We made our way (slightly later than due again) down the street and across to our hostel, we were in a separate (quite large) apartment accessible by some courtyard, had it’s own kitchen area and was quite nice really, downsides squeakiest bunk beds ever, the shower pipe was split and there was no hot water and we were sharing with 4 completely testosterone fuelled American army lads, who just wanted to have a series of one night stands with European girls, and they wouldn’t shut up about their failure to do so, all next morning.
After our check in, we went out for a beer (human fish beer… Yup random name) and a wander around the closest bridges, then a walk back to our squeaky apartment bunk beds.
After a shocking but refreshing cold shower, and the annoying Americans, we had a brief misunderstanding in the checkout process, where I thought the room was €12 + €10 deposit each not €17 each + €10 deposit between us, so yeah voices took a more raised and defensive tone but ends up we were in the wrong, we just misheard last night or something.
We left our bags in a deposit cage area, and took a wander around, it was fairly busy and we near instantly encountered a brass band accompanied by baton and pom pom girls performing on the bridge, they performed and marched on to their next location, Phil and I carried over to the local fruit and veg Market which was absolutely heaving! The freshest, juiciest, biggest and most colourful produce in it’s thousands across at least 100 stalls. Phil bought 1/8 chunk of a massive watermelon for about €2.50 and we had that between us for breakfast, we could barely finish it there was so much it was so juicy too, (P.S watermelon juice is a bitch to shift from a camera lens!) a short way later near a church with a funky metal sculpted door we found a man selling fresh cut from bone pork baps, they tasted so damn good, i had to buy one.
Then the further we walked the more street vendors, some with salami’s, some cheese, some with breads and oils, there was a great vibe about the place and we wondered whether it was always like this, then we saw a sign that advertising that it was the annual Ljubljana wine and oil festival, as well as 20 years of independence, we had come on one of the best days of the year completely by chance!
There was some guy selling some old shepherds wooden puzzles his father had found the construction instructions and solutions for whilst worked. Phil figured out the solution fairly quick and even reassembled the puzzle, (good job this was before the wine!)
It felt very wrong not to join in, saw we rented some wine glasses and got absolutely wrecked for €5!
It wasn’t even 1 o’ clock and we were feeling heavy headed, and hungry we dived into the closest tavern to us, with some big metal bird (an eagle or hawk on it) sculpture on the wall outside, the pub was called Sokol, and my god the food was good!
We ate mixed platters of venison, boar, pork, sausages, haggis, stag and probably horse, along with some brilliantly cooked vegetables.
Phil passed out twice during dinner, I win! Finished off his plate and then ordered a wild berry panacota (sp?) it was also amazing. And to top it off, they brewed their own beer too.
After the meal it was straight back to the wine and we found out some stalls gave full demonstrations and told you ALL about the making and region etc for €1-2 you could try about 6-15 wines for that and by the way they were VERY generous with their samples (read half a glass, or a full small glass in the UK) so we got very wrecked!
In the morning I spotted this lady wearing a deep purple dress and a crown being filmed and photographed we were trying a sample and she appeared next to us, and she was knocking back the wine like it was going out of fashion. Ends up she is the Wine Queen of Ljubljana (or Slovenia) and people were very pleased when she preferred their wine. I liked the Zaleni wine’s a lot, never heard of them either.
We found a wine liquor at one stall, tried it and bought a bottle straight away, it was in a fancy shaped bottle too.
We drank with some english speakers, watching the various local singers, dancers and groups perform their way around the (Aussies, Canadians, and a few Slovenians) till the festival ended, we got in and exchanged our glasses for the €5 deposit.
We then made our way back to the Hostel to collect our bags, Phil went looking for my sunglasses, I had left them in our bedroom in the morning but didn’t remember and wasn’t really bothered, I’ve been looking for new ones as these were cheap and scratched and not working as well, anyway Phil had found them which was amazing, but in doing so he had had a bit of a flibble with the Hostel assistant (we seemed to get that a bit here) and we ended up drinking the spirit away by Dragons Bridge before boarding a 2AM train to Venice.
We went out to the same pub as the previous night too for a few beers except Phil passed out at the table and doesn’t recall anything till the train, tbh surprised I remember the amount of Wine we drank, along with the spirit.
I woke phil up after finishing my beer and going to the loo for the umpteenth time today just as they were locking up, we got to the train eventually and waited for the train….. And waited…. And waited… And waited, and slept, and waited. I curled up on the platform against my bag, when it started raining someone on the platform was amazed that I was literally sleeping on the edge of this rain barrier not getting wet, I eventually moved into the drier area of the platform more, our train eventually arrived some 2 hours late. We boarded and passed out for the long journey, arriving at Venice sometime like 7:45am on Sunday
