Some people speak about Slovenia as the "Sweden of Balkans". It can surely be so. And I would add it could even be "Switzerland of Balkans". The cleanness of this rather small capital city is stunning. After a year spent on the Balkan, I have seen enough of dirty places overwhelmed with rubbish.
But I am not here to make a rant about dirty Balkan, let's speak about beautiful Ljubljana.
Rather unexpected trip brought me here for a one night stay. Hostels are no longer cheap at this part of the world really. 13 EUR is the starting price. Damn, travel is really becoming privilege for a selected few. But still, could be worse right?
The very first thing you'll notice when walking through Ljubljana are bikes. Even though the city is surrounded with mountains, the old town has a feeling of Amsterdam. The tempo is mellow and chilled, and one gets easily into some form of daydreaming.
The architecture resembles Vienna, but with some kind of artistic twist. There are some creepy looking statues as well as this place is well under the Vatican rule. Makes it scary at night.
During the day, your best attraction is the main Castle, which provides great views and host some very nice historical artefacts like crossbows and such. In fact this city is very important archeological site as the local river provided many great finding from times around 16th century...
I am almost sorry now for not making more pictures while I was there, but sometimes you just cannot push it. So on my way back down to the old town I got impressed by the cobbled narrow street with graffiti and street art. Greenery is also in fact a thing here. It is of course we'll trimmed, but the sheer fact that there are many trees, parks and plants around gives the place almost "Hobit" like atmosphere.
Than I've met some fellow travellers in the hostel I was staying at and continued on my cruise through Ljubljana accompanied. That made me made even less pictures as I had somebody to talk to and forgot about my well established habit of taking stills. But nonetheless one picture stands out as it really shows how clean this city is. In the center of the city there are real wild beavers!
People feed them apples and carrots and beavers are more than happy to take their fruit straight out of the stranger's hands...
Next thing you know evening was coming, so we grabbed some delicious falafel and headed to Metelkovo mesto - a local "Christiania".
It is really just a very small version, almost a parody of the Danish hippie's paradise, but still, what other cities are open to some kind of squatting anymore...
Disclaimer: Not sure if Metelkovo mesto is squatted od not.
The next day I was heading further to accomplish a travel mission I was on, so that was it for me this time in Ljubljana - my second time in fact, but nonetheless very interesting stopover and I am looking forward a third one ;)
All the best,
Global Local