Ljubljana just like Sarajevo was a pleasant surprise! Once again I had the impression that this city was going to be boring and uninterested but I was so wrong!

The architecture of this place was amazing and it really felt like going back in time and walking in a city hundreds of years ago. The architecture was a little eclectic and confusing; April and I couldn't really point out where exactly it was from and I said that to me it looked Hungarian and I think to her it looked more Italian. I ended up going to the free walking tour and learned that in fact Ljubljana is a mix of so many different styles. Like many European cities Ljubljana saw his share of earthquakes and fires back in the day which meant that the city had to be reconstructed over and over again, hence the many architectural styles seen today. While walking around one could point out baroque style building, Hungarian architecture, as well as beautiful art nouveau. 

Ljubljana was such a charming city! It reminded me a little bit of Budapest and Amsterdam with the canal and the beautiful buildings surrounding it.

An interesting thing was that the once you entered churches the painting were almost 100% Italian, this was because during some time Ljubljana started building so many churches that it didn't have enough people to work on them so Italian artists had to be brought to Slovenia to paint the churches and the only style they were familiar with was Italian!

The city had a Cathedral with some beautiful frescos; the entrance door was made of metal and depicted the history of Slovenia and had Pope John Paul II on the top.

Ljubljana’s streets are mainly along the city river, therefore making the city the perfect place for bridges! Many, many, many bridges! The most important and iconic one is the Dragon bridge! A dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana it can be found pretty much anywhere on the street and even on the Ljubljana flag! 

Another important bridge is the triple bridge. Way before cars and traffic there was one bridge connecting the two parts of town but once trains, cars, and people needed to cross it, it became kind of a problem! People were afraid of walking it while cars going 10km per hour were going through it so an architect, Joze Plecnik (our guide made us repeat his name a thousand times during the 2 hour tour) was appointed to build a bigger bridge. To the town’s surprise Plecnik had the fabulous idea of not making the bridge wider but instead having 3 bridges, one for the train and cars (I think), and two pedestrian bridges on the side! Quite creative! But now, the streets are pedestrian only so all three bridges are walkable!

Slovenia is a rather new country, it is 26 years old and it wasn't until 1991 that their constitution was written and got a national anthem. Slovenians love poetry and have many many poets therefore it was no surprise that they picked a part of a poem (more like their drinking song) as their anthem. My free walking tour started in a square with a statue of the poet, Preseren, "strategically" placed facing the window where his love interest, Julia, lived (although they said she lived a little bit down but because of the curvature of the street they decided to put her sculpture up the street a little bit.) 

The center has a great outdoor market, where we got to try picled radish and cabbage!

My last day I spent it walking the "edgy" part of town with lots of graffiti and a great artistic ambiance.

Ljubljana was such a nice surprise... probably one of my favorite town in the Balkans!