So the adventure begins. 9 new countries in just over 3 weeks. It'll be a fast paced ride with tons of new impressions - just the way I like it! (I'm the type of guy that can't do revolving doors as they move to slow for my liking..)
Arriving in Ljubljana was nothing out of the ordinary. It's your typical eastern European capital with the river running through it, lots of nice architecture, pedestrian streets - and of course "ye olde castle" on a hill, overlooking the city.
My first day was terrific! The weather was pristine and I did my own little city-walk, including a trip up to the castle to get some nice landscape shots of the downtown area and its surroundings. After a few hours I realized I hadn't done too much planning in advance before this trip so I really had no idea about what to do or what to see when at first I got to Slovenia. I did however manage to find several nice spots along the riverbank so I sat down and decided to consult TripAdvisor on one of the numerous free WiFi zones.
To my horror the number one thing to do in Ljubljana according to the almighty Internet was the Free Walking Tour (or Tour-for-tips as is a more fitting description). According to common knowledge there wasn't really anything special to see or do at all in this city. The old-town area is pretty for sure, but historical? Not so much. Spectacular? Naah.. Well, following the sheep of the net I decided I had better do the walking tour then..
..and then the rain came. After a short while I realized my second mistake on this trip was not bringing proper footwear. Beside my flip-flops all I had were a pair of canvas shoes that sucked up any moist closer than a few meters away. At least that's how it felt as I was soaked in a minute. Completing the walk with wet feet I realized why it's rated this high. The girl that showed us around did quite a sell at the end of the trip, urging anyone to go directly back to their hotel or hostel, log on the Internet and provide an outstanding review on.. you guessed it - TripAdvisor. Oh well, I did it too but it didn't get more than an average from me, which is what it was.
I decided later to consult my receptionist on what to do in the city. Being a local I was hoping she'd have more real information than what I was able to dig up on the Internet. "What should I do when I'm here?" And the response was: "Well.. we have these really good hamburgers made out of horse meat.." And that was it. Hehe - I tried getting some more information out of her but to no avail. Well then, horseburger it was! Having my shoes barely dry again I decided to take a taxi to the "Hot Horse" as I was afraid just the sight of water would soak them again. I got some complaints from the receptionist around being lazy, but shrugged it off. Better lazy with dry feet, than sporty and with a cold I thought.
The Hot Horse was indeed a cool thing. You order from a machine with a touch-screen interface and get to watch while your order is put together behind the counter and served. The burgers were HUGE and tasted really good, though I cannot say I felt the meat taste very different from your usual beef. I would recommend them though - they were excellent. Fun fact: If you type in "Horseburger" on google, your first autocomplete-suggestion is "Ljubljana". Obviously the receptionist were right when she told me this is what people do over there. (http://www.hot-horse.si)
Exiting the restaurant and a quick couple of hundred meters to the taxi stand my feet were wet again so I decided to do the walk downtown and enter the first shoe-shop I could find. Inside I bought both a fresh, dry pair of socks and some leather and gore-tex hiking shoes and things were looking better straight away. Ljubljana however had at this point done all it could for me, so I decided to get back to the hostel, grab my gear and go to the train station. My oh-so-awesome Interrailticket was about to get it's first stamp.
