Have you ever read a book and in your head pronounced a character's name extremely wrong, only to find out how off you are when its been adapted into a movie? You kinda feel like your whole life's been a lie. Anyways, I first heard of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, when I had to learn every country's capital in my college Geography class. Like any rational human being, I pronounced it el-jubble-jannah, but luckily never had to say it out loud. Fast forward to my first year living in Europe where I somehow read something about Ljubljana and asked D a question about the city. He bursts into tears saying "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST CALL IT"? D (and the rest of Europe) are always making fun of Americans for our lack of Geographical knowledge, but honestly I felt like he should be impressed I had heard of the place to begin with. Besides, how was I supposed to know have of those letters were silent? Anyways, the correct pronunciation is lube-lee-annuh and ever since that day, whenever I have a "blonde moment", D refers to me as an "el-jubble-jannah".
Naturally since this word has become such a household name of ours, I looked forward to the day I could travel to this mystical city. I had heard amazing things about it and now that we're just two hours away we made sure it was on our bucket list this year.
I love getting to see cities before they become huge tourist destinations. Tourism in Ljubljana is on the rise and in five or so years, I'm sure it'll be a completely different city. We stayed at the most gorgeous hotel and paid a fraction of what it would cost in a major European city. Gotta love that.
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| The main square |
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| Love locks on one of the many bridges |
D and I 100% judge a city on how good its food is. Slovenia has amazing Mediterranean cuisine with Italian influences. They really pride themselves on their olive oils and we tried some of the best I've ever had (In fact it took everything in my power not to steal every restaurant's olive oil off the table and stash it into my purse). We were blown away by how good the food was.
Ljubljana is a small city and everything is easily accessible on foot, which is so nice. The main center is situated around a river with the city's old castle on a hill perched behind it. Its beautiful and reminded me of a mix between Prague and Vilnius, completely different from anywhere I've ever been.
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| On top of Ljubljana Castle |
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| The city center with the castle behind |
If you ever have a chance to go to Ljubljana, jump on that! I had hyped this city so much in my head after using its name so often, and I'm happy to say, it did not disappoint! I will continue to (proudly) call it el-jubble-jannah and encourage you to do the same.
That is a cool place, a place where you can walk awhie and go up to the castle at the top..fun.
ReplyDeleteNone of my American friends could identify where Slovenia is on the map.. I was asked to attend a painter's week in Slovenia and met the most wonderful, kind people. It is good you wrote about it.
That is a cool place, a place where you can walk awhie and go up to the castle at the top..fun.
ReplyDeleteNone of my American friends could identify where Slovenia is on the map.. I was asked to attend a painter's week in Slovenia and met the most wonderful, kind people. It is good you wrote about it.