All Around Town

Here are some snippets of things I've seen around town while getting lost, finding dinner, going on a city tour, etc.


A nice plaza along the river. You can see the castle watchtower in the distance.

They day after I toured the castle I hiked the grounds surrounding it. The views were even nicer than from inside the castle. I might have overdone it walking the first day because my legs were pretty sore until yesterday. I think I broke through some kind of barrier where my legs just don't care anymore. It's nice.

There are several bridges along the river, each with their own story. This is the Butcher's Bridge (so called because of it's proximity to the meat market) which was completed in 2010. Couples leave engraved padlocks and throw the key into the river to symbolize their commitment. Some use combination locks just in case things don't work out...


One particularly nice building detail. The city was destroyed by a fire in the late 1800s and rebuilt in mostly art nouveau style by Joze Plecnik, the city architect. Except for the obviously Yugoslavian buildings.


I thought this view from the castle grounds looked particularly like Portland.


I visited the Sunday flea market on the waterfront. It's rather interesting to see what local garage sales would consist of. There was a lot of china, lighting fixtures, books, and military paraphernalia (including Nazi stuff... that surprised me) and folk crafts.


A better view of he castle entrance and what used to be a bridge over the moat.

This is one of four bronzes on the aptly named Dragon Bridge.

I found a coffee shop on a floating platform on the river that provided the best photo opportunities of the river so far. I can't wait for the foliage to all fill in, most of the trees in town are deciduous so it doesn't feel very green yet.

Next: Tivoli Park?

Ljubljana Grad, AKA The Castle

The Ljubljana castle is perched on top of a hill that is surrounded on one half by the old town. From old town there is a funicular (cable car?) railway that saves you the 10 or 15 minute walk up the hill.
This is looking from the top down.


The castle complex houses a history museum, restaurant, chapel, event space, art galleries, and the watchtower. This is the view from the watchtower of the castle courtyard.


Here I am on the viewpoint promenade. Behind me is some of old town. It's a bit too hazy to see but there are actually giant snow covered mountains in the distance.


One of the interior art installations (giant ants crawling out of the walls of the cellar).



The castle is a fascinating mixture of crumbling and cobbled together stones with modern straight lines cutting through wherever it is needed, especially in the lower levels.


The dragon in the symbol for Ljubljana because of the story of Jason and the Argonauts who encountered a dragon that lived in the swamps where Ljubjana was built. So you see representations of dragons everywhere, like this one at the entrance to the castle.

Next: Wandering in the city

REBOOT! Ljubljana, Slovenia style!

Hello! I landed safely in Ljubljana, Slovenia (via Chicago, above, and Munich) on March 20th around 3pm here, which is around 7am back home. I was picked up by one of the school administrators and taken to the school where I was handed off to the director, Dule. He was very welcoming and showed me around their part of town and got me checked into the Hostel where I'll be staying for about a week while the apartment is being remodeled. It was great to talk to him and get answers to all of my burning questions but I was starting to get a bit light headed from exhaustion after being up for over 26 hours. Somehow that combined with the altitude change of three plane rides really throws me for a loop. I got to bed by 8pm!!

The hostel, Vila Veselova. I'm in the Pink Room.

The next couple days I mostly got lost on a wild goose chase to the Ministry of Finance (I was given a false location) in order to get a tax number so I could open a local bank account. Then I got a bit of runaround at the bank. But after two days it's all sorted out.

Yesterday I did my first real bit of sightseeing as a tourist rather than as someone on an errand. I went to the castle.

Much more on that next time, I have a walking tour scheduled for today that I don't want to be late for!

Day 81: Eugene to Portland

Last day of my trip :(. I woke up around the crack of noon and met Ben and a couple of his Seattle friends who were in town for lunch. I just caught the tail end of the meal before Ben had to return to work. Then I got in touch with Wes and caught him a couple hours before he was leaving town so we walked to Dutch Brothers and had a nice mostly film related chat. I had a couple more hours to kill before meeting back up with Ben so I went to Market of Choice just to admire some of my favorite Eugene specialties like Euphoria Chocolate and Eugene City Bakery. I then drove to Hendricks park with the intention of hiking a bit but only made it as far as the parking lot before I got distracted my a call from Jessica.

Ben had plans to meet up with another friend at Burrito Boy for dinner so I invited myself along. Turns out he had the time wrong so we had an hour to walk around campus first. That's the library in the distance.


Oh the Pioneer Father. So many memories. I stuck around and watched some X-Men cartoons until Ben went to bed around 11 and decided at the last minute to head home instead of staying another day. Ben had to start packing for his Japan trip and I had decided to commit to house sitting for him while he was gone so I'd have plenty more Eugene time then. The two hour drive from Eugene to Portland seems lightning fast at this point. Everyone was asleep when I arrived so it was a quiet homecoming. But sleeping in your own bed is quite nice!

Next: I'll be house sitting for Ben from 7/20 to 7/28 so there may be an few bonus adventures.

Day 80: Reno to Eugene

I stayed up into the wee hours gambling (again) so I slept in until shortly before checkout. I tried the new pan Asian place at the Eldorado- Pho Mein for lunch. The pho was probably not anything special but it was exactly what I was in need of at the time. I was seriously considering staying in Reno another day just because it was about 2pm at that point but I knew I would probably lose more money than I would be ok with losing if I stayed so I hit the road with no clear idea of where I would be stopping for the night.

The last time I was in Tahoe I took I-80 to Sacramento/I-5 so I decided to go 395 to 89 through Lassen and Shasta National Forests this time. I think this photo is near the Nevada/California border.


Lassen National Forest was very wet and beautiful. I was really digging the greenness.


This is the best photo I got of Shasta. It was hidden from view for most of the drive. By the time I hit I-5 it started pouring rain so there wasn't much to see.


This is near the California/Oregon border, a little bit north of Weed. Once I crossed into Oregon I managed to get in touch with Ben G. and found out he was in Eugene (I caught him between his San Francisco and Japan trips) so I decided to drive straight through to Eugene.

I caught the moonrise in my rear view around Medford. I got into Eugene around midnight. I could have kept pushing and gotten into Portland around 2am but I wasn't quite ready to be done with my trip so I was glad Ben was around.

Day 79: Off to Reno

I had a nice relaxed last day in Minden. Grace had the day off so we caught up on some TV shows we both like and I finally got a massage! I wanted to stay another night but I knew the longer I stayed the harder it would be to leave. So I decided to drive up to Reno for a night in an effort to build up some momentum. And I needed to get back home in time for Breanna's baby shower.


I managed to get a room at the Eldorado for $32 (I may have had to gamble for a few hours to get that rate but oh well...) and it was by far the nicest room I've stayed in for under $50 on this trip.
The room was in the top corner of the older shorter tower. This was the view, you can almost see the Reno sign.


It was a budget room so it was tiny but adorable. I didn't do much except sleep there anyway.


I realized in all the years I been staying at the Eldorado I never get photos of the ridiculous interior. This is the main lobby area... sort of.


And here is the garish fountain on the way to The Silver Legacy. I had planned to going to La Strada for dinner but apparently they are closed Wed/Thurs (which seems super random to me) so I ended up at Brew Brothers instead. I had a grand old time staying up way too late gambling and losing more money than I planned to but it's hard to hold onto when you have tons on cash in hand and no good way to hide it from yourself. It's probably a good thing that I don't live in Nevada...

Day 78: Still in Minden

I don't think I did anything very interesting today so here are some photos of Max the Lizard: