Some of our travel journeys are impulse decisions, usually in response to a last minute bargain flight deal, but the trip to Ljubljana was planned well in advance because we were acting upon a recommendation and because it was a destination that sounded interesting and that appealed to us both.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Cathedrals, Europe, Food, History, Hotels, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Slovenia, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Café Promenada, Dragon Bridge, Julian Alps, Life, Ljubljana, Park Hotel, Photography, Travel, World Heritage
There was a lovely blue sky and once again the bus arrived exactly on time and we enjoyed the forty-minute journey through the picturesque countryside and arrived at an untidy little terminus at our destination.
The bus station may not have been very exciting but the little town was quite spectacular. It is a European cultural heritage site and although there is evidence of fifty years or so of neglect there was a lot of restoration work taking place and when all of this is finished it will once again be a seriously attractive town.
Posted in Cathedrals, Europe, History, Natural Environment, Slovenia, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Ljubljana, Park Hotel, Slovenia, St John Nepomuk, UNESCO, Yugoslavia, Škofja Loka
The weather was better in Ljubljana and we wandered down the left bank of the river and took in some of the sights that we had missed on our previous visit. We started at the heart of the city, Prešeren Square, with a statue of Slovenia’s greatest romantic poet France Prešeren that looks out over the square and the Triple Bridge.
Posted in Cathedrals, Europe, History, Literature, Slovenia, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Art Nouveau, Café Promenada, Dragon Bridge, France Prešeren, Julija, Ljubljana, Park Hotel, Plečnik, Prešeren Square, Slovenia
There was another free-for-all in the breakfast room and with a karate club on one side and builders carrying out alterations on the other we didn’t linger over our continental breakfast but set off straight away once again making for the bus station. Today we had decided to take the shorter journey to what we had read was the most perfectly preserved medieval town in Slovenia, Škofja Loka.
Posted in Cathedrals, Europe, History, Slovenia, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Ljubljana, Park Hotel, Slovenia, St John Nepomuk, UNESCO, Škofja Loka
Continuing our walk around Ljubljana we visited the walls of the old Roman city and another church, the Cerkov Sv Janeza Krstnika before we turned and returned to the city centre passing through the impressive French Revolution Square where there is a monument to one of the great men of Europe. Well, he might have been a bully and a tyrant and not many places have monuments to Napoleon these days but here in Ljubljana they have cause to remember him fondly because for a short period from 1809 to 1813 he brought a brief moment of enlightenment to a perpetually repressed nation.
Posted in Cathedrals, Europe, History, Hotels, Literature, Slovenia, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Illyria, Ljubljana, Napoleon, Park Hotel, Slovenia, Za lepso Ljubljano
Actually the Hotel Park wasn’t so bad after all and we had a comfortable and undisturbed night’s sleep, well at least until quite early morning when the excitable children started to run about the corridors and bang the doors as loud as they could as they went up and down the stairs to the breakfast room.
Posted in Europe, History, Literature, Slovenia, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Dragon Bridge, Ljubljana, Ljubljana castle, Park Hotel, Triple Bridge
We had had some difficulty in finding some suitable accommodation in Ljubljana and had eventually decided upon the Hotel Park which although suspiciously cheap and almost certainly basic sounded as though it would provide us with a good central location for our visit and we committed ourselves to a booking. After we had orientated ourselves and found our bearings we set off on the short walk to our chosen lodgings. After a few hundred metres we turned a corner and there towering above us was an ugly concrete structure and a sign confirming our worst nightmare, this was the Hotel Park; Oh My God!
Posted in Europe, History, Hotels, Slovenia, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Café Promenada, Easyjet, Julian Alps, Ljubljana, Park Hotel, Slovenia
Have Bag, Will Travel 