After our day in Ljubljana, we decided to take an all-day tour of western Slovenia. Our tour guide picked us up at our hotel at 08:30.

The first stop was Predjama Castle, a castle built within the opening of a cave. While the outside was interesting to look at, once the novelty of a castle being built into a cave opening wears off, it’s not really that interesting. We didn’t have time to go inside, which is probably a good thing since it probably would have been a letdown.

The next stop were the Škocjan Caves, a UNESCO world heritage site. The walking tour through the caves is very fast-paced and involve a lot of stairs. The caves are the largest that I’ve ever seen. Sadly, they don’t let tourists take pictures inside the cave. If you have a car and are in Slovenia, these caves are worth a look. Valerie was very impressed.

The last stop was the town of Piran on the tiny Slovenian coast. As a result of redrawn regional boundaries during the Yugoslav era, Slovenia lost much of its coastline and ended up with a tiny strip of coast between Croatia and Italy. Piran is one of the main tourist towns on the coast. Since Piran only has a small pebble beach, the town built several concrete beaches along the shoreline. Since there are virtually no waves at this point in the Adriatic Sea, the concrete beach is almost like the side of a pool, complete with lounge chairs and a stainless steel ladder to climb out of the water. We later learned that most Slovenians vacation in Croatia, which has actual beaches.

After our relaxing stay in Lake Bled, we boarded a bus back to Ljubljana (roughly pronounced lyoob-lee-ah-na), the capital and largest city of Slovenia. Despite being the largest city, Ljubljana only has a population of about 280,000 and feels more like a large town than a city. The downtown area was converted to a car-free pedestrian-friendly zone a few years ago by the mayor at the time (who may once again be mayor).

Valerie found a great deal and got us a room at the convenient and swanky Grand Hotel Union, the very first hotel in Ljubljana, built in 1905. After setting in, we took a quick self-guided walking tour of the city. At the center of town is the river with several pedestrian bridges: the Triple Bridge, Dragon Bridge, Cobbler’s Bridge, Butcher’s Bridge, etc.

The Triple Bridge, in front of city hall, was redesigned by Jože Plečnik, probably the most famous architect in the city’s history. Rick Steves recommended that we visit his house/workshop, so we did. From the excellent guided tour (free because it happened to be museum day!), we learned that this Plečnik was an easily offended anti-social workaholic. The son of a carpenter, he designed his own wood furniture to be uncomfortable (to encourage himself to work harder and to discourage others from visiting him). I have no idea how a man who so disliked talking to people was so beloved by those same people.

After the workshop, we took a guided walking tour of the city organized by the Tourist Information office. We learned a bit about Baroque architecture before visiting the castle on the hill via a tourist train (actually a tram shaped like a train). For those visiting the city, the tour is totally worth the 9 euro price. After the tour, we ate at a local pizzeria (Foculus) which was happy to make us a delicious cheese-less pizza before heading back to the hotel. Overall, I really liked the relaxed and youthful feeling of Ljubljana.

It was another travel day as we moved from the beautiful Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia to Lake Bled in Slovenia. We woke up early to leave Plitvice on the 6:45 bus to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. With a few hours before our train departed, we dropped off our luggage at the train station and wandered around Zagreb for a while. Unlike the tourist destinations of Plitvice, Split, and Dubrovnik, the crowded city of Zagreb seemed to be mostly devoid of tourists. Not really knowing what to do, we stopped by the Tourist Information (TI) to pick up a map and suggested walking tour of the city. In those few hours, we saw two statues of a man on a horse, a winding cafe-lined street, and a huge multi-level farmers market.

Man on horse

Farmers Market

Eventually, we walked back to the train station, picked up our luggage, spent our remaining kuna, and departed for Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. After arriving, we didn’t have much time to admire the city before boarding a bus to Lake Bled. After checking into our B&B, we walked the 6 km perimeter of the lake before returning to our room and falling asleep.

