Population of Ljubljana - 267,000 (pop of Slovenia as a whole = 2.1 million)
An eventful day of waking up, taking the metro and bus to get to Sudbanhof train station in Vienna only to learn that I was two hours early because it's Daylight Savings Time in Europe today (the US has it next week, how confusing is that!?!?) and so I sat in the freezing cold Sudbanhof station at 6 in the morning with a total of maybe five people that walked past me that entire time. Anyways, I board the train and I'm off to Slovenia!! Slovenia has an interesting history - it was part of the Roman Empire then the Slavs came then the Francs then there were a bunch of Hungarian Magyar raids in the 1000s then in the 1200s the Austrian Hapsburgs took control for most of the Middle Ages until Napoleon came in and conquered Slovenia as part of the Illyrain Provinces of his empire (ljubljana became the capital) then after they sort of just existed, were conquered in WWII and then became part of Yugoslavia until declaring independence in 1991 and joining the EU in 2004 (they just got done serving as president of the EU when France took over in June). Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital, was supposedly founded in 2000 BC when Jason and his followers, the Argonauts, came from Greece after steeling the Golden Fleece from King Aetes. They stopped to dismantle and reassemble their ship near a marsh and there there was this monster that Jason defeated and claimed the marsh as his own - that dragon/monster is now part of Slovenian history and is on their national coat of arms and flag. Anyways, then Ljubljana belonged to the Celts for a while and then the Romans until 472 (downfall of Roman Western Empire) and then the trajecetory pretty much follows that of Slovenia. In World War II the Italians actually conquered Slovenia/Ljubljana and they built this 39 km long barbed wire fence around the city to keep the resistance forces from teeming up with partisans outside the city's walls, now its a footpath where the fence stood. The name Ljubljana was first used in the 1100s, and the city gained its "city rights" in 1220, including the right to print money. It's main feature is this big park with a giant castle on the top of the hill: the Ljubljana Castle. It's been there forever but was destroyed when the Hapsburgs came in the 1300s and the modern day version was built along the lines of a medieval fortress, then it was used off and on as a military hospital, arsenal, and prison in the 1700s-1900s when it was bought by the state as a monument/place for cultural events. Oh yeah, and Ljubljana had this huge earthquake in 1511 that destroyed most of the city and then it was rbuilt int he Renaissance style and it has a lot of art nouveau buildings as well built in the 1900s. The original Roman town here was called Emona but it was destroyed by Attila and the Huns.
Right, so on the train I got to see the Austrian and Slovenian countryside for 6 hours, and sleep a little. It was a really pretty ride - we were on the top of this bassin and in the distance you could see the Alps with foggy tops and below us there were these little villages with farmed land plots here and there, some cows, occasionnally a person walking or riding a horse or playing soccer when we passed lands that weren't down below, and all the houses were pretty pastel colors with tiled slanted roofs like typical farmhouses. There was also a lot of fall foliage- the leaves turning from green to brown to orange and red and yellow, and we passed some forests with these pine trees that were super super skinny with just some little tufts of pines at the tippy top. My train car was second class, a little room with 3 by 3 seats facing each other and racks above - it reminded me of in James Bond From Russia With Love when they ride the Orient Express. We also passed some fields with these little yellow flowers, and it wasn't an overwhelming yellow because it was mixed with the green stalks but the yellow just looked like it was a floating cloud two feet above the ground. About an hour out of Vienna I noticed that most of the houses had Austrian flags hanging from the windows (red white red striped). Once in Slovenia, it was a lot less industrial/more rural, except in this town named Maribor there was the quiet little town int he background and the river and then this giant new mall complex called Europark with an Hand M and a lingerie advertisement and a sporting goods store...etc etc, and it was just an interesting contrast. We passed Maribor, Celje, Pelgrovsko, and all the little hamlets in the valleys had a steeple with a cross on top as their tallest peak.
