Ljubljana

My time in Slovenia was great! I started in Ljubljana, which is the capital. Unlike most capitals in Europe, it’s fairly small. Another cool thing is that they made their downtown area completely car free. Deliveries can happen until 10am, but after 10am the only ‘cars’ allowed downtown are the electric free shuttle buses that are so short and cute and the electric shuttle train. They’re run by the city and anyone can call and request a free ride from one side of downtown to the other and up to the castle. They’ve received some awards for being the greenest capital in Europe, which isn’t surprising. I also found out that Slovenia as a country only became independent in 1991 and Ljubljana has about 300k people living there, of which 70k of them are students at the University there.

Overall Ljubljana is a great capital. I walked all over the area – not just in the downtown area – and I spent each day on the river that runs through the city. It was great to spend the time each day eating with great views and then later writing and reading on the water. Outside of the tourist areas of town, it’s all fairly laid back and that was calming. I definitely enjoyed my time there.

Bled

The rest of my time in Slovenia was spent in Bled, which is a bit of a tourist trap area to be honest. But it’s so so pretty. I found out about Bled (and Slovenia in general honestly) from a girl I met in Slovakia. She had spent some time in Bled exploring and gave me a full list of things to do and see while I was there! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do as much as I would like as I got my period while I was in Bled and it was a particularly bad month. I don’t typically have bad periods – but when I do have them, I don’t tend to do much because I just don’t have the energy.

That being said – I did make a point each day to walk the entire lake. It was so peaceful and gave me something to do so I wasn’t just laying around at the hostel. The walk can take a minimum of an hour, but I took my time each day. I would also sit and write or read a by the lake when the weather permitted and just like my time in Ljubljana, it was great to sit by the water. I honestly miss living on the water like I did back in 2020 for a time, so even spending time on the lake was great.

My first full day there I walked up to some of the view points around the lake – taking in about 7 different viewpoints of both the lake itself and the surrounding areas. The hikes were definitely not like the Saddle in Slovakia, thankfully, but they weren’t a paved hike either. There were times where you were pulling yourself up by the cables attached to the rockface or walking up steps put into a basically 90 degree climb. It wasn’t difficult, but it wasn’t easy either – though you wouldn’t know that when at one view point I ran into a girl that was literally doing the hike in a nice dress and heels. Sure it was one of the easier hikes up, but to get to the viewpoint itself it was all rocks and it really looked like they had completed the hike up and were headed back. So strange but serious respect for her to successfully do that!

I also joined a group from the hostel my second day and we all rented a row boat to row out to the island that’s on the lake. The day had been rainy all morning, so when the sun came out that afternoon we all jumped on actually doing something with the day. It was a lot of fun – on the way over we kept going in circles as we all gave (conflicting) feedback to the two rowing. I rowed on the way back and while I somehow managed to keep us from going in circles – it was definitely not a straight line. If we had tracked it, I’m sure it looked like a drunk weaving back and forth. But hey they got us to the island and I got us back! It was great fun and the ice cream on the island was amazing.

I hope to get back in the future to go out to the gorges, waterfalls, and other lakes in the area. I’d also love to go during summer when I can do some rafting. Like Slovakia, it’s a gorgeous nature filled country that I really want to explore more of.

Travel to Belgium

I’m going to add here some info on traveling to my next stop. I decided to break up the trip to Belgium to make it a bit more manageable since it would’ve been something like 12 or more hours of train travel to get to Belgium from Slovenia. I did a stop off in Munich and spent my time there catching up the less fun side of traveling and life – laundry. I did walk around Munich and explore the city a bit though, I didn’t get out to visit the Neuschwanstein castle like I thought I might. The weather wasn’t the best (rainy and gloomy) and I decided against spending the time traveling out to see the castle on a day that wasn’t clear. It’s on my list to eventually see though. Now I’m on the train to Belgium and already know that I’m going to be spending quite a bit of time getting there since my first train was 30 minutes late leaving so there absolutely no way I’m getting to my connections. Once I get there though, I’ll figure out my next stops.