They are exactly what they sound like, but better! Good morning! We arrived in Ljubljana yesterday,
and returned our car and got some groceries, and now this morning we're ready to explore the city.
We just walked out of our apartment to a really strange site though.
Yeah, there was just a couple walking what looked like either an ostrich or an emu - I'm not sure the
difference exactly. Literally, we walked out of our apartment turned right and boom!
There it was. It was really bizarre. Don't know what that's about, but welcome to Ljubljana!
Why did the ostrich cross the road? We don't know either. We're actually going home here
in a couple days. It's our last city on this trip, so we're going to get our COVID test this morning.
It was cheaper than other countries we've been in - Greece and France. They were very thorough.
I mean, I would have said invasive. I still feel it. I felt it in my eyeball. No - way further back.
It was the back of my head, I think. To be clear, we are not complaining about getting our
swabs. It's a minor inconvenience. It's not for everybody but, again, we are just really happy to
do it in order to travel. It's a very small price to pay to keep those around us safe. Now we're headed back
to the city center, (oh my nose still tickles) we saw that there was a market going on, so we are
going to go check that out before it shuts in a couple of hours. As you know, we love a good market!
The hydrangeas are beautiful!
We have been eating some pretty rich heavy Slovenian food for the past week, and we're
ready for a little bit of a change. Ljubljana is a perfect place for that. There's such a mix
of cultures here, similar to what we experienced in Athens. Today for lunch, we're going Vietnamese.
You would not believe how good this smells. I'm trying to pick out what it is.
Some ginger, some garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil. I'm sure there are other things I'm not picking up, but it smells
absolutely amazing. I'm so excited to eat this.
Yum, glass noodles.
It tastes as good as it smells. This is a beef noodle salad, basically. It looks excellent.
This place is delicious if you're in Ljubljana. Two thumbs up. I mean, you can't see the other one's up.
Definitely recommended.
We've walked by this place a number of times.
It's called puffy little donuts or something. Puffy Little Pancakes - that's right.
So we're going to try them. They kind of look like mini donuts, but we're not really sure.
This will be fun. All the toppings are in Slovenian, so we have no idea what we'll be getting.
This is with the Kinder topping which is a Nutella [hazelnut] cream, and she recommended almonds
with it, so that's what we went with. Let's see what puffy little pancakes taste like.
They are exactly what they sound like, but better. They're puffy little pancakes. They're little airy
puffy delights that melt in your mouth. They're delicious. Bill's going to have to get his own.
We ate these in about 60 seconds.
Here goes the last one! Best 4.60 Euros spent in the last week or so.
Good morning. We are beginning today at the Plecnik house. This is the home of the locally famous architect
Jože Plečnik. Plecnik was hugely influential
in the architecture of Ljubljana, so we're kind of curious to hear more about his life. They've
kept his house and preserved it as a museum, and we're going to go check it out and see what it's like.
Columns and statuaries are found throughout Plecnik's property,
and these actually were prototypes for his various projects. Due to his frugal nature,
he decided to reuse those prototypes within his house. I guess he was a little bit of a recycler.
We just finished our tour, and my head is filled with so much information about this
famous architect. He was certainly a character and he kept to himself. His vices were smoking
and Turkish coffee, but he did have a dog that he liked to play with, so I guess I love him. The tour
was incredibly informative. If you come to Ljubljana, you have to do this tour so you have a better
understanding of the architecture that is so formative to Ljubljana, and this architect who was
such a character and gave so much of himself. He designed
furniture that was not made for lingering so that he could encourage himself to continue
his work on behalf of the city. This display in the museum is called Plecnik's Ljubljana.
It's called that because he had an enormous impact on just how the city looks, and all these
white structures we see are buildings that he designed, like this library...
and this colonnade, and this bridge, and this bridge here,
and this bridge which has one - two - three side-by-side sections,
and this main market building, which apparently, I hold in the palm of my hand,
and this obelisk honoring Napoleon, and this theater that we can't get into right now.
Hey, here's a bridge he didn't design.
In case you hadn't picked up on it, Plecnik is to Ljubljana like Gaudi is to Barcelona. He's the
local architect. He did a lot here in the city. In addition to all the Plecnik stuff, there's some
other really interesting architecture in this town. We think this is art nouveau, and also over here.
This is the Yugo before Yugo was Yugo.
These are mine, all mine,
but i don't know why they gave me this extra fork, because Bill's not going to get any of this. No way.
Oh my gosh.
It's pistachio and bourbon vanilla with salted seeds,
whatever that means, and pumpkin seed oil - that's right.
See? Bill got his own treat. I'm not mean.
You'll like the pistachio. It's unusually creamy. It's very good. The gelato is really, really good here.
So far, Ljubljana seems to be a really vibrant active town. We love the vibe here.
Actually, most college towns we seem to really enjoy - just being around the youth who are going
to school and learning, and they're just so much fun to soak up their atmosphere.
We feel that here in Ljubljana. It feels like a university town. Well, that's because it
is, actually. We're looking at the university library right now behind the camera.
That vibe carries over. It's pervasive through the cafe and bar culture here,
they're everywhere, and they're often packed. Actually,
right where our apartment was, it was right in the middle of the action, which was tons of fun.
If anything, we wish we had one more day. There were some museums we didn't have a chance to go into.
It's always good to save something for next time. As we said earlier, this is a really interesting city.
If you're coming to this part of Europe thinking you're going to see drab communist era
cement apartment buildings, it's just not the place. I mean, look behind us. Things are really
interesting here. They're kind of funky, kind of a little bit quirky, and that's a ton of
fun. We've really enjoyed it. As for Slovenia in general, this is really a charming country.
It's won our hearts. If you love the outdoors, you love being with nature, this is a fantastic place
for you. There's a little bit of something for everyone, with the mountains and with the water,
and even with a large city like Ljubljana. It really has a lot to offer and it's a country
that you should check out. We just arrived at the airport. It is about 2:30 a.m back home. Don't say
that. What's the matter with you? It's only going to take us like 18 hours
to get home this time. This should - should - SHOULD okay, I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it.
So that's it. We're at the airport. That's all I have to tell you right now.