Okay, made it to Ljubljana, which is much much smaller than expected and doesn't really have a lot of charm, once you get by the banks of the Ljublianca River and old town it's pretty to walk, but it really is a small capital. Found my hostel - randomly it's like a hostel and hotel combined with twelve stories and a full reception desk with guys in suits and funny striped pink ties...classy. So out and exploring the city. Walk over Dragonbridge, this famous bridge built in 1900 in the Art Nouvean style by a Dalmation architect, and it's this tiny little bridge with tiny dragon statues on it, very unimposing, pleasant in its own way but not at all what I was expecting. Walk past where the Market should be (closed on Sunday, I'll go back tomorrow) and see the Church of St NIcholas, which is a simple exterior again with a pretty steeple on top, a few statues, but the door was by far the coolest part. It was black metal and was a 3D impression of the heads of popes with their hats, and each head was above the other in this diagonal type pattern across the door, and you entered the bottom right fourth quadrant of the door because the whole thing was so big. Moving on I walked up this footpath to the Ljubljana Castle, which had lots of families and tourists (these random annoying american college kids who I think were here because the Ljubljana Marathon was today and they raced in it...in any case they're staying in my hostel and taking over the lobby with this guy playing guitar and singing some random made up songs about girls missing their eight o clock classes and the maharaja sleeping with concubines....I put headphones it). The castle was definitely medieval style- the inside was just an open courtyard with steps going up and down leading into different parts o fwhat used to be rooms I guess, but now its all just the exterior of the castle walls that remain. Parts of it, including the chapel are still being renovated, so it was cool because it is kind of like a modern day excavation project. The chapel was built in 1489 and it's unique because it's painted with the coats of arms of governors - that's to say secular artwork in a sacred chapel. It was repainted like that in 1747 and its very gay - the ceiling's pink with these big colorful crests everywhere. And from the castle there was obviously an amazing panoramic view of the city, though it wasn't that great of a city to view from on high, except for a few churches and parliament buliding that looked cool.
Descend the castle - walk through the Old Town near the banks of the river, cross the Cobbler's Bridge which is the oldest bridge in Ljubljana (again, just a plain bridge with a couple of columns) and there's some little restaurants around that are cute, I walked in the two streets where the old jewish quarter used to be, still named the Jewish names (Zidovska) even though the Jews were expelled in 1515 and really haven't been back since (in the whole country there's only 300 of them, and until recently it was like the only country not to have a synagogue or something like that). Walked up to Congress Square where there's some pretty art nouveau style buildings, one of which is either the seat of some government branch or part of the Univ of Ljubljana now, there was also another church that was a sea green color on the outside, then walked to the far outskirts of the city to see the original Roman wall of the city from the Emona village-almost a whole side of it's still there and there's the entrances to the city and one entrance has the rocks shaped like a pyramid which I don't really understand...it's still an excavation site which is also cool. Back to the city - to another square that had the remnants of tents set up for the marathon but in terms of squares was nothing special, all the shops were closed on Sunday and I ended up eating MacDO and giving them an extra twenty centimes for ketchup. Also saw Preseren Square where there's another church but this one is pink, and the Triple bridge (basically three bridges combined into one, with very little ornamentation on any of them) and in the square there was a guy randomly balancing an umbrella and playing harmonia simultaneously, and there was also a cast iron 3D representation of the town kind of like Legoland set there permanently which was neat. Walk back to hostel and chill. The only thing I didn't see was the museum of contemporary history, I might or might not see it tomorrow because it's a good half hour walk out of the city centre. Other random Ljubljana facts - they use the euro (for some reason I thought they were still on the slovak) and thing's aren't nearly as cheap as you'd expect. There's also graffiti everywhere, I mean it's pretty graffiti artwork, but it comes up five or six feet on the buildings and it's just everywhere. Among other weird things I saw - 1+1 = 3, "Family Man" with a guy's head, and "Don't drink and drive, just smoke and fly." Also, most of the restaurants other than bars seemed pretty new and chic, there was this one gelato place with outdoor seating that had brown clothed individual couches (really comfy square cushioned seats I guess) with umbrellas above, it looked cute. So Ljubljana as a whole - interesting history, interesting city, but good for a day to day and a half stop.
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