What we Loved
This is undeniably a beautiful city. It’s clean, it’s picturesque, the architecture is lovely and there are Alps to frame the views! It’s hard to be prettier than Ljubljana.
The people here are wonderful. They are very friendly and very chill. You’ll hear lots of laughter and even singing in the streets. You get the feeling that generally, they are very happy people.
Slovenia is pretty much undiscovered. There are tour groups, but it’s no where to the extent of other places we’ve been. There are some towns, like Celje, that seem to be completely forgotten by tourists, despite having incredible things to see. This is a place where you never have to think about crowds or timing your sightseeing.
English is very, very prevalent. You’ll have no challenges with languages at all. You can even watch Slovenian TV because anything originally in English is still in English – just subtitled in Slovenian. If you know German, that’s probably the foreign language spoken most frequently after English, and more in the Eastern areas.
The food and wine here is excellent. We especially are enjoying their rich and complex red wines from the Brda area, a place that won the Golden Wine Award of the best international wine tourism area of 2022. Because Slovenia is so small, there are lots of culinary influences, and you’ll find great Austrian, Croatian and Italian food here, with lots of fantastic cheeses, too.
If you’re a biker, it’s a heavy biking culture, with lots of bike routes, bike lanes, and the ability to bring your bike on the trains.
What we Didn’t Love
For an Eastern European country, it’s not as inexpensive as other places we’ve been. Prices are similar to our home in Charlottesville for both restaurants and grocery stores.
While there are bus and train lines from Ljubljana, and during the weekend especially, they are quite inexpensive, they tend to run late and slow. Just expect it. They are comfortable, just nearly always late.
Not really a complaint, but something to be aware of – everything but museums are closed on Sundays, and museums are closed on Mondays. Make sure you’ve got the groceries you need, etc, by Saturday evening because you won’t be able to get anything until Monday.
It’s a strong bike culture, which means that as you walk around the town in the pedestrian zones especially, you’ll have to be aware of kamikaze bicyclists all around you. You need to be careful and always look out.