Upon our arrival in Ljubljana (Slovenia, if you were lost), we were greeted by a cold and snow-covered city, a rather surprising change after so many days in Italy, Greece, and Turkey in the sun.
Another regional... let's call it a quirk, that we'd become unaccustomed to after leaving Germany was that all the stores are closed on Sundays. In Germany, this is indeed the case, but all restaurants are still open (this is also the case in Austria). Not so in Slovenia. After 30 minutes or so of strolling through the snowy, empty streets, we started to get hungry.
Every cafe, it seemed, was closed. Signs pointed to a restaurant "200 meters away", but when we followed these signs, there was not only no open restaurant, but no establishment by that name at all. Stranger still was a sign for a restaurant on a small building, but no door through which to enter. We started to wonder if this wasn't a prank played on tourists by the locals -- fabricating names of cafes and moving the signs around. "Döner kebab, just 30 meters down this block..." Maybe they had a tally for how many we'd follow before getting wise to the system; a pool amongst the locals (how many steps out of her way will that one go? 300? No, at least 500 meters - just look at that determination!).
We did give up, pulling out my map and info from a guidebook and making a beeline for the one restaurant it listed as being open on Sundays -- a pleasant surprise, this shop not only existed and was open, but served delicious sandwiches and hot chocolate.
From there, the center of the town near the river, we were able to orient ourselves as well as find a block of cafes/restaurants open on Sundays (for later reference). Warm, fed, and less frustrated, we made our way up the big hill leading to the castle.
As castles in this region go, it wasn't particularly impressive. It's location, however, afforded a lovely view of the city and of the Ljubljanian Alps in the background. it was also a nice walk to stretch out legs that had spent too much time on trains. On our way back down we passed a beautiful black cat who, upon sighting us, ran over and, purring, proceeded to climb into my lap and lay down. I love the animals here!
We spent the rest of the day cafe-hopping as it was rather cold to try to sit still outside. We had drinks (hot cocoa, orangina, white wine) and snacks (calamari, gelato, and gyros), spread along a 5-hour time period as we read, wrote and people-watched and switched locations when we got bored. Al in all, a good day once we found the food.
No comments:
Post a Comment