Ljubljana

Riding into Ljubljana was a breeze, passing through beautiful farmland and small towns on our way. We made some new friends with the people sitting in our cabin, everyone had Eurail passes like us and we all shared stories of our travels up till that point. It was a pleasant way to pass the time and make some new friends.

After we dropped our stuff off at our Airbnb, we headed out in search of a cafe. Becca wanted some food and Ryan wanted some caffeine (priorities). We found a small cafe tucked away next to a bunch of large apartment buildings. We surprised the worker when we started speaking English, we think it was a pretty local spot.

We went with the idea of getting coffee and pastry, but we’ve found that a lot of “cafes” are more of bars and ended up getting beer and pizza. We thought that we were ordering bruschetta, but the translation must have been a bit off because what arrived was more of a pizza. We enjoyed it nonetheless and sat at the cafe for a long time, with Becca writing in her journal and Ryan reading his book.

After an hour or so, we headed home and started musing about where to have dinner. Finding nothing easily online, we opted to walk into downtown and scope out our options. There were dozens of restaurants lining either side of the river cutting through town, and we wandered from menu to menu trying to find something yummy and cheap! Luckily we did not have to look for too long, finding a nice Mexican restaurant right on the river.

Satisfying our long-held cravings for burritos and guac, we scarfed down our dinner before exploring the area. On our walk we stumbled into lots of live music performances, ranging from classical music to… something resembling Flight of the Concords (which isn’t nearly as good when you can’t understand any of the lyrics). We spent the next hour walking from performer to performer and stopping in a few shops on the way, until it started getting dark and we called it a night.

In the morning Becca did some research and found a coffee shop that had a book exchange, so we headed there first. Becca had finished her book and was on the hunt for a new one, finding it difficult to find any english bookstores. The cafe was fantastic. There was outdoor seating next to the river and we spent an hour or two eating sandwiches, drinking coffee and tea, reading, and Becca wrote in her journal. Unfortunately the book exchange was not a success, but it was fun sorting through the book titles anyway!

After coffee we hiked up to the top of the hill to see the castle. The view was great, even if the castle itself was underwhelming. We spent some time exploring the area around the castle, as there were a few small parks on top of the hill.

We set out back into town, stopping to pick up some lunch food for a picnic. We found a nice shaded place in a nearby park and settled in – alternating between eating lunch, relaxing in the grass and journaling. We stayed there for a couple hours before walking deeper into the park until a mob of mosquitos drove us out.

We headed back to the airbnb to clean up before dinner, it was so hot out! We decided to try a seafood tapas place for dinner because it wasn’t too expensive, and Ryan had been itching to get Becca to try more seafood on this trip. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The restaurant was great and had outdoor seating, which we thought was a plus at the time. We sat down and Ryan picked a few dishes for us to split: squid, shrimp, and fish and chips (something Becca would definitely eat so she wouldn’t go hungry if worst came to worst). The food arrived and Becca quickly realized that the shrimp wasn’t the kind you buy frozen at the supermarket – these had shells and faces. The squid was even more shocking because Becca had only ever seen fried squid.

Ryan tried to teach Becca how to eat the shrimp first, but Becca mis-heard “pull off the tail” as “pull off the head” and ended up with a pile of head juice on her plate which was not a good way to start a meal she was trying so hard to be open minded about. Ryan sighed and took Becca’s plate to prepare her shrimp for her while she started in on the fish and chips.

To top it off, before even getting started on our own food, we watched as the table next to ours was swarmed by flies. At least 20 flies feasted on the bodies of the shrimp they’d already eaten and they did nothing to shoo them away – it was one of the most unappetizing things Becca has ever seen. This was when we realized that sitting outside was not as ideal as we’d initially thought. We spent most of our meal trying to keep flies away from our food.

Despite all of this, we do not want you to think the meal was terrible. It was definitely memorable though! Becca tried the shrimp and squid, and even though Ryan said she made the worst face he has ever seen while eating the squid, she said that it wasn’t bad.

To make up for the less-than-ideal seafood experience, Ryan suggested we grab some gelato on the way home. Becca had heard of a famous gelato-stand, called Cacao, so we made our way there – seeing the long line before we saw the stand itself! The gelato lived up to the hype! It was really good, especially the fancy “Single Origin” pistachio gelato that Ryan tried. While we originially scoffed at the stand pushing fancier gelatos, it actually was some of the best we have ever had.

