Ljubljana – (Loo-bee-Ahh-Nah)

Find it on a globe and you’ll know where I was last week! And if If you want to hear how’s it’s pronounced – check out http://www.forvo.com/word/ljubljana/

 

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia.  It’s classified as a “medium-sized European city” but it’s been able to retain the tranquility of a small town.  Ljubljana is a lively little city lying in a basin where the Sava and Ljubljanica rivers converge. It’s between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea with a “continental” climate.  This time of year, the average temperature is 69 degrees.  It’s a beautiful country with great weather.

 

How’d I end up there?

 

I was lucky enough to visit this charming little spot on the planet as a tag-along to my husband’s business trip.  I strolled around the city and people-watched.  Automobiles are prohibited from driving in the center of the city (imagine no cars in Georgetown), so it’s incredibly peaceful.  Everything is about a five-minute walk.  People are engaged and enjoying the moment. Very few folks are chatting on cell phones or peck-peck-pecking on a Blackberry, except my husband and a few others from his delegation. 

 

Who knew?

 

Ljubljana is bustling for another reason. It’s part of the European Union and until June,  it’s the Union’s presidency.   Which basically means it hosts and holds lots of meeting, conventions and events.  Seems hard to imagine that the presidency of the EU moves every six months, but it seems to be working.

 

The Culinary & Tourism Scene

Some of the best known traditional Slovenian dishes are Karst prosciutto (air-dried pork leg) or Struklji — a dish made of dough, sort of like Gnocchi.  They’re also big on cottage cheese.  Lucky for me, Italian is well represented,  so I had lots of pasta and pizza.    I also learned (from the airline travel magazine in the seat pocket) that Ljubljana has several hundred vineyards.  So lucky for me, finding a great local red wine wasn’t a challenge. I also learned it has great fly fishing & thermal spas, but I’ll have to tackle those on my next visit.

 

You can’t miss Ljubljana’s most striking landmark. The Ljubljana Castle is perched on top of a large hill that you can either climb up via paved paths or take a lift up for 3 Euros.  They say it was inhabited as early as the 12^th century BC, and with the views of the city from the castle’s Outlook Tower, I can understand why. I actually hiked up to it twice. 

 

The Cost

They operate on the Euro so it’s not quite the bargain you’d expect, but the cost and quality of the meals and services were very reasonable.   A “small” pizza (16 inches) was 5 Euros or $7.88 US.  A green salad was 2 Euros or about $3 US.  A local beer was 1.6 Euros / $2.88 US. 

 

One Bizarre Event

Remember the quiet town square with no cars and just people strolling around? Well all that changed on Friday, May 16^th at noon sharp.  That’s when about 30,000+ young dancers (high school graduates) showed up for “Mass Quadrille Dance Parade.”  Their goal was to break a Guiness Book of Records for “Mass Dancing of Quadrille” which, believe it or not, started in Ljubljana in 2001 with only 3,128 dancers.   If you are planning a trip to Ljubljana, keep in mind that “Mass Dancing of Quadrille happens every year on the chosen Friday in the third decade of May.”  Did I mention every “dancer” has a whistle?

 

Final Thoughts

 

Apart for the crazy whistle blowing high school kids, it was a great trip.  Having two small children, I haven’t had this much time to myself in the past five years. This excursion gave me a chance to slow down, appreciate some down-time and finish reading some books.

They say Ljubljana has a high-quality of life and I’d agree with them.  Eveyone looks happy, relaxed and stress-free.  I wondered what everyone was doing there. Were they on vacation or maybe tagging along on a business trip, too?  Or maybe they just decided to take a break and spend some time in a special little city.  I guess it really doesn’t  matter why they picked Ljubljana as a destination, but they sure picked a spectacular spot to do whatever it was they were doing.

 

— Erin Van der Bellen