Following my pretty adventurous experiences in Nice and Cinque Terre, it was time for things to calm down a little bit. From Cinque Terre, once we managed to recuperate Peter’s spare keys, we drove straight to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and I stayed at Samo’s house.
To note that tolls in Italy are severely expensive, to go from Cinque Terre, which is in the Liguria region on the northwest coast, all the way to the Slovenian border, about a five-hour drive, it cost us circa €44, which is A LOT.
Anyways, so I am currently in Milan after having spent a total of around five days in Slovenia, three days in Budapest and two days in Umag, Croatia.
So Slovenia. I would be lying if I told you that one year ago I expected to be visiting there. Slovenia is an extremely small country directly to the East of Italy. It is said to be at the crossroads of Europe in every sense of the word. It is the intersection of all the major language groups in Europe, as it borders Austria to the North, Italy to the West, Croatia to the South and Hungary to the East, therefore bordering Latin, Germanic, Slavic and Hungarian languages. Furthermore, it has a widely diverse geographical makeup. It is dominated by mountains to the North, home to a part of the Alps, it has some relatively flat lands to the East and it has about 45km of coast nestled cozily in between Trieste and the Croatian border. Slovenia also counts several lakes, including its biggest lake, Lake Bohinj, and Slovenia is home to ONE island, which is found in the middle of Lake Bled. For this, Slovenia is also known to have some of the cleanest drinking water in Europe, and being a Canadian, I can confirm that their water is pretty good.
Slovenia’s capital city is Ljubljana, counting a grand total of 300,000 people. The country as a whole counts roughly 2 million people, and so the rest of the population is scattered across towns with under 100,000 people, so the country has a relatively unique population makeup since it’s not all concentrated in the biggest cities.
And well, lucky me, I got to visit almost everything that Slovenia had to offer. On my first day there Samo gave me a tour of the capital, Ljubljana, which is also where he lives, and though it is small, there is quite a good atmosphere in the city. The architecture is pretty impressive though not too different than the architecture of other European countries, but what Ljubljana has that’s pretty special is a huge castle on top of a hill in the middle of the city.
In fact, what impressed me most about Ljubljana is that, despite it being a capital city, albeit a rather smaller one, you barely get the sense that you’re in a hustling, bustling capital. When you take a closer look, especially when observing the city from one of its many lookout points, either from the castle itself or from its tallest building (where we went one day for a drink), you can’t help but notice that you see even more green, more forest and trees and parks, than you see buildings and houses. Ljubljana, and really Slovenia as a whole, is an extremely green country and its capital city mixes up the perfect blend of green space and living space and activities and everything. I feel like there is truly a peaceful and harmonious life there in Slovenia, and though a small country it has much to offer.
On the second day Samo and a few of his friends brought me to Lake Bohinj and Bohinj National Park. As mentioned above, Lake Bohinj is Slovenia’s biggest lake, and the National Park is stunning. I should probably mention here that the country really is pretty small, so we drove about 90 minutes from the Ljubljana, which is located smack in the centre of the country, to Bohinj, and we were extremely close to the Austrian border. Apparently the country takes a total of four hours to drive through…
Anyways, so I should also mention here the difference size standards. First off, Lake Bohinj was beautiful, and it was really a lake nestled in the mountains so as you go swimming you can look around and you’re surrounded by stunning mountains covered in forest. This lake, which was pretty big, is actually a lot smaller than many Canadian lakes I’ve seen. I guess it’s a bit unjust of me to draw a comparison because Canada is the country with the most lakes in the world, I just need to mention that, even though it’s their biggest lake, well, not to sound bad here, but I’ve seen bigger. Regardless, this is by no way an attempt to take away from its beauty, because it was truly stunning.
Interesting story. So Samo and his friends all went into the water in the morning… but lasted around five seconds each. They ran in, and ran out immediately after, claiming the water was so damn cold that it’s impossible to go into. At that moment I decided not to go in if they panicked this much, but later in the day we agreed to all go in together once more and so I went in and the water really was not that bad at all, and I went swimming for over half an hour whereas they all retreated once again claiming, once again, that it was too damn cold.
I guess I really am Canadian and have more of a tolerance for cold. Huh.
Later that day we went to a nearby city, Bled, famous for its lake in which you can find the only island in the country. Bled, of course, is also famous for a dessert, Kremna Rezina.
The next few days at Samo’s were relatively tranquil. We went out a few times in town and we went jogging in the hills as well, where I got severely lost one day, but all in all, it was fine.
As planned, on the Friday of that week we headed down to Umag, Croatia. Umag is in the North of Croatia not too far from the Slovenian border, and we were headed there to attend a music festival that Samo goes to every year. In fact, Samo has a country house there in Umag, which is a five-minute walk from the beach and a short drive from the city.
