Ljubljana. Capital of Slovenia. I have been here a week and am still not sure I can pronounce it.

Just south of the Alps the city lies in a valley of rivers among foothills. There is an old fortification on a hilltop that looms over the city.

The river horseshoes around the fortress hill and the old town lines both sides of the river and spreads out like a fan with the fortress as the center of the radius.

The hilltop the fortress sits on is not really dramatic like say Edinburgh crowning its glacier scoured volcanic plug. These hills are what in Kentucky we would call knobs. But it is visible from almost any location and lends a special air to the old town.

If you have been reading some of these blogs you can write most of the town history yourself. Warring, partly settled tribes. Celts, etc. Then a Roman town, Emona, notable for the number of houses with central heating, running water and a city wide sewer system. But Attila and his Huns demolished it around 450.

Situated on a trade route, all of the regional characters: the Slovenes, the Franks, the Magyars, the Slavs, the French, the Italians, the Habsburgs, etc. etc. came to take over or sack the city. The fortress on the hill belonged to everyone.

Continuing with my point that that this condition of war is continuous in the Balkan’s, since 1800 Ljubljana has been within 10 different states. They have a nice city museum to explain all this, and quoting from the city museum: “a person born here in 1913 has seen two emperors, four kings and four presidents.

The old town itself is a whopping success. Beautifully restored, plenty of shops and people everywhere day and night.

There are some rough areas with graffiti issues, but in general this is a very clean city.

Weighing in at around 300 thousand persons, the town is only about the size of say Louisville and is not only a manageable size but English is spoken everywhere. Almost all of the music in the public places is in English. The city is pricy, but nothing like Munich or Vienna, and the quality is very good. So, overall I would recommend a visit if you are planning a European itinerary. This city is, for comparison, much more interesting and enjoyable than say Prague.

There are countless restaurants. Bars line the river and they fill up at sundown.

During the day (this time of year) the bars and many little shops are selling hot wine. For about a dollar fifty a glass. I should have but could not bring myself to try one. There is a lot of cigarette smoking, but all of it outdoors.

This weekend they turned on the seasonal lights and in the early evening the city was full of families with children of all ages giving the evenings a special ambiance.

Some interesting (to me) observations:

In all of the cities I have been visiting on this trip they have been extending their pedestrian only areas and working on their nearby streets so that the amount of space for cars is greatly reduced and the sidewalks widened and bike lanes installed. I think that this really contributes to the attractiveness of the areas for people to visit. And I wish we could do more of this in our American towns.

If you live in the pedestrian areas and have a car you have a controller that will raise and lower blocking posts to allow access.

Also, this town has these nifty little electric taxis that will pick you up anywhere and take you anywhere in the downtown. A free service.

There is plenty of walking along the rivers and in large parks on the knobs.

There is also a walking trail that runs for over 20 miles completely around the city. It actually follows the route of a barbed wire fence that the Italian army constructed to imprison the city and cut down resistance activities during WWII.

There is a great central market with every kind of fast food stall imaginable and if I did not love going out to dinner so much I would eat there every day. I had a few dinners in the old town and the food and wines were excellent. In the places I tried the chefs were following either Italian training or French training, the stuff I cook, and somehow not really exotic enough for my mood.

Then I fell into the gravity well of a Serbian restaurant. These guys didn’t follow fancy culinary training, they grilled meats of all kinds and served it up with potato and beans and good wines. Rough and ready and perfect for me.

A chilling image, from the history museum.  Chilling to think of the suffering involved in this enterprise.But thank goodness the image could also be titled “Hubris before the fall”.

And on a lighter note was pleased and somewhat surprised to learn that on a Slovenian picnic the standard fare is a bottle of wine … … each !!

Leaving early tomorrow, heading south into Croatia and to the Adriatic coast.