How to spend a weekend in Ljubljana ?

My first journey while I was an Erasmus student in Zagreb was to Ljubljana. Ljubljana is the unknown capital of Slovenia. Many people outside Europe don't even know its existence, but I have always wanted to visit this small capital of Balkans. Living in the neighboring Croatia was the perfect opportunity to visit Ljubljana. But it were still my first days in Zagreb so I hadn't thought about traveling around.

One night we met some people and went for beers with them. At some point, while we were talking, they told us that they were supposed to go to Ljubljana for the weekend with some more friends and generally people from the Erasmus community. They suggested us to join this trip and we said that we would think about it but probably say yes. Finally, as you can imagine, we decided to go to Ljubljana because it would be a nice opportunity to meet new people and also visit Slovenia, even if it would be for only two days.

Some of the people that we were supposed to travel with together, created a group on facebook so that we could talk about the details for the trip and find a hostel to stay. We would suppose to travel on Saturday morning and most of them decided to take the earliest bus of 5 am. Some of us though, decided to take a bus at 10 am because the trip would be only two hours and it would be useless to arrive to Ljubljana at 7 in the morning and just walk around.

Saturday

So, on Saturday morning, we woke up, took 2-3 extra clothes with us and met with the others at the main bus station to buy a ticket and start our trip. The weather was a bit cloudy but luckily it was still October, so the temperature was very good to walk around without feeling cold. We were hoping that the weather would be similar in Ljubljana too.

The trip with the bus was very relaxing and because we hadn't known each other very well, we were listening to music during the whole time. At about midday we were there! We had to find our hostel first and then we would find the other people. The weather there was a bit colder but you could still stay outside without a problem.

The hostel was in the center of the city so it wasn't hard to find it. We checked-in, left our stuff and went to find the other people who were at a cafe for coffee/beers. There were more than 15 people and 5 of us, so altogether we were like a school trip. Most of the people didn't know each other, so we drank some beers and talked a bit with each other. Then, the first group, who were already there from 7 in the morning, decided to go back to the hostel and have some rest because they had seen most of the tourist attractions.

The rest of us started walking around the city and taking photos of everything. From the first moment we got there, I fell in love with the city. It was very small for a capital, but it had such a dark and creepy beauty that attracted me. There were statues everywhere, but they were not like the normal statues I was used to. Dragons, people with creepy faces and heads without bodies were the most common and central statues.

After the "photoshooting" with the statues, we walked around the city and took many photos in almost every corner. Then we found a tall building that looked like an observation tower and decided to go up and watch the view of the city. You could go to the top either by stairs either by elevator. I am not that fit, so me and some of my friends took the elevator. The view from the top was amazing, even though the weather was not the best. We could see the castle and almost the whole city because it is quite small.

Then we wanted to drink a coffee at the top of the tower, but the prices were a bit high, so we decided to go down and continue our tour around the city. Some of my friends suggested going to the castle, so we started looking for the right way to go up there. It was not hard to find it, so in just 20 minutes we were at the castle. One part of the castle had free entrance so we went just there. We walked around and took some photos.

A photo at the castle

It was afternoon, so we started feeling a bit cold and hungry. We started walked down the castle to get back to the city center to grab something to eat. We found a place that was selling cheap kebab and sat there to eat a sandwich and try to contact the rest of the group. They were outside for a walk and in a while they would go back to the hostel to start pre drinking. We decided to join them and started heading back to the hostel. On our way there, we made a stop at a supermarket and bought a couple of beers and some chips.

We had to deal with a small problem at the hostel: It had no living room for us to hang there, so we had either to go out to drink our beers or just figure out a solution. It started raining hard and the temperature was quite low, so we weren't able to hang out. Luckily, some of the people from our group suggested that we could hang out at their room because it was quite big. So, slowly slowly we started gathering there. No one knew each other really well, so we had to find a game that would entertain us. We played lots of different games and everytime it was our round, we had to tell to the rest of the group our name.

A group photo from our night at the hostel

When all the alcohol was over and the time had passed, we decided that it was the right time to start our adventure outside the hostel. No one knew a specific place to go, but we had a map so we could easily walk around the city. It was still raining hard, but no one had a problem with it. It was Saturday night and going out was way more important than trying not to get wet from the rain.

A friend of mine suggested going to a place that she knew from others, called "Metelkova". She didn't know exactly where it was, but of course we could search for it altogether. Some of the people wanted to visit a club by the river and some others to just walk around and enter the first bar they would find. We were too many people to agree all with one idea, so we decided to split and everyone would follow the idea that was suitable for him/her.

We started walking around the city to find out where we could find an open place to drink a beer and dance. Unfortunately, every place that we were passing by was closed, so we were quite disappointed. We didn't know if the other groups had find anything open, so we were just walking around and asking people on the street for any kind of place.

After a long time of walking under the pour rain, we found some of the people from the group that had also the same problem. We joined them and decided to try and find this "Metelkova" area and if something would be open, hang there. I didn't realize how we got there, but after ten minutes we were in front of a club entrance. There were people drinking beers outside, so were happy that we had finally found something open. We hadn't other choices, so we just entered there.

The place was amazing. It was a big room with strange lights and all kinds of strange decorations on the walls. The price of the beer was good and there was enough space for everyone, so we stayed there the whole night dancing and talking to each other. We found also more Erasmus people from Zagreb there that had decided to visit Ljubljana the same weekend with us. After many hours of dancing and talking, we decided to head back to the hostel, because the next day we had to check out until 10 in the morning. We came back tired and wet, but very happy that we had a very nice night all together. We all fell asleep amazingly fast.

Sunday

The next morning we woke up 10 minutes before the check out, so we had to be very fast. We brushed our teeth and packed our staff and were ready to go.

Most of the people had already booked their bus tickets to return back to Zagreb at about 4 in the afternoon. Some of the others would leave at 6 and me with my flatmate were supposed to leave at 8 in the evening.

Firstly, we found a nice place to drink a coffee and eat some breakfast. After collecting plenty of energy, we started walking again around the city to take some more photos and buy some souvenirs. At lunchtime, we had to find a cheap option because we were running out of money. So, while walking around the streets, we found a restaurant that was selling traditional Balkan meal named "Cevapi". We entered the restaurant and sat there for a long time, because it was still raining outside, so we didn't have many other options.

The time had passed but we still had some free time, so we decided to go and see again the "Metelkova" area in the daylight. The place was totally different: it was a huge area full of graffities and many kinds of galleries, cafeterias and basketball courts. We took lots of photos with the graffities and walked around the area. It was very close to the bus station so we had plenty of time to see all the graffities.

Amazing graffiti at the area of Metelkova

After some point, it was time for the others to take the bus and drive back to Zagreb. Me and my flatmate had two more hours in front of us, so we decided to hang at the McDonald's and spend our last euros there.

The time of the departure had arrived. We went to the bus station and waited for the bus. The time was passing by, but the bus was not showing up. After one hour of delay, the bus finally came. We went inside the bus and fell asleep immediately. After two and a half hours we were at the main bus station of Zagreb and were so tired that decided not to go out and just go home to have a shower and sleep.