It was a great way to cap off our stay in Ljubljana, as we headed home for the evening before departing for Trieste early the next morning.

Trieste

The bus ride to Trieste started off normal, with a cramped bus and no wifi, but after an hour or two the bus stopped completely on the freeway, leaving everyone confused. After a few minutes the bus driver finally turned the key and everyone realized that we weren’t going anywhere for a while. We got off of the bus and saw the cars stretching in both directions for miles.

After about an hour, some cars started slowly moving again, and our bus driver ran off down the road to see what was happening. Returning a few minutes later, he started the bus and we started moving again. We quickly realized why none of the other busses / trucks were moving – instead of having cleared out the accident, the police were beginning to have some cars exit the freeway.

But this was no ordinary exit. It was a small gap in the guard rails which led to a stretch of dirt road going in the opposite direction of traffic. For smaller cars, this was an easy feat as they had plenty of room to fit through the gap and turn onto the road. However, for our massive bus this proved a little more difficult. Many people were looking on in disbelief as our bus driver positioned himself to attempt to shoot the gap. Our first couple maneuvers were unsuccessful, so we began to turn so that we were facing oncoming traffic to make the turn easier. Slowly but surely we crept through the small gap and turned onto the dirt road, probably the largest vehicle to ever do so up to that point!

After a few more stressful moments, we drove along some side streets until we had passed where the accident was. We merged onto the completely empty freeway and continued our progress towards Trieste, only two hours behind schedule!

Luckily for us, we had changed our travel plans the night before, opting to have three hours of sightseeing in Trieste before catching our second train to the Trieste airport instead of reserving a train that left right after our bus was supposed to arrive. Unfortunately that meant we did not have any time to see the sights, but we were lucky to not have our travel plans messed up by the delay. We spent our hour in the train station having a bit of lunch before catching the train.

We took the train to the Trieste Airport where we were picked up by our B&B host. We picked the B&B because of its proximity to the airport as our flight to Rome was at 9:30 AM the next day. Other perks included airport transfer and free breakfast which helped a lot for an early morning flight!

The B&B we stayed at was called B&B Happy Family and was located in a town of about 2000 people in someone’s family home – we stayed in the daughter’s room complete with stuffed animals and certificates on the wall (she was grown and had moved out). The host, Flavia, did not speak much English, but her son helped with translation and we were able to communicate pretty well. She was an amazing host and immediately made us feel welcome.

Within a few minutes of arriving there she made us coffee and tea, and offered to make dinner for us as well! We were being thoroughly spoiled, and spent some time relaxing before wandering into town. When we got back to the B&B it had grown very hot, so we decided to hang out in the shade outside and work on journaling / blogging. All the while, we had the nice and cool pool staring us in the face, and before too long we had to take advantage and jump in. It was a much needed break from the heat. Even the wildlife agreed – as we were joined in the pool by a tiny frog!

When we dried off and went back to the house we were hit by the smell of lemons and found our host, Flavia, making homemade marmalade in a huge pot in the kitchen. She told us that we would have some for breakfast the next day – yum! We went back and relaxed for a bit before we were called for dinner. Expecting a nice dinner for the two of us, we found an entire table set for six covered with appetizers.

Flavia had invited friends from the community as well as the other guests (we didn’t know there were other people staying there until that point – they had been so quiet)! We all sat around the table and ate amazing food – salami, tomatoes, rocket, mozzarella, bread, etc. and drank wine chosen by Flavia’s son who turned out to be in the wine business. The conversation alternated between Italian and English and we got to know all of the people a lot better. It was a wonderful dinner topped off with homemade meatballs and ice cream sandwiches for dessert. We went to sleep with happy tummys.

The next morning we woke up early and left for the airport. Flavia and her son left us with recommendations for places to see and eat in Rome and well wishes for the rest of our trip.

We arrived at the airport braced for the horrors that we could endure from flying Ryanair – to find a very pleasant experience instead. We weren’t hassled about our bags, the staff was very friendly, and the pilot was totally fine! Ryan claims that they always do a good job when someone named Ryan is on board, but we’ll have to test that theory further.

We arrived in Rome quickly and made our way to our Airbnb, happy to be back in the cool AC.