Ljubljana, Slovenia

We have spent the last five days in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia and are already besotted!


The Ljubljanica river runs through the city centre

And what's not to love? It has a beautiful and easily walkable old town, super nice locals, free* bike share, flat streets perfect for rollerblading (I left my rollerblades in Munich - d'oh!!), is experiencing a craft beer revolution and has huge green spaces in the middle of the city.

*Bike trips under 1 hour are free - which is pretty easy as there are return terminals everywhere!

Because this is our last "adventure" in Europe (we have two weeks in Slovenia, followed by a final week in Munich before heading to Indonesia), we decided to try a few new things.

A bus trip!
First up, rather than taking the train - our usual mode of transport - we decided to get a bus from Munich to Ljubljana. This made sense because the bus was both cheaper and faster (5 hours) than the train and... free wifi - woo hoo!

Generally, the bus was a good call - we had some of the most beautiful scenery of the trip through the Austrian Alps. On the downside, by the time we got our luggage on the bus and came to choose seats EVERY SINGLE window seat was taken and we couldn't get seats together... Lesson learned for next time - get on the bus early!!

The girl I sat next to spent five hours craning her neck to talk to her friend seated behind her.. just sit together and avoid a crick neck people!! Oh, and a tip from me to you - try not to sit next to someone eating salami the whole time...

Puppy apartment
Airbnb continues to deliver great places to stay! For this trip, I found an apartment which was shared with the host and... a boxer puppy. If you've been following this blog, you might recall that we chose an apartment in Athens based on the two cats that lived there and it was awesome to have pets for a few days.



Airbnb pic with puppy

I was soooo excited. But sadly, it turned out that out host is staying with his girlfriend...and so is his dog. But he did pick us up from the bus station with the gorgeous doggie in tow, and the apartment is awesome, so all is forgiven.

Even without the puppy, it's a great apartment - an easy walk to the centre, an awesome hammock chair (see pic above) and a stereo - set to Slovenian rock radio - wired up to speakers in the bathroom so I can sing along to Def Leppard in the shower!

The dogs
Speaking of dogs, Ljubljana is the most dog obsessed city I've seen with possibly the best dog-to-human ratio in Europe!

Big dogs, small dogs and loads of people have 2 dogs! Imagine a city of 270,000 people that can support a specialist doggie bakery and you have an idea of the level of canine devotion.


Every bike basket may potentially contain a cute canine...


Doggie bakery selling lamb muffins, chewy pretzels and dog cake

Touring Slovenia
I think our only "tour" on this trip so far has been the hiking tour we took in Sofia, which barely counted as a real tour. I'm generally not a huge tour person - taking them pretty much never! But I read about a foodie walking tour in Ljubljana before we arrived and it sounded great, so I signed us up on our first evening!

And I'm really glad we did. Slovenian food is influenced by bordering Italy and Austria (apparently gelato has been in Slovenia as long as it's been in Italy) but has its own cuisine. Our guide, Iva, did an amazing job in making us feel like we'd sampled some great Slovenian food and wine for €35 a head (which included all the food, wine, beer and coffee).

Our first stop was a tiny cafe serving super fresh veggie soup, ratatouille on bulgar wheat and a glass of zelen... a delicious Slovenian white wine. We also tried some local sausage and an amazing spread made out of cottage cheese and pumpkin oil (Phil is already searching for some pumpkin oil to recreate it).



Zelen wine...


Veggie soup

Next stop was for craft beer - a new but growing industry in Slovenia and some bar snacks. Next up was dessert - ice cream AND cake and coffee.


Slovenian cake made with roasted pumpkin seeds, honey and plenty of chocolate

Definitely worth joining Iva's food tour if you're ever passing through Ljubljana. Plus, we met some awesome people on the tour from the Netherlands and Paris and ALL of them had travelled to Oz. Amazing, no?

Hiking
Okay hiking/ nature walking isn't a new activity on this trip. We headed to the forests in Bratislava and Sofia, and went on an overnight hike in the Alps. But in Ljubljana, we walked to nearby Tivoli Park on Sunday and found ourselves walking in a forest about 15 minutes after walking out of our apartment door!!



Gorgeous forest virtually in the centre of town


Perfect weather for a Sunday stroll

The walking trails were filled with people making the most of nature in their backyard. I could have a wander through anytime! Plus, there are a couple of restaurants dotted around, so you're never too far from a beer!

What else?
For some reason, I've been a bit cursed with my stuff in Slovenia. Since we hit Ljubljana, I've lost a beanie, an umbrella and developed a hole in my fairly-new shoes!! All of which felt like a bit of a conspiracy when we got caught in 4 HOURS of rain this afternoon.

