Ljubljana - July 14

Monday morning we left Split as early as we could in hopes of making it to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, by that afternoon. Since we had decided to stay the extra night in paradise, we knew we were sacrificing time in Slovenia, so we wanted to get there as soon as we could! Our train from Split back to Zagreb was running about 20 minutes late, and we were so worried that we would be stuck in Zagreb again! We knew we would miss the first train we were trying to catch, but now even the backup plan was looking questionable, since we needed reservations and didn't have time to get them... so basically when we arrived, we sprinted off the train, and thought we found the train we had missed still on the platform and hopped on it! Turns out the train we were on was actually the backup-plan train, but no one cared that we didn't have a reservation, so all was well. We had to change trains in a small town we had never heard of, and we soon found out why. It was a realllllly small town haha. But not a bad place to spend 45 minutes, and we were so glad not to be stuck in Zagreb again!

When we arrived in Ljubljana late that afternoon, it was pouring, which is really not an ideal situation when you have all your stuff! So we spent the time getting our next train reservations, and the super helpful lady in the ticket office was even able to book Kasey's train to get from Venice to Paris the next night so she could fly home. That was a big relief for her. We attempted to walk in the rain, but we were so wet even with the umbrellas that we stopped at a kebab place across the street and split a kebab sandwich thing, and had soda while we waited for the rain to slow down. It finally did, and we made our way to the hostel, which turned out to be soooo nice - really nicely decorated rooms with comfortable, non-squeaky beds, and really nice staff, so that was just wonderful. They gave us a dinner recommendation, and we had a good time wandering around the city before dinner, where we ate stallion steak, aka horse, which is apparentely a Slovenian specialty. It was good, but not super tender - I see why we eat cow instead :)

stallion steak!

Franciscan Church of the Annunciation

We also took the funicular up to the castle above the city and walked around for a bit, even though it was too late to go in, and then had quite the event trying to find an ATM that would take our debit cards... but we were eventually successful, and came back to our nice hostel and used the free internet until bed. Other than the rain, we loved Ljubljana, it was a really beautiful town (not to mention the great staff!) and I wish we had had more time there!