Ljubljana, Slovenia – Travel Photography

Our last city was the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana…yeah try pronouncing THAT.  The “lj” makes a sound that we don’t have so its like impossible to pronounce it correctly but roughly its “loo-biyana” but with some slight j sounds in there somewhere. ANYWAY…I had no idea what to expect from Slovenia…but I LOVED IT.  Ljubljana felt similar to the way Zagreb did – a small European capital that is quaint and friendly and very livable.  We had two days for this city.  You really probably only need one to see Ljubljana, its quite small, and there’s lots of lakes close by so you can easily take a day trip, HOWEVER we were at the end of our trip, tired and close to having no money left so we decided to take it slow and enjoy 2 relaxing days in the city and hanging out with our couchsurfing hosts….phew worst run-on sentence ever…moving on…This is around the area of the Triple Bridge.  It’s a wide open plaza with lots of nice buildings and statues…and of course three bridges.  On the left you can see the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation.  On the right is example of the Art Nouveau style that is popular in Ljubljana.

Nearby is the Dragon Bridge which is a prominent symbol of the city.  On it are silly little sculptures.  Have you seen the trend of putting your names and date on a lock and locking it to a bridge as a token of love? Its super cute and all over Europe – some people had locked theirs onto some of the sculptures.

This is Town Square.

And this is Saint Nicholas’ Cathedral.

The inside is lovely with lots of pretty ceiling paintings and I love the pink marble.

Here’s the front door, isn’t it awesome?

There’s this beautiful river walk.  I really love cities that are on rivers.  The view is just so lovely and its relaxing walking along or sitting outside for a drink.  Wouldn’t it be ah-mazing to have your apartment at the top of one of these buildings? With a river facing terrace? Divine!

We went home early that day to cook dinner for our hosts.  After, we met up with one of their friends, who just so happened to be the most beautiful boy in Slovenia, and went to this outdoor venue bar thing to watch some music….however when we got there there wasn’t any music so we just sat and drank and chatted.  These are things that I love about couhcsurfing.

The next day we wanted to go to the Ljubljana Castle.  We passed through the Triple Bridge plaza again.

Then walked up a big hill.

Passed a few cute things.

And arrived to the Ljubljana Castle!

The castle has amazing views of the city.

We spent all day up there.  There’s a museum, a few art galleries, a 3D history movie thing and you can climb up the tower.  Also there’s a restaurant and cute little reading area on the lawn – it was nice.  After we walked around a bit more before meeting our host at work and saw some pretty buildings.

Here you can see the castle in the background.

On the right is the US Embassy.  This is the best one we’ve seen – it’s awesome!

So we are just lazing around in Madrid this week.  On Sunday we leave for Saint Jean Pied de Port, a little town in France where we will start the Camino de Santiago.  The Camino de Santiago is a trail across Spain from East to West, originally a pilgrimage to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.  If you remember, we went there with my parents – you can see that post here.  It will take us approx. one month to hike….but more on that later!