Ljubljana - The Dragon City

 

We weren’t sure what to expect in Ljubljana. It is a town of about 300,000 people and 50,000 students. That’s about the size that Austin was when Malcolm went to University of Texas. Young people everywhere. We found that almost everyone we talked to spoke perfect English. An unbelievable 74% of Slovenians adults speak English.  

The city is built around a big bend in the Ljubljanica River. As usual, there’s a castle on the top of the hill, built by the Hapsburgs during their reign over the city. Since no one from the family lived here, it was mostly for the Governors who managed the city and collected the taxes for the Hapsburgs.

 We love cities with free walking tours. Well, they are not really free. You’re expected to tip the guide if they did good work and our guide was outstanding. During the tour she told us about the geology of the city, about key people in the architectural history, and even about legends.

 She talked about the geology of their ‘disappearing lakes and how they were interconnected via a network of underground caves and sinkholes. About how the waters would disappear and then reappear. Known as a karst, it is literally an underground plumbing system that either holds water or drains it. It may be a massive lake or a swamp or grassland depending upon actions within the karst, the time of year, or the amount of rain received. We took a boat ride through the old city and it reminded us of San Antonio along the river.

 

We just loved the cool design of this building.

On April 14, 1895, Easter Sunday, the town was rocked by an earthquake that took out about 10% of the city.  The city engaged an architect, Jože Plečnik, to help design the rebuilding of the city.   He believed that bridges were not just for crossing waterways, but also public spaces for people to gather and talk. So, the bridges were big. When cars came into use and the main bridge was outgrown, he didn’t tear it down and build a bigger one, he simply had two new bridges built on both sides of the current bridge creating the famous triple bridges. He loved columns. He created a marketplace that would have been at home in Athens or Rome with a long narrow market and lots of open space for the people. Like Gaudi in Barcelona, he had a monumental impact on the architecture of the city.

There are many schools of architecture reflected in Ljubljana. Jože Plečnik’s style was mostly Vienna Secession, which is a type of Art Nouveau, which is juxtaposed on an older Baroque style of buildings that still remain.

We have not been doing as good this trip at covering local foods. But here are two local treats. The Gibanica, a tasty layered cake desert 

This delicacy, the Mušelni, looks like an oyster or mussel. But in years past, the transport of such seafood inland was almost impossible. According to our guide, only the very wealthy could afford them. So they made do with a fake delicacy. It was a sea shell with a bed of polenta, topped with a small slice of beef or lamb and then covered with a light cheese. We found this fake oyster delicacy delicious.

Cities, like people, tell stories of their origin that make them feel good. Ljubljana is known as the Dragon City. According to the story told to us by our tour guide, the key player here a long time ago was ‘Jason.’ Yes, that Jason, of Jason and the Argonauts. If you’re not familiar with Jason and the Argonauts, I’ll let you go discover that on your own. But when Jason had successfully captured the golden fleece, he was making his way back to Greece. He was bringing the fleece through the Ljubljana Marsh which is an expansive marshy area that periodically threatens Ljubljana with flooding. He encountered a monster in the marsh and Jason struck down the monster. The monster evolved into the dragon that today is present in the city coat of arms and flag.

This is the door to the Church of St Nicholas. The door was actually created in 1996 and the main figure in the middle at the top is Pope John Paul II on the occasion of his visit to Ljubljana to commemorate 1250th anniversary of Christianity in Slovenia. 

During WWII Italy occupied the city. One story our guide told us was that there was a lot of building happening right before the war and even during the early years of the war. Slovenia had managed to stay out of the war, but the Italians were coming and needed a headquarters. What better than a newly constructed library building. As the Italians were approaching, the town’s people formed a human line from the old library to the new library and were passing books so the new library would appear to be in use. It worked. The Italians chose a different building as their headquarters. But during the confusion as the Italian soldiers came into town, several of the soldiers saw the line that was moving the books and joined in to pass books along.

This is the library. It's hard to see, but the windows open like books.

The interactions between the occupying soldiers and the citizens within the city were interesting. The soldiers did not try to totally dominate or enslave the people. But they did put a barbed wire fence around the city to keep the inhabitants from assisting the resistance that operated outside of the city fence.

After WWII, the population of Slovenia was about 1.4 million citizens and today it is about 2.1 million. The word of the day is remembrance. Slovenia has a history of post-WWII atrocities as people were repatriated. Our understanding is that the one thing you don’t talk about in Slovenia is this. We’re not sure we knew anyone well enough to discuss it so we didn't go there. But we know that there is work going on to make sure that these repatriated but murdered people are not forgotten.

 Remembrance!

 

The castle as seen from town. 

The congress building was built to host the 1821 Congress of Laibach (now Ljubljana) Check this one out in your history book. It may not be there. You may have to Google it.

Some pictures from a boat trip on the river.

One way to see the river.

A view of the triple bridge from the river.

The back side of the market, facing the river. Notice the columns.

We also visited the Castle. There are multiple ways to get there including walking up. We chose the funicular. One of the shortest we have ever seen and we're told it is once of the shortest in the world. 

The view from the top!

We loved Ljubljana! Just the right size. We're not sure we'd want to be here during the height of tourist season, but in early May the crowd sizes were small, the lines were short or non-existent and the people were the friendliest. As we said at the start, the ability to communicate in English with almost everyone made it much easier to navigate, and did we tell you that there's gelato on almost every corner. How could anything be wrong with that.