LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

Ljubljana (loob-lee-AH-nuh) is the capital city of Slovenia, has a population of only 272,000, and has a very walkable old town.

Preseren Square lies at the center of the city. When we were there, a rock concert was just getting underway in front of the main building of the University of Ljubljana, which faces the Square:

JULIAN ALPS, SLOVENIA

The northwest corner of Slovenia might be the most beautiful place I have ever been. The Julian Alps (named for Julius Caesar) are spectacular.

Roofed Slovenian hayracks are recognized as part of the national heritage and are now preserved.

The advertising on the hayrack below makes it just a little less quaint, don't you think?

LAKE BLED, SLOVENIA

We left for the Balkans on Tuesday, May 21st, just a few hours after I finished grading my finals and submitting final grades.  When we checked our bags at LAX, the British Airways guy at the counter, who actually was British, asked, "What country is Zagreb in?"  That was our first indication that we were heading off on a somewhat unusual adventure.

After twenty-one stressful hours of travel from home to LAX to London to Frankfurt to Zagreb that required some running on both of the connections, we arrived in Croatia at 10:20 p.m.  We had arranged a late pick-up for our car, which we rented from Oryx, a Croatian car rental agency.  Bob had also rented a GPS unit, without which we figured we would be doomed.  Everything was ready and waiting for us.

Then the real fun began.

For whatever reason, the GPS took us down a series of dark, narrow residential streets.  We wandered aimlessly for almost an hour, while Sophia, which is what we named the disembodied GPS voice, insisted that we had arrived.  Finally, we got the GPS to work properly, and with only a few more dead ends, we made it to our hotel, the Best Western Premiere Astoria, at around 12:30 a.m.  We learned that the street names that showed up on the Garmin GPS Navigator almost never agreed with the posted street names. That should have been our first clue that trouble lay ahead, but we were too tired to think about it.

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and down to the buffet breakfast that came with our room.  It was phenomenal, one of the best we have ever had in any hotel, and it was a terrific start to our first full day.