Essentially this was a music festival to celebrate the ATP (tennis) tournament held in Umag that week, and people showed up by the thousands. Of course, we went hard. We arrived on the Friday night and had a few drinks before showing up to the music festival and staying out until 6 AM. I don’t even know why we decided, on both nights of the festival, to walk the 6 km home, but hey, whatever, travel stories. Also another highlight of my time at this festival was beating Samo’s friend Maja in a chugging contest, she was so sure she would beat me…
So Friday and Saturday we went out ‘til about 6 AM, and during the day we went to the beach near Samo’s house. Interesting to note, Croatian beaches, as I’ve been told, are not naturally sandy. They are more likely to be rocky, and I learned that when I went to the Umag beach near Samo’s. Rocky beaches are less comfortable for sleeping, but hey, the water in the sea was perhaps the best water I have ever been in, in my life, hands down. It’s hard to put into words why, but I’ll try. Essentially the water was an extremely comfortable 25 degrees, or even warmer, it was calm and swimming in it was extremely pleasant, but what I found the most pleasant was just literally lying on my back, basking in its warmth, and staring up at the beautiful sky. I spent one hour per day in that water and am determined one day to do a full Croatian-coast road trip.
Of course, we also visited the town of Umag itself, which was quite cute.
On the Sunday, after two nights at the music festival, we went a bit to the beach in Umag, and we then headed to Portoroz, Slovenia. Portoroz is a town on the Slovenian seaside, very small yet picturesque, and a good place to enjoy an ice cream. We didn’t see the entire seaside, I would have liked to see the city of Piran, but hey, some other time, I can’t complain about what I did see.
Something I found interesting about the North of Croatia and the Slovenian seaside, and here’s something probably not everybody knows. They speak Italian there. Italian is a minority language that has co-official status with Slovenian and Croatian in these municipalities, and especially in Croatia, I heard lots of people, locals, Croatians, speaking Italian as their native languages, ergo, among each other. In Slovenia too, Slovenia is the country in which there is the highest percentage of Italian speakers as a minority language in the world, and there they even greet you with their version of the Bonjour/Hi, essentially ‘hello’ in Slovenian (I don’t even know what it is…) followed by “ciao.” I even tried them one day in Portoroz and I asked for information in Italian, and the employee answered me in perfect Italian. Interesting.
Also, interesting to note, Samo and all of his friends speak PERFECT English. And when I was around they even spoke English to each other sometimes so I can understand, it was really impressive to watch. And I guess it IS POSSIBLE to preserve cultural heritage and learn English… (take notes Quebec).
Also one more thing to note, Samo’s house is really big and really nice, and his parents extremely friendly and generous. We did eat extremely well while we were there, and one night we even hosted a pancake party in which we used my maple syrup from Canada, which I hadn’t yet opened all year, and I witnessed about a half-dozen people try maple syrup for the first time!
Finally, Samo and I went to Budapest. We were just the two of us, and we had a good three days there, so lots of time, and I have to say, BUDAPEST IS AMAZING.
The city has everything: amazing architecture, several lookout points, a rich history, great food, cheap prices, vibrant nightlife and amazing people. I said that if not Madrid, I think I’d have wanted to do my exchange in that city. Of course, I could understand absolutely nothing of the Hungarian language, but hey, people there speak English!
Seriously though, just take a look at this architecture in the main cathedral and the parliament building.
We did a general tour of one part of town on the first day then ate traditional Hungarian for dinner for next to nothing. My meal included traditional Goulash and dumplings while Samo had some delicious stuffed chicken.
The next day we visited perhaps one of the nicest parts of town, the old medieval castle and its cute nearby streets. Just amazing.
And then that night Samo and I and this Czech couple we met at the hostel went partying at Budapest’s most famous club: Instant. The music and ambiance was great, it had three dance floors, and lots of bar and drinking space, in fact it was a building destroyed by the war and then reconstructed. The only thing that sucked about this club was that there was no air flow and it was SO. DAMN. HOT.
Anyways, so the third day we were half dead but we mustered enough energy to visit a big palace and then the most amazing lookout in the city.
And we learned a fair bit of history along the way. Budapest has an extensive Jewish history and features a large number of Jewish eateries. Furthermore, in the Jewish quarter alone we can notice the different architectures, how the buildings’ architecture is different above the first floor. Also, interesting fact, nothing in Budapest is older than 150 years old, this because of major floods 150 years ago that destroyed the entire city.
Unfortunately that’s all the history I know for now, though I’ll look up more interesting facts on the city and post them here.
That was all for Budapest and my Eastern-European adventures for this year, I will definitely be back in this part of the world, and I must say, my time in Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary were among my top all year, this summer really is panning out as spectacularly as planned.
Looking forward to heading down to the South of Italy Monday and seeing my cousins!!!
Less than a month left in Europe…
Dan.
Studying Abroad in Madrid!! 