Slovenia! One of Europe’s smallest countries but also one of its most elusive. It’s taken us three attempts to finally make it to this little hidden treasure. Many people still have no idea what Slovenia is.
Our interest in Slovenia was piqued in 2018 when we became aware of the creation of the Julian Trail, which would circumnavigate the base of Triglav National Park. In April of 2019, the trail was completed. We weren’t interested in hiking the whole 167 miles of the trail because most of it was lower down in the forest. We love the high, open, expansive, mountaintop views more. What it did mean was that once the popularity of the trail becomes a “thing”, Slovenia might experience an influx of visitors, and being such a small country, it may begin to experience tourism-related problems. We’ve seen what happened to Iceland and Utah when their tourism campaigns became too successful. No bueno!
At this time, our thinking had been to leave the Alps for when we were older since hiking in Europe demanded less of us physically. We can use cable cars to cheat our way up the mountain for a higher starting point and stop at huts along the way for overnight room and board.
The establishment of the Julian Trail changed our perspective concerning the lesser-known European nations. Slovenia was quickly pushed to the top of our list. Our goal was to enjoy Slovenia before the crowd and hype…see it when the country is still excited to welcome foreigners and hasn’t been compelled to change due to the negative impacts of over-tourism.
We weren’t kidding. The date was set, July of 2020. We plunged into our research. The more we looked, the more amazing this little country promised to be. Our 2-week itinerary became more compacted. Because we were attending Lyle’s family reunion on the tail of our trip, we couldn’t add on more days. By late February, we had most of the major hotels and our two big hiking adventures booked. But by the beginning of March, Covid-19 had become an inquisitive household name. By mid-March, the world was shut down, but no worries. We like working from home for the time being. By April, Covid was a PANDEMIC, killing over 50,000 people worldwide and over 1 million cases of infections were reported. By the end of May, Covid-19 had killed over 400,000 worldwide and felt like it was here to stay. We pulled the plug on Slovenia.
A year later in the spring of 2021, with the distribution of vaccines available for everyone, it looked like we might be starting to get a handle on Covid. With much optimism and too much naivety, we jumped into planning Slovenia for the whole month of July. But as summer approached, new and stronger strains of the Delta variant of Covid were constantly making headlines. Air travel was still restricted to mainly government and official business. Deflated, we once again canceled all our reservations for Slovenia.
In 2022, with a majority of the population inoculated multiple times, life slowly returned to normal. We live now knowing that Covid-19 is a part of our lives. As I write this on Dec. 4th of 2023, Coronavirus has taken the lives of 6,946,366 people and still counting.
The evening we arrived in Slovenia, there was a downpour. Knowing ahead of time, we were well prepared with umbrellas. As our accommodations were in the main city center of Ljubljana, a walking-only zone, we had to drag our luggage in the rain. Chi Nga and Anh Vu’s hotel was closer, and they travel a lot lighter than us.
Our walk was a little longer and more cumbersome with the many bags we had to haul. We rented a one-bedroom apartment on Airbnb in a historic building smack in the city center looking out at the Triple Bridge. A friend of the owner met us, let us in, and informed us a little about the havoc the storm was causing in the north. We wouldn’t understand the extent of the disaster for another couple of days. His advice was to not drink the water from the faucet right now because the river was raging, and the water under the bridge was brown and muddy. We should wait for a few days after the rain before drinking straight from the tap. Usually, all the water in Slovenia is drinkable without having to filter.
From our window looking down, we saw a circle painted in the middle of the plaza. A huge sign said something about this area creates its own weather. We were confounded. It was not until we returned to the city center on a sunny day a few days later that the mystery was solved. There was a little sprinkler dangling from the wire in the air spouting “rain” inside the circle. Too bad the giant eye-sore of a sign had to be there, disrupting the aesthetic of the whole center.
After we settled in, the rain lightened up and our stomachs began protesting. Lyle and I went out hunting for something to eat. Most places were already closed, but we found a little Albanian shop with just two small tables inside that sold traditional sandwiches. I tried asking the chef how to say the name of the sandwich. It was useless. There were too many slurring sounds that I can’t distinguish or imitate. They were huge sandwiches, but we both devoured our share.
