Ljubljana
Getting there
So as previously mentioned (here) we had Split to Zagreb by train in order to get to Ljubljana. We'd bought the train ticket for Zagreb-Ljubljana in Split, to secure our place on the train and so we knew what our timings were. Our train was not the easiest to find in Zagreb - a train showed up with a multitude of different carriages all saying different destinations, with a solitary Slovenian Railways carriage saying Ljubljana on the side. After asking the guard, that carriage was ours - it just happened to be the nicest looking of the lot too, and we found a compartment to sit in by ourselves. The next stop was the border town - both Croatia and Slovenia are EU nations, but Croatia is not Schengen so we knew there would be border formalities for what was going to be our last border check before hitting the UK. Croatian border police came in and asked us the usual questions, and stamped our passports for exit in the compartment. Slovenian border police then came through, asking all the questions and examined our passports - but although they had the stamper with them, they didn't use it and I half-wondered at the time whether I should ask that they do just in case we need to prove our entry into Schengen later. But I didn't, and we were off - and no stamp for Slovenia.
Once in Slovenia the train followed a river for a long time, where we watched the sunset happen over. Slovenia's scenery was not like anything else we'd seen in the former Yugoslavia so far - it looked a lot less Balkan and more European, like Austria, Switzerland or Germany (it neighbours Austria). Once at the station, we had a 10ish-minute trudge to our accommodation in the dark with it threatening to rain - but we got there!
Our accommodation was a private room in a hostel, with shared bathrooms out in the corridor but it was very clean and very white everywhere. We were there for only 1 night anyway, so although the room was not large it definitely sufficed. Check-in was at another accommodation 4 buildings down, and we were able to store luggage there for free the next day. Normally we would have stayed near the train station, but Ljubljana had been a city where accommodation had not proven so easy to obtain - but it was handy to the central city so that was something.
We had a big wander around the city and around the castle perched on a hill right in the center of the city. The city is nice, clean and polished - a lot of the architecture is Austro-Hungarian as it was a part of the empire and being so close to Austria, it was probably easier for Austria's influence to make an impact. Its a pretty city, but unless you want to pay money to go into the castle (we'd seen enough castles), or spend money to visit museums or sample the riverside cafe or market culture (we didn't) then there's not a huge amount for you in the central city I feel. Definitely if we were not so penny pinching we could have made a go of it, but Ljubljana was never meant to be the main attraction for our time in Ljubljana - more just a staging point. But we did make sure we saw all of what we wanted to while in the city.
Because we kinda ran out of things to do in the city, and there was a train museum that was kind of on the way of our exploring route, we did pop in and visit the Slovenian National Railway Museum. This is not the original Yugoslavian Railway Museum - that was in Serbia and always had been, but Slovenia always seems to have had its own little museum even in Yugoslavian times. Its not very big, but it was interesting nonetheless. It probably compared a lot with the Australian National Railway Museum, located in Adelaide - various engine exhibits, a few side exhibits and its not a very polished museum. Still, it was interesting to visit and definitely filled in time!
So there was an area that was a former Yugoslavian National Army barracks that's now become a trendy grunge area with clubs and cafes. We had seen this sort of thing in Berlin, particularly the likes of the RAW Gelände which was near our home in Berlin and we quite liked visiting every so often - it had a cool vibe. Unfortunately, I think we went there expecting it to be something it wasn't. It was a grungy area, yes it was trendy but it seemed all the cafes and clubs were only open at night time - at RAW Gelände there's places open for food and bier all during the day too, as was Uzupis in Vilnius, Lithuania. So it was a kind of ghost town, and just as well we weren't counting on having lunch there was we originally thought we might because we would have been out of luck. Might be a completely different atmosphere at nighttime, but we didn't have a spare night in Ljubljana to find out.
In many ways this should come under the "Getting There" for Lake Bled and also for Venice, but I'm going to expand on it here instead as it kind of plays a big part in our time in Ljubljana and what I remember of the city. So basically - we had a bunch of spare time at Ljubljana Railway station while waiting for transport, twice - going to Bled, and going from Bled to Venice. The first time I insisted we go into the train station to wait for our bus, rather than the poky bus station - and we found ourselves a seat at a cafe/bar table on the main station platform overlooking the other platforms and train yard, with the cityscape behind. Sasha went to the bathroom, and after a little while a lady suddenly appeared at the table asking what I'd like to order. I think Sasha had originally thought they were smoking/waiting seats and tables and some were, but this one was tied to the cafe - basically I knew that if we didn't order, we'd be asked to move along and I didn't feel like moving along yet. After asking the lady if they had Orange wine (we'd just learned this was supposed to be a specialty in Slovenia) and found they didn't, I ordered a white wine for Sasha and a beer for myself. The bill came with the drinks and we were asked to pay then and there (not typical for Europe but understandable given people rush off to catch trains) - but the bill was only 3.50 Euros, of which my beer was 2.50. 1 Euro wines - for real! So we may have had another drink after as well, and meanwhile there was not only a lot of trains (passenger and freight from different parts of Europe) passing through but it absolutely bucketed with rain as a spectacular thunder and lightning storm passed through. It flooded some of the platforms and the tracks, but we were quite dry under the big station platform awning. It proved to be a rather pleasant place to sit and while away the time!
