Gorgeous blue skies overhead as we left Maribor bound for Ljubljana—of course, as soon as we reached our destination, everything became gray, foggy, and damp. We checked into the Zeppelin Hostel and began to wander around the city. Both Burke and I got great vibes off of the atmosphere in this city immediately. It is a very manageable size and is focused around a picturesque city center for pedestrians, cobble-stoned streets of course, and a castle looming high on a hill nearby. The weather was not very considerate, but we made a good effort despite the suddenly plummeting temperature and the falling water. Large coffees in hand, we discovered the Old Town across the small river, a beautiful church, adorable bridges including the unique Triple Bridge, and lots of interesting boutiques. When we got back to the hostel to change our wet clothes, we learned that Burke's new baby niece had received a name! To celebrate the birth of Olivia Rhiannon Roberts, we treated ourselves to a big dinner with lots of drinks at Café Romeo and went to bed.
The next day, we woke up very early to take the bus out to Postojna to visit the caves. These caves defy description and are completely beyond my comprehension, even though I spent 2 hours underground exploring several kilometers of them by foot and on a little train that takes visitors through the narrow passages at breakneck speed. The visit was well worth the pain in the ass it was to get there. The buses are infrequent and don’t line up with the even more infrequent tours of the caves, so Burke and I found ourselves sprinting from the bus at 9:52 to the caves, a little over a kilometer away, to make a 10:00 tour. We also bought a ticket to tour Predjama Castle, an amazing structure that Burke has been dying to see for months, built into the side of a mountain. Everyone said that it would be difficult to get there, but as it was only 9km away from Postojna, we thought we’d wing it. Big mistake. Cabs wanted to charge 30 euro to take us there and the bus schedule made absolutely no sense if we ever wanted to get back to Ljubljana. As we exited the caves and made all of these very sad realizations, freezing rain came down in torrents from the sky. Ugh. But if there’s anything we’ve learned from this trip, it’s that “winging it” does not work for public transportation. While it’s good in that in runs on time and is clean and affordable, the times couldn’t be more inconveniently spaced and the routes could not be more wacky. This definitely has something to do with the fact that our visit was during the off season, I'm sure. But even so, it’s just impossible to negotiate, especially with a very touchy website that doesn’t always translate everything, even though it says it will. Whatever--the caves were worth all of transportation struggle. Just look at this!
We made it back to Ljuby Ljuby, as Burke affectionately nicknamed the city, to go up the funicular (Finally! Funicular! Fun!) to check out the castle. Not much up there, but pretty cool views over the city and out to the Julian Alps, covered in snow. There was a wedding going on with lots of lively music that looked very sweet.
When we came back down the hill, we found ourselves smack in the middle of a "family day" celebration in Presernov trg. A huge circle of had formed, seemingly a collection of people who happened to be passing by, and they all started doing a sort of grapevine dance together, chanting and singing in Slovenian. This took place around a smaller circle of musicians. Kids were running around, happy to be part of the celebration, toting balloons and weaving in and out of the circle. Burke and I watched this all go on for a long time--everyone seemed to know the dance and the songs instinctively, and it was really beautiful to witness.
We ate a cheap dinner of typical Slovenian food and went back to the hostel. We were psyched to find no one else in our 6 person room and thought we had it made, finally, after the puker in Maribor. But of course, with our luck, the following happened instead:
The hostel owner opened up our door to reveal a family of 5 that had showed up after midnight with 3 children under 3 years old. Burke and I were totally shocked—families with babies are just not what you see at hostels. The kids were basket cases and totally miserable and scared, staunchly refusing to sleep up high in a bunk bed. So of course, logically, mattresses were moved on the floor, which forced us to move all our things. We felt weird so we took my laptop and watched tv shows in the common space until about 2am, at which point we though it would be okay to go back into our room. Nem.
The mother was up till after 2 trying to get the crying baby to sleep by singing songs in German. We hung out for a few minutes, trying to sleep, but it was not happening, so we went back outside for an hour, commiserating with some Americans who came in late. We complained in the morning about the experience to the hostel owner, who was a hell of a nice guy about everything and gave us a refund for the night. The kids were actually totally precious but I’ve never had a more uncomfortable moment in a hostel. At least with someone like the puker, you can tell him to be quiet or to go outside or whatever, but with kids—babies!—what can you do?
We woke up in the morning to the Ljubljana Marathon, in which 7,000 runners overtook the city. We saw a lot of the runners warming up as we picked our way along the river at the weekly antiques market. Then we grabbed our stuff and caught a train to Kranj, an idyllic little town nestled into the Julian Alps. Burke really wanted to check it out for the photo ops, and when we got there, it didn’t disappoint. One thing I really love about these European towns and cities is the pedestrian only streets. It calms everything down a bit, and certainly lowers the volume. Even when you’re in a big city like Budapest, these little havens away from cars make you feel a little bit more human somehow, and connected to everyone else wandering around. It’s one thing that I adore about Szeged, and the places we visited in Slovenia are no exception.
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