From Bryon’s blog:

This morning, we rode a bus from Dubrovnik to Split. With stops, the ride lasted about 4 hours. The bus/train/ferry station in Split is very convenient to all the tourist sights in the harbor area and is located just off the east end of the Riva (main pedestrian street of the harbor area).  Valerie and I lugged our backpacks about 15 minutes to the other side of the Riva to our apartment, Peruzovic Rooms & Apartments. The son of the owner of the apartment was extremely helpful. He walked us around the neighborhood and showed us how to find the local restaurants, supermarkets, and attractions. The apartment is huge compared to yesterdays sobe and extremely close to the Riva (just a block away).

After settling in, we walked around to Diocletian’s Palace, which has morphed over the ages into an eclectic mix of Roman, medieval, and modern architectures. For example, the modern Split Bank building with a glass facade has a giant Roman column right in the middle of the teller area. We toured the palace cellars (one used for water then used as a dump) and the “smallest cathedral in the world”.

As Valerie pointed out, Split feels more crowded and less crowded. There are certainly more people, but the roads are wider and there is less human and traffic congestion. Overall, I like the feeling of Split more. It feels more relaxed.

Would I visit again? Probably not unless on a cruise. While Split is nice, it’s just not so amazing that I’d travel around the world to see it.

From Bryon’s blog:

Beautiful Dubrovnik

Today, we visited Dubrovnik, Croatia. Rick Steves says that you can see Dubrovnik in a day. He is correct. We started our day by visiting the 24-hour bakery near our sobe, then took a bus to the Old Town. We walked along the walls surrounding the Old Town. From the wall, one can get a great view of the Old Town and surrounding area. Afterward, we walked along the main street (Stradun) and around the Old Town before stopping for some refreshments at the slightly overpriced but pleasant Cold Drinks Buza II. Finally, we headed up the Cable Car to Mt. Srd. The top of the cable car offers a great view of Old Town  (and a terrible view of Port Gruz). We hiked around for a while at the top, but perhaps we shouldn’t have since, to paraphrase Rick Steves, while the area is officially clear of land mines, it was a war zone.

There were at least five cruise ships in Dubrovnik today: 2 tendering directly into Old Town (Costa and Seabourn) and 3 shuttling from Port Gruz (MSC, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean).

Would I visit again? Yes, on a cruise. Dubrovnik has no train station and flights to its small airport can be redirected to Split (4 hours away by bus) if there are strong winds. In addition, flights in and out of Dubrovnik can be expensive. From a cost and convenience perspective, a cruise ship seems like the best way to get to Dubrovnik.

In case any random travelers happen onto this blog, I’m including a tips for travelers section below.

Tips for Travelers:

• A bus ride costs 15 kuna per ride if ticket is purchased from driver. The driver can provide change. To validate your ticket, the orange arrow should be facing toward the validator machine and the picture next to the arrow should be facing the ground. This may seem counter-intuitive because it is.
• As far as I can tell, the buses only run one direction in a loop. Bus stops are indicated by a yellow area in the road (usually with the word BUS).
• There are a lot of ATMs and ice cream vendors (only 10 kuna for a cone!) on the Stradun.

From Bryon’s blog:

On Friday, June 7, Valerie and I began our vacation to Eastern Europe. Valerie gathered up our Star Alliance miles and booked a flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia. We will be working our way northbound to Split, Plitvice Lakes, Ljubljana, Lake Bled, and Budapest before boarding the Norwegian Star in Copenhagen for a cruise of the Baltic Sea followed by a few days in Paris before our flight home.

The first days (Days 0 & 1) consisted primarily of traveling to Dubrovnik. We flew from San Francisco to Frankfurt where we missed our connection to Vienna. Luckily, the good people at the United Transfer Desk were able to re-book us on a flight directly to Dubrovnik that departed about 4 hours later. (Amazingly, our luggage arrived in Dubrovnik on the same flight thanks to the fine efforts of the people at United and Lufthansa.) We took a shuttle to the main bus station in Dubrovnik where we were picked up by the daughter of the owner of Jele Rooms, the sobe (room for rent) that we are staying at.

Upon arriving at our room, we promptly fell asleep. Our room is a small, but clean room with private bathroom and two twins beds. The owners are friendly and helpful. Jele Rooms is about 1 mile (uphill) from the Old Town and conveniently located next to the 3 and 8 bus lines.