Katherine & Andrew's Excellent Adventure: My Second Favorite.

Before setting off on the trip (and during), I got quite a few inquisitive looks when mentioning plans to visit Slovenia…looks, that I interpreted to mean, “Slovenia, why on earth did you choose Slovenia? Is there anything to do or see in Slovenia?” Perhaps it never got much attention, other than being a country that had been a part of the former Yugoslavia (or perhaps that is why it didn’t get much attention?). Nonetheless, I had decided that I wanted to visit the caves and generally thought Slovenia to be told as a pretty country. So off to Slovenia we went.

I absolutely loved Slovenia. In fact, it is second (to Australia) on my list of favorite countries visited during this trip (thus far). The country is beautiful – the majority of the country is covered by forest and many of the hillsides house small vineyards. The people are friendly (distinctly European but more laid-back) and multilingual (which makes traveling much easier). The food varies from meat with Austrian and Hungarian influences in the east to seafood and Italian influences in the west.

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We struggled for days (weeks?) trying to figure out how to pronounce Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. I’m not sure there are any words in the English language that have three consonants in a row, at least, certainly not “blj”. Our friends in Austria pronounced it lube-i-ana. When in Turkey, we met a Slovenian man who was actually from Ljubljana, who pronounced it lube-lana. The Hungarian man at the train station pronounced it lube-i-ana. We deferred to the Slovenian man we met in Turkey…until the Slovenian train attendant pronounced it lube-i-ana. Hmm…it seemed that no matter which way we pronounced it, the person we were currently talking to inevitably pronounced it the other way. Finally, we figured it out (I think). In Slovene, “j” is pronounced similar to “y” – therefore, Ljubljana is pronounced lube-li-ana.

From Budapest, Ljubljana is just a short 9.5-hour train ride away… Perhaps if there were an overnight train, the ride would have passed much more quickly. As it was, we arrived into Ljubljana late at night and hiked it straight to our hotel, which was situated near the middle of the city.

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Our first day in Ljubljana was spent running errands, lunching, exploring Old Town, heading up to Lubljana Castle, and more-importantly, getting gelato at one of the many cafes/gelato stands throughout the Old City.

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For our second day, we decided to visit Scokjan Caves and opted to book a tour (due in part to the expense of renting a car). The tour was awesome. We booked with a company called Roundabout Tours (www.roundabout.si) -- if anyone is headed to Slovenia, I highly recommend contacting them.

Scokjan Cave. A Unesco World Heritage site, the cave is one of many karst caves in Slovenia. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside of the cave (which did not stop anyone but me)…

...but someone else may have sneaked in a covert picture...

Lipica. Not far away from the caves is Lipica, home of the famed white Lipizzaner horses. The Austrian Archduke Charles established a stud farm to breed horses for the Spanish Riding School in Austria (which we glanced into while in Vienna). The origin of the Lipizzaner horse has been debated between Austria and Slovenia, with each country claiming the breed as their own. Etched onto the back of Slovenia’s 0.20 Euro coin is the Lipizzaner.

Italy. Not far from Lipica is the Slovenian-Italian border. I had never been to Italy…until our tour guide suggested we cross the border!

Karst dried ham and wine tasting. The Karst region of Slovenia is excellent for curing ham (proscuitto) and making wine. The soil and air are dry, and there are high winds (up to 180 km/hr) that make this region ideal. We stopped at a local place where we dined on bread, olives, cheese, proscuitto, and (new) red wine. It was awesome… The proscuitto wasn’t nearly as salty-tasting as what you would normally find in a store since local producers/sellers do not have to preserve the meat as much as they would if shipping it. I’ve decided that new wine is the perfect kind of wine for me. It’s not aged as much as the wine you normally drink and therefore is lighter (but without losing its flavor).

Piran. After our small meal, we headed to the coast of Slovenia (which is only about 47 km wide) for a few hours of sightseeing in the picturesque town of Piran. Most tourists to the area only come for a day-trip as there is little accommodation and pretty much zero parking in the town.

Predjama Castle. In the 15th century, knight Erazem, perhaps the most well known inhabitant of the castle, was a renowned robber. The Austrian Emperor ordered his death and this was first attempted through starvation. Being built into a cave, Erazem was able to obtain food through secret passageways and according to the legend, taunted his enemies by throwing cherries down to them. Erazem was finally killed by a cannonball…while he was in the outhouse. These days, Predjama Castle is the site of a yearly festival that includes jousting.