Later that evening, we decided to get tickets to see Lenny Kravitz performing at the city's big arena which was a surprisingly good gig of fan favourites and bluesy melodies. Afterwards, we caught the tail end of the Wine Festival to cap a good night out before heading back to the hostel to escape the Antarctic temperatures.
The next morning was part excitement and part hangover as we got on the road to Slovenia and booked into the Ljubljana Resort Campsite (which we had almost to ourselves) and took the bus into town. Our first stop was a trek up to the hilltop castle in the city centre which is a mish-mash of different eras and styles. Normally there is a great view from the tall clocktower (once you have climbed the millions of steps on the spiral staircase) but the fog meant that we could barely see the courtyard below us.
As for the city, it has the feel of a small Czech town with a peaceful and laidback approach and some colourful and quaint architecture. The Ljubljanica River meanders through the city centre and is breached by a number of iconic little bridges including the White Bridge, Dragon Bridge and Triple Bridge. The main square is set right next to the Triple Bridge and the big red Franciscan Church overlooks the lot.
Later that night we were able to meet up with two more of my travelling friends (once again met in Sarajevo), Danish couple Ebbe and Signe as well as two of thier German pals. It turned into a very relaxed but entertaining Friday night in the capital.
The next day we repeated what we did in Zagreb and went to the Modern Art Gallery - this time with somewhat different results. The exhibition (which was thankfully free) involved a room of broken ceramic tigers, one room with videos of people running around and shouting at each other, one room with a fat man with his pants down and a final room with thousands of little red foam men stuck to the floor which was made all the stranger by the real people who inhabited it: "man-walking-in-circles", "girl-leaning-face-first-into-blank-wall" and "sitting-lady-covering-herself-in-foam-men" were all probably on the wrong side of mental. We left feeling like we had been robbed of half an hour of our lives.
A creepy ginger man ...and an art installation
In comparison, the neighbouring joint Archeology and National Museums were great and featured an Egyptian mummy as well as lots of native animal species and skeletons of a mammoth, cave bear and blue whale which were all pretty facinating. After getting a meal in town, we snuck into the back of a comedy venue to watch a couple of stand-up's before calling it a night.
After a couple of days in the city, I wanted to show Tom the more rural side to Slovenia and we drove north to Lake Bohinj along the highways lined with forests and numerous big hawks standing on the roadside fences. We arrived at the lake in perfect time to see the sun dispersing the last of the morning fog and revealing the most fantastic landscape of mountains around the clear blue and perfectly still water.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Bled, which was still covered with a layer of thick mist until late into the afternoon and made our hike up to the Osojnica viewing point much less scenic and much more frosty than when I was there a few days before. Likewise, the Vintgar Gorge was very frosty and made for lots of icicles and slippery footbridges.
Still, it was a great place for a quiet stroll before we drove onwards through the Julian Alps via the winding Vrsic Pass as it started to get dark. Before long, we were into Italy and motoring along through the thick fog towards Venice.
The view was a bit less spectacular this time around
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