Ljubljana: Great place to stay, not to say.

The Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana
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Ljubljana (don't freak out, the j's are pronounced as y's) is the capital of Slovenia and also our first stop in the Country. And I'd just gotten used to saying my token 4 phrases in Italian...

Our hostel in Ljubljana, Celica ("Celitza"), is a converted prison and the rooms are still in there original state. This includes the bars on the doors, but there is a secondary (solid) door for privacy. Celica was definitely one of the best hostels we've stayed in so far: it has a nice bar (2€ for a 0.5L beer), good food (most meals were < 5€) and a great atmosphere.

And I'd just gotten used to saying my token 4 phrases in Italian...

Ljubljana
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We arrived in the evening (after a 14 hour train from Naples) and had a few beers at the bar. There we met Kaya and Istol (?), who were locals that worked nearby and were having a bite to eat after work. It was great to spend a little time with some locals, especially these two crazy cats.

The next day we checked out the town, which is really beautiful. We got a train-car-thing to Ljubljana Castle, which was interesting but not mind blowing as far as castles go. We had a fairly chilled day around town and had a few more drinks back at Celica at night.

Elena at the top of the castle
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On our third day we planned to visit both nearby caves: Postoja and Å kocjan. There aren't many trains going around so our timeline was pretty tight but totally achievable, we thought. First up we checked out the Postoja caves, which were formed from water dripping through linestone over millions of years and are full of stalegmites/tites. The caves were amazing, and I was able to film the view from the train in and out of the walking part of the tour. Everything is the caves is absolutely beautiful, but it difficult to describe (so just check out the pictures!). Native to the caves were a species of salamanders the Slovenians call "human fish" due to their similar life expectancies (~100 years). There were a few in a rock pool for people to look at towards the end of the tour.

Richard eating turkey sznitzel
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Afterwards we walked back to the station and waited for the train. Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication of which track the train was arriving on, we watched the train come and go. The next one was in 2 hours time and would have involved a total of 5 hours in waiting for trains (including the return journey) so we reluctantly decided to skip it and to back to Ljubljana. There was much disappointment.

On our third and final night, we ate out at a restaurant called Sokol in town. I highly recommend going if you are in Ljubljana as the food was absolutely fantastic, the service great, and the prices reasonable. Lena had probably the best mushroom soup I've ever tasted, served in a bowl made of bread. Fantastic.