Saturday, September 09, 2006

Lljlanhlala something or other.....



Aug 28th

The day dawned bright and sunny as my two companions jauntily set off for our summer holidays bright eyed and rosy cheeked.....

OK no thats a complete lie what actually happened was since our flight left the morning after Carnival rocked through London I set off bright eyed , Curt who had stumbled into our bedroom in the early morning after storming through Notting Hills streets and playing late night Jenga in the after hours club set off sleepy eyed and in drastic need of coffee and Conor who had taken it one step further and partyed non stop in proper carnival style set off red eyed and sucidal!

One quick budget flight from Luton later ( only stopping to buy myself a very lovely 10megapixel super easy camera) we set down into the fairybook land that was Slovenia.
Mountions, Mountions and more mountions, Lljublana was surrounded by beautiful alpine mountions and deep fir trees. The city itself was built around canals and ventian looking bridges.

Excited we payed far too much for a taxi driver too drive far too fast on wet roads and drop us in the middle of nowhere somewhere sort of near our hostel.

Our hostel was gorgeous in this falling down but beautiful huge mansion and we settled into it quickly. We were all starving and so we headed out to try some tradtional Slovenian Fare.
So what do they eat in Slovenia? Meat. Meat . and more meat. Stag, blood sausages , steaks , hams , salamis and chicken. While that was a bit hideous for us they did make the most amazing soups , really rich and creamy and served in a huge bowl with a lid made entirely of bread. They were super addictive and cost the equilvant of about a pound fifty so nice and cheap. Which was lucky since overall the restaurant was super expensive by Slovenian standards.

Conor bailed on us after that to recover from her Carnival excesses but Curt and I hit the local bar where we made friends with Roc , a very cool local bartender, who hopefully will come visit us in London, he filled us in on Lljublana and finally explained what the local currency was called.
Tollares ( as in dollers with a t ) which sounds ridiculous after a few drinks.
A few tollares goes a long way though with four cocktails coming to about 3quid.

The next day we explored the city including the requisite castle and spent a lazy afternoon in the bars and cafes along the canals. That evening we found a much better restaurant and all ate pretty well with a few bottles of vino for about a tenner.

We then went to a bar that Netty had recommended for a few drinks and then Conor retired.

Curt and I headed out to a place we had heard about which was an ongoing artists community-Squat which had run for about seventy years . Apparently Slovenians fought over it constantly and it was protected by many as a living piece of art and hated and threatened by just as many others.

All sounded pretty cool and when we arrivied it was pretty interesting, all the buildings had been adapted with statures and messages, graffti and paintings and there were several different makeshift bars as well as a hostel and when we got there a lot of firetwirling.

How cool are the signs in Slovenia?

Next moring we headed of to the alpine villege of Bled......

Powered by Blogger

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]