Chronicles of Leisure

With the assistance of an extremely pleasant tourist info. employee at the Ljubljana train station, I was booked into a hotel in the center of town within minutes of arrival. Literally, the hotel was 50 meters from the center of town, could not have asked for more. Very cool town, the center is a semi-circle with a river running through it, cobblestone alleys with bars, restaurants and shops, and a castle on top of a hill overlooking the town. Although I was passed by a woman twice my age during the climb, I did manage to make it up there and snap a few shots. Spent two days in Ljubljana and I think I saw all there is to see.  Here are a few photos

 Right at the center of town on the edge of the circle is a very cool patio bar with live music each night. Jan is the man behind the bar there, poured the best Jack & Coke yet on the trip. Croatia was the land of the “corporate pour” as my friend Nick would say, every drink measured out to one shot and then poured in your glass. I am not sure many of us realize just how little booze that is. At any rate, “free-pour Jan” as I immediately nicknamed him was not from the school of corporate pours. Great service, great drinks, and great advice on the rest of Slovenia. I was planning on flying from Ljubljana to Berlin, but ended up traveling across Slovenia by train instead – what a scenic three hour ride from Ljubljana to Mariboro, the second largest city in Slovenia. Stopped off there for a night, with the intention of continuing on the next day to Vienna, had to break up a seven hour journey into two segments of three and a half. Mariboro was small, scenic, and a ghost town by 10 p.m. Got my laundry done and moved on to Vienna. An even more spectacular train ride, mountain gorges, raging rivers, chalets and cows grazing on hills so steep I couldn’t figure out how they didn’t fall over. Arrived Thursday into Vienna Sudbanhoff, and having booked a hotel in advance for the first time in a while, jumped on the subway and was settled in to the Marc Aurel hotel in the Inner Stadt within an hour of arrival. On the corner by the hotel is a Wurstelstand which sells, among other things, Kasekrainer – apparently a sausage infused with cheese. The stand is open until 5 a.m., the bars in Vienna until 4. Resistance will be futile.