The travels of Tim and Megan: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Christmas Day

Needless to say we had a bit of a sleep-in on Christmas Day after a few late nights in a row (we must be getting old). We had another awesome breakfast in the hotel - fruit and yoghurt and pancakes with nutella (very popular in central Europe). We left for the Old Town around midday. It was a pretty grey, foggy sort of a day. We were surprised to see that the Christmas market stalls were open on Christmas Day and that there were a lot of people around town.

We walked through the markets, where Megan bought a Ljubljana fridge magnet (to add to her collection of one from each country we have visited), and we walked down past the town hall and St James Church before walking back alongside the river.

We had booked in for Christmas dinner at a restaurant called Zlata Ribica (apparently one of Ljubljana's most popular) at 1pm. The restaurant is right on the bank of the river in the middle of the Old Town and it was very nice inside. The name Zlata Ribica translates to Goldfish in Slovenian, although it is better known for its traditional Slovenian meat dishes than seafood. There was no traditional Christmas dinner as we know it, but we had an excellent meal - a Slovenian cold platter (meats, cheeses, etc) and cabbage rolls for starters, followed by beef fillet for our mains and apple strudel and a mascarpone roll for dessert. Cabbage rolls are a Slovenian favourite - a lot like spring rolls but with just cabbage in the middle. They were actually surprisingly tasty! We also had a Slovenian pinot grigio, which was nice.

As we were eating our Christmas dinner it started snowing outside. Although it did not settle on the ground, it snowed on and off for about two or three hours and at times it was very heavy. After Christmas dinner, we went outside and wandered in the snow for a while, before ducking for cover into a bar across the river called Zlata Ladjica for a drink. Then we wandered back to the hotel, buying some hot roasted nuts on the way!

In the evening we went out to a wine bar called Dvorni, which was really cool. It is obviously a popular spot as it was packed. We managed to find a seat and sampled some more Slovenian wines, which were very good, if a little sweet. We finished off our first ever "white Christmas" with a late dinner at a steak restaurant called Stara Macka. The waiter was rather odd, but the food was excellent, as it was right throughout our stay in Slovenia.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day was another relaxing day in Ljubljana. After another slow start, we went for a big walk through the Old Town and down to a suburb further south called Trnovo. We had some paintings in our hotel room of a huge church in Trnovo, the Church of St John the Baptist, so we decided to go and have a look at it. Unfortunately the church was all closed up so we couldn't see inside, but we enjoyed wandering through the peaceful streets of Trnovo, past all of the dozens and dozens of vegetable gardens, where we assumed much of the fresh produce sold at the market comes from!

Back in the Old Town we had a fantastic hot chocolate in a nice little cafe called Cafe Romeo. The hot chocolates in Slovenia are pretty much melted chocolate in a cup - very thick and sweet - so yum. Then we returned to Tivoli Park for another walk. We went back to the spot where we got engaged and took some more snaps and we had a much bigger walk through the wooded part of the park. It is a really beautiful park and the sun came out while we were there, which made the trees look even prettier. The rest of the day was actually very nice and sunny, with blue skies, but still very cold!

We had enjoyed Cafe Romeo so much that we returned there for lunch, where we had nachos and burritos (Romeo was Mexican after all). We then had a quick look through St Nicholas Cathedral, one of several big churches in the centre of Ljubljana. The main door to the church was rather impressive - with 3-D carvings of saints decorating the door. However, the inside of the church was even more amazing. There was a huge organ at the back of the church, the ceiling was beautifully painted, there were lots of fantastic statues and carvings all up the sides and, of course, there were Christmas trees and nativity scenes.

After resting back at the hotel, we had a drink at the English pub next to our hotel and watched a bit of the Arsenal game against Aston Villa, which ended 2-2, before returning to Preseren Square to sip some mulled wine and listen to the Christmas songs that the live band was playing. We had a couple of drinks at the Dvorni wine bar and then went back to the square for some pretty solid burger/hot dog action for dinner.