Ljub Ljub Ljub

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On my first day in Slovenia I only saw the Ljub train station, my hostel, and the bars next to my hostel. I started out early the next day to see the city.

Ljub has been described as a mini-Prague, like that city was before it was discovered by hordes of tourists. Based on that I had an image in my mind of what the city would be like. And it wasnt like I imagined. It doesnt remind me of Prague at all, and that disappointed me.

Still, Ljub is a nice, very small city. Its center is gorgeous, with beautiful old crumbly buildings (a favorite of mine!), some spires, a couple of neat old churches, and a big castle on a hill. (OK...sounding like Prague...but it still doesnt look like Prague at all, and is way, way, way, way smaller) Tons of funky cafes and places to eat and drink cheap beer. Really a cool little town.

I visited the castle, and cafe hopped for most of Monday. I was pretty tired by late afternoon due to my previous two solid nights of drinking into the wee hours and precious little sleep at the hostel. When I made it back to the hostel I discovered that a gaggle of little girls had replaced a bunch of the dudes who had been staying in the dorm the night before. I knew David and Cathal were moving on but there was almost total turn over in a single night. The chicks were going on and on about stupid girly things and I knew I was in for a shitty overnight. One of the stupid little girls -- must have been 18 -- insisted on keeping the light over her bed on ALL NIGHT. She couldnt sleep with the light off blah blah blah. Ugh. She and another little girl she was travelling with kept tittering on about stupid things most of the night too. I got almost no sleep at all, so I decided I was all set with the hostel.

Tuesday morning I checked into a hotel near the old center for the night.

In the morning I went off to visit the caves. There are two caves you can visit in Slovenia -- one is an Unesco world heritage site and is supposed to be great, the other is described as Disneyland-like with a crazy little train ride into and out of the deep part of the cave which is filled with stalactites and stalagmites. They had me at Disneyland-like, and I had a blast in the cave. Im sure the other cave is very nice too but you just cant beat a little train ride into a hole in the ground.

When I got back to Ljub I visited the Modern Art Museum and the National Gallery. Both kind of sucked - apparently Slovenia didnt steal any good art via the Nazis and couldnt afford to buy anything good yet. It was especially a pity about the National Gallery: it is housed in a cool, renovated old building as well as a new high-tech building. While the buildings are very pretty, they apparently did not consider the function! The lighting is horrid so you have to move all around just to get a good look at any of the paintings due to the glare. Luckily most of the paintings are boring still lifes or portraits of ransom Slovenes. Im not down on all still lifes and portraits - these particular ones are kind of like the ones your mom makes on the weekend at her Adult Ed painting class though. Just about the only interesting art on display was some Slovenian impressionist paintings. They were good, but there werent too many of them and I was overwhelmed by the mediocrity of the rest of the collection.

Hung out in the main square in the evening and drank cheap beer with locals while sitting around the Preseren statue.

LOVED sleeping in the hotel after a couple of restless nights in the hostel -- slept for 9 hours and I needed it!!

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