Arriving in Slovenia
(Please refer back to the previous two articles on Planning a Trip to Slovenia and Our Itinerary.)
The Slovenia language is not easy - never sure if a "c" is pronounced as "ch" or "s" or "z" and not all the letters are articulated. We finally settled on LUBE-EE-ANA. (That was the best we could do.)
It is so easy to include Slovenia into your travel plans if you are going to Europe this year. Croatia, Austria and Italy all border Slovenia. Train, fly, boat or drive in.
Brnik airport is small, and we sped through customs. Everyone speaks English and Information told us that the most inexpensive way into town was by public bus - 890 SIT's per person. (The $ was trading around 187 SIT's. ) Or, there are plenty of Taxis available.
If you want to use the ATM machine, walk back into Departures and it is immediately on your right. The ATM dispenses in Tolars (SIT's), approximately 187 SIT's to the Dollar but Slovenian currency will change to the Euro this Fall. To ease the Slovenian transition, everything is priced in both Tolars and Euros. You can use either currency.
We took the public bus into town which leaves every hour. It takes about 45 minutes since the bus makes every stop along the way, and terminates at the bus station in the center of Ljubljana, just a few feet from the train station.
Our hotel was the Grand Hotel Union Garni - about a three block walk to the center of Ljubljana, and the same distance to the bus station/railroad station. It is an extremely nice hotel, friendly (the personnel speak English and are very helpful) and, Free Internet. Clean and convenient.
We strolled down to the old center and had a late lunch at Luke Gourmet Lunch Cafe on Stari Treg. Our waiter, talked us into sharing the lunch special, and we're glad he did!
The lunch special included: a huge bowl of broccoli and garlic soup; large green salad with freshly grated parmesan cheese; a plate of rigatoni in a tomato, zucchini sauce; beef with roasted potatoes; and a baked apple for dessert. This cost 2,000 SIT's, added some wine Vipava (both white and red) and the entire meal came to $15.00 US. Such a deal, and we were both stuffed with some very good food . We sat at a window table and people-watched while eating and drinking wine. The entire town shuts down on weekends with the exception of tourists and a few Slovenians walking around.
We'll do more touristy things tomorrow....