Our first full day in Ljubljana continued to be wet. I had made a deal with the universe that it could rain wherever and however long it wants, as long as the weather during the trek was good, so we didn’t complain and went out exploring with our umbrella over our heads.
We saw some interesting sculptures and met face-to-face with the dragon on the Dragon Bridge. Ljubljana is known as the City of Dragons, and the dragon is prominently placed in its coat of arms. Through the years, the symbol of the dragon has transformed from that of a terrible monster to a protector of the city. Now the dragon represents power, courage and wisdom. It was also a pit stop on the Amazing Race season 35.
Ljubljana Castle
Slowly we wound our way up through the city to the castle. Instead of touring the castle itself, we wandered around the lonely castle grounds. We walked around aimlessly for a while until we came upon a large walking path lined on both sides with tall, mature trees. Ah, such a grand path. Do not all grand paths lead to something good? And so with a little more intention, we walked along the path listening to the pitter-pattering of raindrops as they bounced off our umbrella. Somehow it felt right to be walking among the gray and gloom that morning. It felt timeless…
On our way to lunch, we found the frightening bronze Faces of Locksmith Street. The rain had washed their odd-shaped heads, lending them a reflective sheen. And in the rain, those faces with tongues sticking out made a little more sense to me. This bizarre faces sculpture was inspired by a poem about the different facial expressions everyone wears but is unaware of them at the same time. It’s interesting philosophy, but couldn’t he, the artist, at least make the faces cuter instead of so deformed and deranged-looking. Art, it’s too sophisticated for simple old me.
Dessert. You don’t come to Slovenia for the food, and least of all, the dessert. Most restaurants had but the same two choices for dessert, a flakey, white cream cake or the traditional layered cake, prekmurskha gibanica. Of course we had to try the national cake. Umm…you can try it for yourself and decide how it became so popular. Even after having finished the whole serving, we still couldn’t tell what was in the cake. There were so many ingredients that didn’t seem to mix well to our taste. We were so curious we had to Google it right at the restaurant. This famous national cake is layered with pastry, poppy seeds, apple and raisin filling, cottage cheese filling, and walnut filling. If anything, it was very filling and would probably help you last through a cold winter’s day.
That evening, Sandy and Phong arrived to complete our group. After walking up and down the streets looking for a restaurant with minimal wait time, we decided on pizza for dinner. Little did we know, it wasn’t just regular old pizza…no,no. It was gourmet pizza with very unique toppings. Even when we tried to order the seemingly most common combination on the menu, they turned up fancier than normal. At least the taste matched the presentation, for they were, indeed, tasty.
The next morning, Chi Nga needed to recuperate from all the fun from the previous day so Anh Vu and Chi Nga decided to stay in Ljubljana instead of driving northeast to hike around a traditional Slovenian shepherd’s village on a plateau. As the rest of us set off, we had our doubts as to whether the area would be accessible or open due to the storm. We checked online and there was no mention of closures so with our fingers crossed we optimistically drove on. It wasn’t far before we started noticing evidence of wreckage caused by flooding. Whole fields of corn doubled over and covered in mud. Heaps of mud and dirt mixed with fallen trees and debris had been shoveled into giant piles along the side of the river. Caution tape and road barriers forced detours around sink holes and fallen roads. Our chance of getting to Velika Planina was getting dimmer by the turn. As we approached a stop sign, a police car was parked on the side of the road. The officer walked towards us and confirmed that the area was closed to all outside vehicles.
Tivoli Park
And so, for a second time, we turned around and headed back to Ljubliana where we met back up with Anh Vu and Chi Nga for lunch after wandering around a small portion of the massive Tivoli Park in the city for a couple hours or so. The children’s playground was impressive. There are so many fun structures and apparatus for children to truly develop their proprioception, problem solving skills, and tackle physical and mental challenges during play. We had fun racing down the zip line and trying to see who can make it bounce back the furthest.
Church of Virgin Mary's Visitation
What began as a simple walk in the park turned into a few miles of meandering through the beautiful tree-lined paths of Tivoli Park. We walked past old churches, stopped for some beautiful hilltop views of Ljubljana, and even through some abandoned structures covered in grafitti that have become nature-reclaimed works of art.
Usually in our travels this would have been a frustrating day since our plans had all changed, but spending time in a park like this was perfectly enjoyable and gave us a little taste of what life in Ljubljana would be like.