Our extended layover in Croatia was finished and it was time to board our 3 hour bus to Ljubljana, Slovenia. As soon as we crossed the border the views were idealistic and quaint, exactly what we hoped the countryside of Slovenia would be. Each town was charming, with cute churches, rolling hillsides, and farms. I also counted 11 hawks sitting on farm fences within 1km of each other. When we arrived we walked straight to Sarrbing for lunch. Nick and I split dumplings, ramen, and a mango dessert which were all delicious. The place only had a few tables and seemed popular; we had arrived just in time to grab the last available table for a while. It was run by an adorable older Korean couple.

The city gave a great first impression. Following our delicious lunch we continued our walk through old town to get to our apartment for the weekend. There was a river running through old town that had various pedestrian bridges. A favorite was one with dragon statues. We stayed on a street that was slightly quieter than the rest of old town, but still close to everything we wanted to see. We really loved being able to just walk everywhere instead of relying on any other form of transportation.

For dinner we had burrata pizza at Pizzeria Piccola. It was phenomenal just like lunch; Ljubljana seemed like a great foodie city. We had a relatively chill first day as we had travelled in from Croatia, didn’t sleep much the night before on our night bus, and were therefore pretty exhausted. I was already pretty happy with Ljubljana, though, for the food alone. Nick and I did however do some logistical catch up that afternoon, which was needed too.

Our explore day was filled with lots of walking around sight seeing in old town. There was a Spartan Race going on so many areas of the town were roped off. That did block some otherwise nice areas for photos but didn’t really impede our sightseeing. It was neat to see the racers and all the obstacles and challenges that they had to complete as they raced. It included things like scaling walls, carrying heavy chains up hills, burpees, throwing javelins into haystack men, and more. I was tired just watching them.

It was a short walk from our apartment to the top of the hill where the Ljubljana Castle was. We did not enter the castle itself, but there is an awesome view of the city from up there. After the castle we visited the Town Hall, Saint Nicholas Cathedral, the Dragon Bridge (again), Triple Bridge, and Presernov Square. Along the way we stopped by Klobasarna for a sausage and Moji Struklji for a sweet dumpling. Then we made our way out of old town for a stroll through Tivoli Park and eventually made our way to look at street art in metelkova. Dinner was pumpkin ravioli, ribs, brownie, and gelato. Luckily we had a large hiking roadtrip coming up after that.

Nick and I tend to be much better landscape amateur photographers than urban ones. We tried our best to capture how cute the city was, but it’ll always be better in person. It was nice having it as a home base and the amount of time was enough to feel like we saw most of what we wanted. The following morning we would start our week long roadtrip in Slovenia.