So much so, that we went back to the same place on the platform in the station when we were in transit between Bled and Venice (after having lunch at the McDonalds in the station first!). We had a few more hours to kill this time, and not only did we spend a whopping 6 Euros on 6 wines between us with some McDonalds sundaes for dessert later also at the table. Having now been a bit more "cultured" in Slovenian wine, I know I had at least 2 of Cviček (more about Cviček later on in the post). Meanwhile, it still rained on and off but it didn't bucket down like the previous time.
As stupid as it might have been, I think the platform there at Ljubljana Railway Station might have been one of my highlights of our time in Ljubljana!
There wasn't much to mention in this regard - breakfast was from supplies, and lunch was a alright-priced restaurant we found after Sasha's preferred venue turned out to be closed. Here, Sasha had Calamari, while I had a Lasagna in a bowl so hot it burned my arm at one point, while happening to watch some lady nearby doing... well I'm not sure. Either she was communing with the wind, trying to summon rain (if so, she did a damn good job as it arrived about 3 hours later in a rather heavy fashion), or casting an evil spell upon the nearby restaurant where she might have had bad service (that last one is a bit of a stretch I think). Aside from that, there the wine and beer had at Ljubljana station, which was just a standard white wine of some variety and a local "Union" beer (pretty average IMHO), plus McDonalds (which had slightly different burgers from normal - they were decent too).
Lake Bled
Getting to Bled (the town right next to Lake Bled, and I will be using Bled and Lake Bled interchangeably) from Ljubljana was done by public bus, which we couldn't book online. So when we were done with Ljubljana, we headed to the bus station to get ourselves some tickets. Getting there about 2.45ish, we hoped we could get on the 3pm bus - but no, we could only get tickets for the 5pm bus due to some rule about ticket sales having to be 2 hours beforehand. That wasn't a major deal, but just gave us extra time to hang around Ljubljana (spent at the railway station across the road as descried above).
As it was, it turns out we could have just rocked up to the bus and paid the driver for the next available bus - there are no assigned seats or anything and others did just this! nevertheless, it wasn't a major deal and it took about an hour to get to Bled by bus, passing a few towns along the way as the thunderstorm swept its way towards and over the mountains heading for Austria. There was a few times where the mountains were completely blocked out by big charcoal black clouds, and then the mountains would reappear a few minutes later.
Bled isn't cheap, and although we'd toyed with the idea of getting a hotel room or an Airbnb apartment to ourselves, in the end we got ourselves a private twin-bunk room in a hostel because that was cheaper, although still a lot of money all things considered! It was nice and clean and sufficed, I took the top bunk as Sasha doesn't like top bunks - I think because she's cared she might roll off it in the middle of the night! We were right across the road from a local supermarket and although the choice in there wasn't so grand, we did buy things and cooked meals in the shared kitchen as places to eat out at were somewhat pricey (as you can imagine). In this way we met two older Aussie ladies - one who now lives in Budapest, Hungary and travels a lot, and her friend who it seemed from what she'd told us she'd gotten sick (as in she'd been diagnosed with something fairly hefty, she never said what) and had decided to trip around the globe as a result. We traded travel stories and notes, as you often do with other travellers! We also bumped into two other girls who had been at our accommodation in Mostar, they recognised us before we recognised them!
Our first morning there, we set out quite early to hike around the lake and to various vantage spots for photos. We had two reasons for setting out early - one was the good blue sky weather was only supposed to last until lunchtime, so by leaving early we'd maximize it; and the second was to try and beat crowds to the iconic spots. The sun was in decent locations for most of our traipsing, and a hike it certainly was - there were some very steep paths up to the lookout spots (after all the hills that surround the lake are a bit sheer) and because its been wet the previous few days, they were slightly muddy and in most places, quite slippery. We got to two main lookout spots - the "one with the bench chair" we had to ourselves for a little while until an Asian couple arrived, but they stayed back until we were done and then they had the spot to themselves.The other spot was easier to get to than the first as we just had to go across the hill, not up it - and for this spot the sun was in a slightly better place. No room or scope for posing at this one, but not many other people at the spot either. On our way down though we encountered a lot of people - had we stayed at the spot an extra 15min It would have started flooding with people. We decided not to attempt to get a boat, or hire a boat, to go out to the Island with the church in the middle as the weather was supposed to pack it in and it wouldn't be very pleasant. We also spotted a mother duck with about 10 ducklings in her wake at one point!
In the end, that was our only lap around the Lake - we did venture out around parts of it, but the weather was never as good again and we had some pretty stunning photos already.
