First of all I want to apologize for my horrible spelling in my entry last week. I read over it the other day and was laughing about the word choices I made. Aside from the grammar jokes, this past weekend I went to Ljubljana, Slovenia. It shares borders with Eastern Italy. Here is a little history about Slovenia...
"During World War II, Slovenia was occupied and annexed by Germany, Italy, Hungary and Croatia only to emerge afterwards reunified with its western part as a founding member of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1991, Slovenia declared full sovereignty."
All of the locals were saying how Ljubljana was the biggest and one of the only cities in Slovenia since it is a fairly new country. I think the locals said that only 280,000 people lived in Ljubljana. We arrived in Ljubljana via bus on Friday night. We took at bus with about 80 other CIMBA students, so I'm sure all of the Slovenians were overwhelmed when they saw all these Americans pouring out of the buses. I was so surprised how much English the Slovenians spoke. Most of the time they spoke in Slovene, but the majority of the locals could talk to us without any problems. So after finding the hostel and getting settled in, we wanted to check out the Slovenian nightlife. Past CIMBA students, told us we needed to go to the bar called Top, which was located in the heart of the city. The bar was very modern and trendy, but the best part about it was the view from their outside patio. The entire club was at the top of a building and you had to take a elevator to get to it. This patio overlooked the entire city and have great view of the Ljubljana Castle. It was cool to see everything lit up at night!
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| Main Bar at Top. |
The next morning, we got up and began exploring the city! They had a huge market across the bridge from their main town square. The locals were selling all kinds of things like fruits, meats, spices, honey, vegetables and clothes. Everything smelled SO good! My mouth was watering walking through the market. I'm sure the locals thought I had never seen food or something.
After lunch, we made the hike up to the Ljubljana Castle. The castle sits on the big hill that overlooks the entire city. The castle has been in existence since 1200 BC. They said no rulers or royal person had ever lived in the castle, but it had been used as a fort and prison. The castle jailed several famous people including an Italian prime minister and revolutionary heros. Besides getting a great view of Ljubljana, we had the chance to hang out and drink coffee in the Castle. I mean who can say they have sat down and enjoyed coffee in a castle? Anyways, the city has renovated the castle and built in a museum, cafe, nightclub and a reception area for big parties. While we were there, a wedding reception was going on, so it was fun to watch all of the guests run around the courtyard and through the cafe.
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| Molly, Me an Elizabeth at the Outlook Tower. |
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| Courtyard. |
For the rest of the day, we explored more of the city and wondered down random streets and various shops. The next day (Sunday) we wanted to go see these famous Postojna Caves. Apparently they are one of the biggest and oldest caves in the world dating back 2 million years ago. Since it was so windy that day, we were unable to take a bus over there due to high wind. So our next plan was to go see the Bled Castle. Luckily it wasn't closed due to high wind or we would have been sitting in the McDonald's in the Train Station all day. The castle was about an hour bus ride outside of Ljubljana. The entire castle sat on a lake and there was also an island with a church on it. The entire area was gorgeous both from a ground view and from the top of the castle.
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| Bled Castle. |
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| Church on the Island. |
Bled is the oldest Slovenian castle. There was a museum that displayed all of these artifacts that dated back to the year 1000. They showed all these documents popes had written mentioning the castle and the creation of it. There was also a bunch of jewelry on display. Back then, the people who lived in this area wore a lot of things that symbolized crescent moons. The museum also had a skeleton on display. It was the skeleton of a 20 year old girl who lived in this area back in 1200. When they found her, all of her rings, necklaces and earrings where still with her. The entire castle was so cool and I'm glad we had time to make the trip over to Bled. Before coming to Italy, I would have never have thought to travel to Ljubljana. I think all of us were surprised how much we enjoyed it there. Anyways, this week we have our first gourmet italian dinner, so hopefully my table manners will pull through! Last night we had an etiquette seminar and I was told that we can't switch utensils when cutting food. It will be interesting to see how that goes! Wish me luck!
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| View of the Lake. |
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| View from the top of Bled Castle. |
