After visiting Plitvice and having lunch at the national park, we continued our journey to Slovenia. We booked a room at Radisson Blu in Ljubljana just before leaving this morning so that was our destination for the night.
Waiting time at the border was about 30 minutes so we arrived at 21 o’clock to the hotel. We got a room on the 12th floor with an amazing view from above. After a quick shower and change of clothes, we ventured out to see what is nearby. On one side of the hotel is the industrial area with many factories and companies but on the other side is a mall with many stores, bowling alley and surprisingly a huge cinema.
The only movie running at that time which we haven’t seen yet was A Place Called Venice with Bruce Willis which I haven’t even heard of but we decided to watch it and I thought it was quite ok. I picked up a McSundae with caramel sauce afterwards from the nearby McDonald’s and we walked back to the hotel for a good night sleep.
The water park Atlantis is just a few steps away from the hotel so add it to your plans when visiting Ljubljana. Unfortunately we did not have enough time, otherwise we would’ve went to the water park as well.
After probably one of the best hotel breakfasts that I ever had, we checked out from the hotel and drove to the city center to visit the old town. We parked in the garage of the mall right next to the dragon bridge even though it was very expensive but like this we were right in the old town.
Souvenir shops are twice as expensive. We found exactly the same chocolates in the grocery store at half price.
The first sight to see was obviously the dragon bridge and next we headed to the farmer’s market which is just a stone throw away from the bridge. This market is also exactly how a farmer’s market should be with real vegetables and fruits, not the ones that have no taste. Next we walked in the old town, in the narrow pebble streets with lots of restaurants and cafes along the way, until we reached the end where we climbed up the abrupt hill to the castle.
The castle is on top of a huge hill overlooking the town. You can enter the castle into the courtyard for free but you can go in everywhere, incl. the tower, for an entrance fee of only 7,5 euros. We paid the entrance fee and it was well worth it.
We visited the courtyard inside where there is a café and restaurant followed by the many rooms in the castle, like the penitentiary and the museum of puppetry which was so much fun. Last but not least we climbed the stairs to the tower with a beautiful 360 degrees view over the entire city.
We left the castle and proceeded to the other side of the river where we have spotted a nice big square from the top of the castle so we just had to see it.
We finished our visit to this wonderful city with a coffee and cake break before picking up the car and finding a way back home.
There were lots of traffic jams along the way, including a 7 km queue at the Karavanke tunnel, which we suspected that it will be and also heard on the radio before driving out of Ljubljana so we had enough time to choose the alternative route via Maribor-Passau-Regensburg. We left Ljubljana at 15 o’clock and, after a what felt like a very long drive with only 30 minutes break, we finally arrived home at 22:30 in the evening. I slept 11 hours after that long drive. 🙂
Ljubljana was the perfect ending to a perfect summer vacation. The city is just so beautiful and what I really enjoyed is that it is not overly crowded with tourists so we had a very nice and relaxing walk in the old town. The downside of this city is that it is pretty expensive, we paid almost 10 euros for 3,5 hours of parking and 3 euros for 2 scoops of ice cream. Nevertheless it is worth visiting Ljubljana and I would have gladly stayed a few more days to explore it some more but we will surely be back soon. 😉
All the pictures are uploaded here.
FitGeekGirl 
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