Trans Europa Express #4: Ljubljana

In which we get no sleep, feel extravagant and lower the tone...

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Wednesday 16th July

* We might be in Europe, but the overnight train journey takes us back to Australia. Saving money on accommodation and travelling through the night always seems like such a good idea, killing two birds with one stone – but what you forget is that you’d probably get more sleep if you were an insomniac who’d drunk five pints of espresso and found yourself trapped in a burning building with the fire alarm going off. Our compartment companions for the first leg of the journey back across Austria are the continent’s loudest eater and a deaf old codger intent on making conversation. At least we can freshen up when we change in Salzburg, we think – but no, we pay our 50 cents each to go to the toilets only to be confronted with notices declaring “Wasch and toothclean not allowed”.

* Arriving into Ljubljana, we bumble along a circuitous route to our hotel, disorientated by tiredness and the fact that suddenly none of the signs are comprehensible. Hotel Park is situated amongst the boxy concrete blocks of what seems to be a residential area, albeit on the fringes of the centre, near the Ethnographic Museum.

* We dump our bags at reception and head out to explore. By the end of the day in Vienna, architecture fatigue was beginning to set in – there are only so many impressively imposing buildings you can take; but here they’re less domineering, more humble. The city’s focal point is the River Ljubljanica, spanned as it changes course southwards by the Triple Bridge and overlooked – as all the pretty, compact medieval streets that fan away from it are – by the castle. Beneath deep blue skies, Ljubljana – more like a small town or village, even, than a capital city – is the most postcard picturesque place we’ve been to so far on the trip.













* My first meal in Slovenia? Some authentic local cuisine: a rich and creamy croque monsieur at Le Petit Café…

* Having at last been able to check in, we set about descuzzifying ourselves, only to discover that the shower curtain doesn’t quite reach the ground and the shower tray is little more than a saucer, meaning the bathroom floor is soon submarine. I grumble, despite being only too aware we’ve probably been spoilt with our last two hotels. No second basin or drying lamp in the bathroom? No safe and escritoire in the bedroom? Simply dreadful – I ask you, how can people possibly bring themselves to live like this?

* Fortified by a falafel, we browse the market in the blazing sun, surveying an array of fruit, flowers and clacking 1920s-style wooden football rattles before being laughed at for merely enquiring about the possibility of buying some socks. It is very hot, I guess.

* Hoping to find kayaks for hire where the two rivers meet, but only coming across several small empty seen-better-days floating bars, we make our way instead via a cobbled alleyway up the steep hill to the castle. Its cliff-top location means a great view, but it’s now that we realise the old town we’ve been wandering around is in reality an enclave preserved for the benefit of tourists, the less attractive but living city sprawling out beyond towards the mountains in the distance. A bride and groom pose for post-ceremony photos as Billy Idol’s ‘White Wedding’ blasts out of a car stereo, and, just as happened at Bondi Beach, I find myself being complimented on my Goo parody T-shirt by a complete stranger – perhaps I should be getting paid by Rotate This giving them publicity all over the globe?











* As if we needed evidence that a preservation order has been served on the old town, a man rides past on a Penny Farthing.

* Time to get stuck into the local brews at a riverside bar. There’s essentially a choice of two: Lasko and Union. Slovenian legend has it that “Lasko is another word for hangover”, and it’s also frequently said: “Drink Lasko, piss Union”. Laskos it is, then, enjoyed while sat people-watching in the sun. Witty T-shirt slogans seem to be as popular here as at home. Still, I’m not sure what “Last night I haven’t slept in my bed” means – something lost in translation, perhaps? No chance of that with us, with Jenni making a very typically English exaggerated mime by way of asking for the bill.



* Our smugness for having sought out and found a small family-run off-strip restaurant where we’re the only tourists turns to consternation and mild panic when we realise there’s no menu and so no indication whatsoever of how much anything is. But we needn’t have worried about the possibility of being held to ransom – the bill comes as a blessed relief, my cheese and rocket starter and fat steak smothered in peppercorn sauce tasting even better with hindsight.

* From the restaurant to Vinoteka Movia, and from 250ml glasses of wine costing 1 euro each to 100ml glasses of wine costing 10 euros each. But what wine – delicious and subtle, a perfect blend of grapes patiently explained to us by a barman who makes a good job of pretending we look like connoisseurs and not slightly scruffy boozehounds – and what glasses, enormous thin-stemmed fishbowls. The extravagance is as intoxicating as the wine itself, though thankfully not quite so intoxicating as to induce us to splash out on the 825 euro bottle behind the bar.



* All our cash gone, it’s back to the hotel for a refuel. While we’re at it, we drop off the biscuits we’ve just bought for our respective workplaces – and it’s at this point that we realise no one’s going to believe the brand name had no influence over our choice…



* The tone suitably lowered after the briefly classy interlude of the Vinoteka, the only reasonable course of action seems to be lower it some more. Hence a visit to Pr Skelet, a grubby gothic cellar bar with a grotesque parade of skeletons of all shapes and sizes posing in glass cases set into the walls, where we seize upon the permanent 2-for-1 cocktail offer and, perusing the menu, find ourselves mysteriously drawn to the heady concoction of peach schnapps, passoa and lemonade known as Sex In The Disabled Toilets. Against all the odds, it turns out to be really quite nice...



* Am I drunk enough to want a horse burger? Neigh…





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Next time: the wedding - the prime reason behind our trans-continental jaunt.

The story so far: Paris, Munich, Vienna