Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia is not a city of must see sights. Its a place to wander round and sit in cafes.
It does have a castle on a hill but we didn’t see the need to visit. There are enough places to wander along the river and relax to not need anything else.
The river gently winds through the city and there are many bridges. Dragon bridge is the most famous with a dragon on a pedestal at each corner.
The Butchers bridge is interesting. Built in 2010 it is next to the central market. It has grotesque statues by Joze Plecnik and strangely at the same time is also covered in padlocks left as a love symbol as you see on so many bridges.
Definitely weird!
Preseren Square is the centre of the city has a bronze statue of the nineteenth century poet Preseren who is credited with inspiring all Slovenian literature. Don’t know how much Slovenian literature there is but if its true I guess he deserves his place centre stage!
One of the nicest things about this city is the quirky things you find round corners or in the side streets. One of the best is the instillation of bronze faces on Kljucvnicarska Ulica or Locksmith Street.
“To think, for instance, that I have never been aware before how many faces there are. There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several. There are people who wear the same face for years; naturally it wears out, it gets dirty, it splits at the folds, it stretches, like gloves one has worn on a journey.”
I love this quote from R M Rilke a Bohemian-Austrian poet. Jakov Brdar, a sculptor was inspired by this to make his bronze casting “Faces”.
Slovenia’s Postojna Caves
The famous Postojna caves are only about 50 kilometres from the city. The largest cave system in Slovenia has 24 kilometres of passages . You take a train and then an escorted walk to see the impressive stalagmites and stalactites.
It is just a cave, not my favourite cave, but a very big impressive cave nonetheless.