Capital capitals: Ljubljana and Zegreb

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The journey from Vienna to Ljubljana was a long one, but absolutely beautiful! We went through mountains and at one point watched a deer running right the way through a huge field, gorgeous! And luckily I had my dear friend Matt to share it all with!


Ljubljana


We got to Ljubljana quite late and promptly got lost trying to find our hostel. Matt has an amazing sense of direction so he found the way for us and the hostel wasn't bad. It was already dark but we wanted to go and explore. The Old Town area is stunning, so clean and crisp and pretty. We wandered into a jumbled book shop and stayed for ages, we stumbled across some live music outside a restaurant, and met a crazy guy who was going around speaking to everyone in the street - literally, as in a bike went past and he ran beside it backwards talking to the person riding it - love this town! It was small, quiet and peaceful, but felt like it had soul. We ate at a little restaurant by the river, mango salad with shrimps- fantastic! Then we took a walk up to the castle, it was pretty dark on the way up but had a great view from the top.


Bled


The next morning we got on the train to Lake Bled. We arrived at the station a bit far from the actual lake but a nice lady in the station gave us a map and explained how to walk there, it was a good 45 minute walk. Lake Bled is absolutely beautiful! The castle on a steep cliff overlooking the lake, the island with a church in the middle, the churches and lovely houses all around the edge. First we walked up to the castle, a steep walk through the woods with amazing views from the top - if you are tall enough; there is a wall all around the castle so I had to sit on it to see over! On the walk back down we saw a red squirrel and a black squirrel jumping through the trees! We walked all the way around the lake, it took about an hour, there were quite a few tourists and it was a hot day but beautiful, we saw so many good views of the lake, I just couldn't stop looking at it! On the way back we stopped to eat pancakes and ended up missing the bus, so at the but station we called a taxi and with ten minutes to spare before our train, the taxi driver sped us through the quiet town of Bled. Poor guy I think we stressed him out a bit, so we didn't complain when he charged us 10 euros for a ten minute journey - he got us there with one minute to spare! And we were on our way to Croatia...


Zegreb


Matt and I couchsurfed in Zegreb with Ana. She met us at the station and we went to her university canteen for food - it cost around 50p for a huge meal and drink, and desert, amazing! We ended up eating at the university for every meal we had in Zegreb! We went back to Ana's place, met her housemates, made pancakes and watched TV. And we drank some Karlovaco beer, which my Viennese friend believes is the best beer in Croatia; he gave us one to try but unfortunately we drank it on the train when it was warm and really not good, cold is much better!

In the morning we went out to meet Ana at her university but we got off at the wrong tram stop. We were at a completely different university and ended up in the Dean's office with the Dean trying to work out what the hell we were on about. Anyway we eventually found Ana and we went to eat our second cheap university meal. Ana took us around the town and told us loads about the monuments and churches, and the installation of the planets which is a scale model through the town: the sun in the centre a big gold ball, and we managed to find Venus which was a tiny silver ball on a plaque on the wall! Ana was a great guide! We went in the cathedral, up a bell tower with amazing views where we watched paragliders who had come from the mountains in the distance.

In the evening Ana and her boyfriend took us for more food at the university (the third different canteen we had seen- we saw them all!) We went to a bar after that and had some Croatian beer and liqueurs, very interesting! And then they took us to the train station where Matt and I got on a night train heading for the coast.

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