Lovely Capital - Ljubljana

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After my few days hiking and rafting in Gorenjska, Northwest of Slovenia, and I eventually made my way to Ljubljana, only 90 mins away by local train or bus, and I arrived this little but famous historical city in Central Europe. The bus ride pretty cheap, 5 Euro getting to the capital and the journey was pretty good and worth doing during the day, where I had more than enough time to explore the gorgeous green country side of the capital upon arriving into the city, and I can promptly tell myself that the city is quite small but pretty looking from outside.

As mentioned above, the city is quite small, it's about the same size as Tallinn with around 300,000 residents, or it might be smaller than any cities in England, and once you are in the city, everywhere can be covered by foot, but consider during the Yugosalvian time, Ljublijana wasn't the capital of any country, it was only a little town in one of the former Yugoslavian State, and Slovenia eventually was the first territory declare independence from the former communist country and also was the first country of the Yugoslavia to join the European Union and Euro Zone. You can clearly see how much intention that Slovenia wanna be "Europe", but it's very true that, right at the moment, Slovenia is the doing the best amongs the all former Yugoslavia including Serbia and Montenegro.

The hostel that I have booked - And one of the most happening place in Ljubljana for many local artists, "The Celica", it's former prison and all rooms are converted from jails, and now becomes the most hip, artistic and happening place for most travellers in Ljubljana. They keep the original metal gate on each cell, and it's also the best hostel I have ever seen so far. Because of their old design of the prison, the ceiling is very high and each room has only one small window behind the beds, where you can climb a bit and look outside, just imagine how the old dungeon looks like, therefore the room might be a little stuffy especially when each room living up to 3 people inside. However, despite of these unexpected experience as a prisoner for a night, this hostel is really cool and great.



The Celica:
Address : Metelkova ulica 8.
www.hostelcelica.com
Euro 29 incl. Breakfast

During my stay in Ljubljana, I mostly spent my days on the street, wandering every corner of the old town, churches, the Triple Bridge, the Main Square, The Castle, and all the streets that were filled with outdoor cafes, bars, and restaurants, where the Slovenians were sitting around and having local Lasko Beer or coffee for whole day, it was really relaxing and laid back city.

The Castle was not anything so special to me but it's one of the most tourist attraction in the city and I paid 6 Euro, I took the tram up and visited several museum, gallery, on the hill top and where I can have excellent panoramic view of the old town.

By looking some of the buildings, you can easily tell this country used to be a communist country and occupied by many countries in the old history too, from their Soviet looked blocks but right next to these ugly buildings, there are ton of 15th or 16th century structures and buildings.

Unfortunately my time was really limited and couldn't explore the whole city, but this city is really pretty, charming, happy and I can proudly say that, Slovenian are so friendly.

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