Well, we woke up early and breakfast was a peach. Literally. We had our peach and some strawberries, then I ate a few leftover chicken corn flake strips from yesterday. We puttered around until a little after 7 am then headed off.
Nothing was open. Even the coffee shops were still setting up. We kept walking down by the river, and even the market was still setting up. But the stuff already up was amazing! The produce was beautiful and the smells were fabulous! There was also a clothing section to the market, and later in the day, food trucks.
Next to the river, by the market, were a series of shops with a covered walkway. We stopped and Frank got one of the specials: coffee and a marmalade croissant for 1.80 Euros.
By the way, coffee here is more like Italy. They ask if you want espresso, machiato, etc. And it's 1 Euro, which is just over a buck right now. So if you love coffee, this is the place to be!
We got our Ljubljana Cards from the visitor center - these give us access to a bunch of museums, the castle & funicular, a boat ride, and other stuff, for a discounted price (that we already paid). Oh yeah, free bus rides too.
The funicular didn't open until 9 am and I needed a restroom and a drink, so we went for those. There are public restrooms near just about every bridge. They are a little odd though, at least the one I used.
The ladies' was on one side of the bridge, and the men's on the opposite side - not the opposite side of the water, just across the near side of the bridge. But they met up under the bridge. Well, there was a glassed in office under the bridge. You walk down the stairs and see the office in front of you. To the right is the stone wall of the bridge, to the left is the ladies' room. In the ladies' room, there are windows looking out over the water. And to the right there's a glass door leading into the office. And if you look through the office, there's a glass door leading into the men's room. And there's a sign saying "Videotaped for your protection." Well, I'm assuming that's what the big picture of the video camera meant, and the actual camera in the sink area. Luckily, the stalls had very tall doors on them that went almost all the way to the floor. A bit weird though.
Afterwards, we stopped at a different coffee shop and I got a Limonada. It sounded good and was about a buck. It's lemon juice, diluted with water, and I don't think there was any sugar in it. It wasn't bad, just stronger than I'm used to.
Finally, it was time for the funicular. Thus begins the saga of the stairs! The funicular ride wasn't that long, but I enjoyed it. I took some pictures of the city. The funicular comes in at the bottom of the castle. Then you have to walk up about 3 different flights of stairs to get to the main level. From there, we went to the history section, which was included in our Cards.
The history section was small, but nice. They had videos explaining the different eras and artifacts from each. There were some computer games for kids and Lauren to play. And there was extra information at each display. And the regular displays were in Slovenian and English. We had to walk down for the first section of history. Then back up for the next. Then go up another flight of stairs to the room above the room we were originally in. Then go up another flight and we were near the theater. Then we saw the directions to the Viewing Tower.
We went up 2-3 flights of spiral stairs, and stopped at an area where you could leave the stairs and look out the windows. I could hear kids screaming above us, so I didn't want to move too fast. Then we went up another 2-3 flights and stopped at more windows. The kids were going down the stairs now - on a different staircase! There were 2 spiral staircases - one for going up, and one for going down. It looked like this was a class field trip.
We finally went up the last few flights and came out on top of the tower. The view was amazing! There's no ropes or glass or anything, you're just on top of a tower with crenelations, but there was very little space between them, so you couldn't get through them. There was a couple our age taking pictures and they asked us to take one of them. Then they took one of us. Then we heard more kids screaming up the stairs so we headed down.
Down is much easier than up. But then the theater was closed, so we went down some more stairs, several times, and into an art gallery we had seen from our arrival on the funicular but couldn't figure out how to get too. The art gallery had a little hallway gallery leading out to another large room where I think they held events or something. We kept looking around and finally found a door out. Then it was back down another flight to the chapel, because a tour group was heading towards us.
The chapel was really pretty! And there was a guy there doing calligraphy names for tips. So I got mine down in Gothic something-or-other. Then it was out another door and up another damn flight of stairs.
We both wanted a rest by now - it had been about 2 hours, so we headed towards the cafe. I got a water and Frank got a cocoa. The cocoa was really good. It was in a huge cup, with cream on top. It was rich and not overly sweet, but not bitter. I got the Prekmurska Gibanica (sp?) which is the national cake. It was humongous! I mean, it was square, about 3" on a side, and almost that tall. I split it with Frank and we couldn't finish it. I felt sad leaving some on the plate. It was really good! I'm not sure exactly what's in it, but it's about 6 layers of stuff, including an apple strudely layer, a poppy seedish layer, and some kind of cream or dessert cheese. I've got pics.
After our revival, we went up to the front wall of the castle - 2 flights of spiral stairs. Then down again. Then I needed the restroom which was all the down by the damn funicular. Three flights down, then 3 up, then the shops.
The gift shop was not that great. The crafts shop was really cool! We got Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts and saw some other stuff, but couldn't figure out how to get it back to the US without breaking it.
There are walking paths up to the castle, so we decided to take one down. I was intrigued by a sign, which showed a walking trail and what looked like a bulls-eye. So we took that one. Which turned out to be a switchback trail down the side of the steep hill. Parts of it were gravelled and I was in my sandals. Fun.
We finally made it down and then headed back to the old town for lunch. We weren't really hungry, so we stopped at a bar/cafe and got paninis. A tour group had bought out most of them, so we ended up with prosciutto and ementaler and a ground beef and cheddar one. They were cheesy, but only 2.50 Euros. Frank had a Dark Union beer - Union is one of the Slovenian beers. It wasn't bad either. The Slovenian beers seem smoother.
After that it was walking and looking around at stuff. There was an exhibit of wood at the Town Hall. There were chairs, benches, forks, computer mice, pears, etc. all made out of wood.
We stopped by the modern art exhibit at the City Art Gallery, which was up another flight of stairs. We went through the first section but skipped the next part, which was up another flight. I just can't get into a lot of modern art.
We kept wandering down the street, in the general vicinity of home, and then I took a nap and Frank read.
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