on my plate. That's Čevapčiči, a Slovenian delicacy similar to shish kebab that you eat with chopped raw onions and that red sauce. Nice :)
And Tam had the freshest of trouts.
After "lunch" it started to rain heavily. And it was time to head home to our hostel back in Ljubljana, just out of town where we watched some Italian diving and Zinedine Zidane headbutt an Italian man on TV.
The next day we planned another excursion to the Postojna jama (Caves, 50kn south of Ljubljana), a huge underground network of caves. We had to catch a little train to through the tunnels to get inside and deep into the caves where there are heaps of stalacmites and stalactites. Which is which again?
"Stalactite: Hold on tight! Stalagmite: Might poke you in the ass" - Tenacious D
Oh, and the bit about the prison cell? Well, we stayed in our little hostel outside of town for the first two nights and then we spent our last night in Metelkova near the train station in a "cell" at Celica Hostel, a former military prison.
posted by DnT Blog Guest at
1:25 AM
2 Comments:
awwwwwwww....
i love squid...i love cake. preferrably not together but i love them both; and the schnapps....awwwww
the black pudding...isn't that like pig blood? that's good man :-D
why am i dwelling on food? now i understand the pain my blog induces in others..haha
Slovenia looks very quiet and small (not many pics of buildings, not majestic like Vienna?), and very picturesque. Looks like the sort of place I'd like (Prague was definitely way too touristy); in fact, did u see any birds there? coz i didn't see any :-)
i had a look thru Dom's blog. god we're so tame. I think she can beat the entire drinking team on her own.
anyway, take care, hope work settles down soon(and tam gets some work), coz i wanna see photos of Croatia!
By
case-in-point, at 2:06 PM
I (heart) Slovenia. It was great. I found it quite endearing when I noticed some of their tourim promo/souvenir stuff had stuff like "sLOVEvia". Very cute. You can't spell "Slovenia" without "love".
Yeh, Dom's into the whole shopping/drinking thing. You'll notice we (sadly) don't have any photos of her cos we didn't bother to take the camera out cos we weren't going anywhere touristy. Well, we did Shakespeare's Globe again, but we already did that with you.
That black pudding thing was gross. Curiosity killed the cat. The texture was like... just so wrong. You'd eat a bit, and then not help but try and guess what the hell it was, and then after that try not to bring it back up again.
By
DnT Blog Guest, at 3:11 PM
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