So my Craptop, the long-past-its-use-by-date and woefully underpowered Toshiba Netbook suffered a tumble in Mostar which caused the already-clicking but functional hard drive to fail and rendering the Craptop useless. The figurative nuts-and-bolts (or screws) of this are detailed in the post The Craptop Survives. But in order to attempt the repair, we needed to be stopped long enough somewhere and with enough time for me to have a go at it and that opportunity didn't arrive until Bled. We had allowed for 2 full days in Bled, but the weather had only been good the morning of the first day. The second day it rained intermittently, and we didn't feel much like going out - we needed a bit of a relax day. So we holed up in our private hostel room, and I worked away at the Craptop. It took most of the day, but we got there - probably the most challenging computer repair I've yet ever had to attempt due to the lack of access to components, no proper area to work on it and trying to make it work with whatever I had with me. While in terms of our trip we achieved not much this day, I certainly felt like it had been a successful day.
As mentioned under accommodation, we cooked our dinners at the Hostel kitchen while in Bled - it was not something we generally did a lot of during our trip as often the cost of eating out wasn't much, or was preferred. But with things in Bled being pricier, we elected to cook main meals for ourselves at least one night - and ended up doing it both nights. That's not to say we didn't eat out though, we definitely did - our hostel gave us 10% off at some various restaurants, and we made use of that to visit a Pizza restaurant not far from our hostel for lunch the first day which was quite nice. We also toyed with the idea of doing a Wine Tasting dinner in Bled, which seemed good value with all things considered at 35 Euros a head - but one of the main reasons we wanted to go was we'd heard about Slovenian Orange wine and wanted to try some - we'd lucked out so far but surely the wine tasting would include it. In the end we decided against the wine tasting as it was an expense we didn't need, we couldn't guarantee the Orange wine and so we tried finding it elsewhere. In the end, we didn't - but we did find something else. On the 2nd day in Bled, for lack of any other better places and the fact we liked it so much, we went back to the Pizza place for lunch once again. Sasha asked if they had Orange wine, they said no but they did have Civček, a local wine. Sasha went with the suggestion, and was brought a glass of very bright and clear red-coloured wine. It looked a bit like a Spatburgunder wine we'd tried in the Mosel area, but when Sasha tried it her reaction was one of surprise. I tried it, and saw what she meant - it tasted kinda harsh, more like the green wines we'd come across in Portugal. The first mouthful was a shock, and then afterwards it was actually quite pleasant and totally different. Sasha ended up having a 2nd one, while I had some "Komunalizer" brand beer, one being the Tito, the other the Broz. All of their range was named after former Yugoslavian ruler Joseph "Broz" Tito, and the waiter seemed quite excited that I wanted to have some and that I liked it (it was a pretty decent beer).
Sasha also wanted to try one of the local pastry delicacies, so after the pizza on the 2nd day we went to a nearby bakery which had an eatery inside and had been of these Bled Cream Cakes, along with another delicacy, and two Civčeks. We didn't need the extra wine, though it was nice but what we certainly didn't need was both of these delicacies right after a main meal. They were huge - one would have still been too much for us! We left there with very sated taste buds and very full stomachs!
Breakfast, as always, was from supplies (which was Muesli still).
Summing Up
Ljubljana was a pretty, picturesque city in the end - for a capital city it certainly didn't lack any overarching character like say Zagreb, or Belgrade. I never expected much from Ljubljana in all the times that we looked at going to Slovenia - it was simply a staging point or place to transit in my mind. To find that it had something going on, although not a huge amount, was a pleasant surprise.
Lake Bled was in many ways what we had hoped for - to see and photograph pretty scenery, and a chance to chill out. The fact that we'd only get a half-day window to see and photograph the pretty scenery, and that we'd chill out by staying inside the hostel room for virtually an entire day were not how I envisaged it happening when we booked it, but upon reflection I wouldn't have done it any other way considering everything with us and the weather at the time. We knew weather could be an issue, which is why we made sure we had 2 full days there. Lucky for us, we got that patch of blue as it had been grey for days beforehand and continued to be afterwards. We never made it to the Island in the middle, something I thought we definitely would have done - the boat hire prices were more than we'd been told, catching one of the ferry boats also pricey, and any opportunity we had to visit it would have rained on us. I don't mind at all that we missed out - we've seen lots of churches in our travels and I'm sure the photos of it from the lake edges are better than photos of the church iup closer.
With all things considered, Slovenia was a nice visit but not "wow-ing" to me in the way Bosnia or some other countries were. I feel like maybe it should have - was I feeling weary or jaded from travelling? Possibly, I know we sure needed that rest day in Bled. I'm very glad to have been, that's for certain - but would I go back? After we left, I felt like I had no reason to - Ljubljana was done, as was Lake Bled. No real reason to go back. And that's still true - no real reason to go back. But upon reflection now, some time after visiting, I think if the opportunity arose I wouldn't mind going back to Slovenia. And in saying that, I feel like its Ljubljana where I'd want to go to if I were to visit Slovenia again - give it another crack, whereas I think Lake Bled is "cracked" unless I wanted to photograph it in snowy winter (not so inclined at the moment). I wouldn't have thought that at all, but there we go.
It was rather pretty though...