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Day 16 of 35: Ljubljana & Zagreb

Today we left the alpine beauty of Lake Bled & drove to Ljubljana, the capitol of Slovenia. It has a population of 300,000; the entire population of the country is just over 2 million. Our local tour guide Jasmina said “welcome to the European capital with the hardest name to pronounce.” It’s on the river Ljubljanica, even harder to pronounce. We walked the Old Town full of historic buildings.

Jasmina also pointed out how historic perspectived can differ. The French hated Napoleon but he brought great peace & ability for Slovenian to use their local language for 14 years in the middle of the 400 years of Austro-Hungarian rule. So they erected the only above ground monument honoring Napoleon in Europe.

The Slovenia Philharmonia home to their 3 Symphony orchestra their 3
Church of the Ursulines
Castle overlooking Old Town
Sir Bill & our tour guide Jasmina
Our group touring the Jewish ghetto
Our first Slovenian rainbow flag
A river runs through it
The river Ljubljanica in Ljubljana (tongue twister)
Our tour guide Jasmina in Ljubljana
Another rainbow flag. So welcoming!
City hall
The doors to St Nikolss Church tell the region’s history
Muscle waiter poured into his jeans – to our delight
A tasting flight of local beers
River cruises
No magnification – incredibly tame birds hoping for crumbs
Statue honoring the Slovene national poet France Prešeren.

After lunch & free time here, we drove on to Zagreb, the capital of Slovenia. It has a population of 800,000 & sadly has many typical large city problems – walls covered with graffiti & run- down neighborhoods. It also has a beautiful pedestrian town center which we visited. Bill was wiped out by the heat so I got us take-out there & caught the train back to our hotel with Laura.

Laura & I in the town center