The Ljubljana-Rijeka Line

It was a short two and a half hours by train through Slovenia down to the Croatian port city of Rijeka. The two cars pulled by the engine were barely full and it seemed like most of the passengers were people who'd spent the day in Ljubljana and were going home to small villages in the countryside. 

The scenery lives up to what I'd read about Slovenia being one of the most forested countries in Europe. The leaves were well on their way to their fall peak as large areas of bright yellow mixed in with dark hills covered in pines. Tidy terra cotta-roofed villages took on an alpine look as we wound our way through the hilly Karst region, crossing into Croatia at dusk and descending to the Adriatic coast in the dark.

   

Hybrid Slovenia

  
 

The morning we woke up in Ljubljana was chilly and drizzly. Once we realized we hadn't yet withdrawn any Euros to check out of our hostel we set out along the Ljubljanica River through the center of the small city to find a bank. The dragons of Zmajski Most (Dragon Bridge) looked a little less threatening in the cool grey light of the morning. 

  

The architecture throughout the Old Town appeared to me as a graceful mixture of Baroque and Art Nouveau (which here I will assume reflects the Austrian influence brought by centuries of Habsburg rule) along with the Mediterranean red terra cotta roofs and high frequency of Pietas (which I think I can assume reflect Slovenia's position next to Italy at the southern edge of Europe). The stretch of town on our way out to the train station was sprinkled with taller modern glass and concrete buildings, and from the vantage point of the Ljubljana Castle, situated on a high bluff in the center of the city, we could see the  concrete apartment blocks typical of formerly communist countries repeating themselves out in the suburbs.

  

A large number of nuns on the streets was immediately noticeable (I had already counted eight by the time we reached an ATM). A second obvious element of city life here is the number of bicycles flying in all directions. I do see a lot more of those on the streets and sidewalks of Budapest compared with New York, but their ubiquity here jumped out at me (and almost over me a few alarming times).

  

The large market at Vodnikov Trg was filled with everything from bananas and beeswax candles to enormous amounts of flowers. The side streets of the Old Town are filled with expensive, stylish boutiques and outdoor cafes with hip waiters balancing trays of cappuccinos. The grey wet weather, however, seemed to maintain a strict mitteleuropean catholic rule over the city that lasted all day.

   

    

West Balkan loop

Tomorrow we leave for about a week through parts of the former Yugoslavia. We'll sort of be playing it by ear as we go, so the agenda might change as we miss a key connection or so (this time of year the ferries in the Adriatic Sea run a couple of times a week as opposed to one or more per day in the high season). 

The loose plan as it stands before departure is: we've got our train tickets for Ljubljana, Slovenia tomorrow. We'll spend Monday there before getting down to Rijeka, in Croatia to catch the ferry down the coast to Dubrovnik. After that we'll make our way back up through Bosnia and Herzegovina via Mostar and Sarajevo before returning to Budapest. How long any of those legs last will depend on what we encounter, but the long distance ferry is only twice a week so if we miss that we'll likely just take buses down the coast or something. From what I've read about the area, I don't expect it'll be too disappointing to find ourselves stuck or going off plan because the whole region looks completely fascinating. The trick for me will be keeping a willingness to give something up for the sake of not moving too fast to get too much in. Long hours reading on the train should dial things down a notch.