We are now the proud owners of a new umbrella, which I hope will be fairly useless in the face of the next week's anticipated clear blue skies!

We've got a few things (loosely) planned for the coming days, including more local walking and cycling and a day trip to picturesque Lake Bled.

I'll keep you posted...

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The sun and the stars

Hamburg

After a fun trip to Bremerhaven in Germany's north to celebrate Phil's uncle's wedding (recap here), we headed back to Hamburg to spend a few days with Phil's grandmother. The pace of life when we stay in Hamburg is so delightfully slow, it's almost impossible not to relax. In our five days' visit we spent a couple of days in the city, walking around, drinking coffees and generally loafing, but we spent most of our Hamburg stay close to home.

On our second morning, we went for a walk around the neighbourhood and spotted... bunnies!!! Finally - I've been scanning the Munich forest for rabbits since March and haven't spotted a single one...


Just sitting on the lawn, looking adorable...

Hamburg had bunnies to spare. One morning we counted twenty (!!!!) in one of the parks, including a handful of tiny baby rabbits (called kittens, which only makes it cuter).
Apparently, they are a bit of a pest, but we were definitely appreciators!



Okay, this is a stock photo, but I swear they were this cute

We also had an up close and personal encounter with some goslings on the banks of Hamburg's Alster lake. These goslings were so tame, they ate right out of our hands...


Of course as soon as I saw them, we went straight to the nearest bakery to pick up supplies and feed them...

Animal encounters aside, we spent most of our time chatting with Phil's grandmother (and I spent a lot of time practising my German, which is slowly improving). She has an awesome sense of humour, a lifetime of stories and an appreciation for schnapps - good times!!

On our final day, Phil's grandmother's cousin (are you following or do I need to draw a family tree??) Hedwig and her husband Berndt took us on a road trip to the East German town of Schwerin which boasts a castle and a beautifully preserved old town. It was a really fun and interesting day and definitely something we would have missed on our own.



The magnificent Schwerin castle - now houses the region's Parliament

Baden Baden
Our next stop was Baden Baden - another of my favourite places to visit - to stay in Phil's grandmother's holiday flat. Baden Baden is a beautiful spa town close to the French border, on the edge of the Black Forest.



View from the Black Forest

Baden Baden has a gorgeous hot spring complex and wineries dotted all over the surrounding hills. With all that to choose from, we did... pretty much absolutely nothing with our first week there!! To be fair, it was super hot. Apart from a brief reprieve in Hamburg, it's been pretty hot everywhere we've been since June.

Okay, we did head into town a few times and went for a nice forest walk on the first day that dipped below 32 degrees. And we celebrated our sixth (!!!) wedding anniversary. But overall it was a pretty quiet week.

Klaus and Cornelia joined us for our second week and the pace ramped up. On their first night, a huge thunderstorm hit and toppled a huge old tree in the green. So we spent the next day hacking the tree to pieces and feeding it through a wood chipper!!

Klaus had arrived with a project to restore the outdoor furniture, which he'd already been working on for a few weeks. So he and Phil spent a couple of productive days in the garage sanding and drilling and oiling wood... the finished product looked amazing and because it's solid wood will last up to 50 years!!



Revamped outdoor setting. I had a think about it and there's not much furniture at home that I'll still have in 50 years...

On our last night in Baden Baden, we sat on the super comfy new chairs and chatted while an incredible meteor shower passed over. I saw 4 shooting stars (turns out it's meteor dust but who's counting??). A perfect end to a relaxed fortnight.

Munich
We've spent the last few days in Munich, catching up with Phil's stepbrothers, Niko and Chris and his wife Karina which is always fun!!

What's next?
Tomorrow we jump on a bus to Slovenia for a fortnight to round out the Europe component of the trip!! I seriously cannot believe it's almost time to leave Europe. I'm just closing my eyes, covering my ears and pretending it's not really happening... lalalalala - I can't hear you!!

I've booked us into a veggie food tour of Ljubljana and booked an airbnb apartment that comes with... a boxer puppy!!! Can't wait :)

Then on 10 September, we're off to Indonesia!!! Our first stop is in Jakarta for a week (my first visit in 6 years) and then Bali.

This year has flown by, but there's still a bit of time ahead for more adventures, so stay tuned.


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July celebrations

July - Part II

Despite feeling like July was mostly a quiet month based in Munich (which it was), we got quite busy at the end and I split our tales of celebration into two posts. You can read about quiet July and our awesome Alpine hike here.



Okay, we did already cover the alpine hike in the last post, but I couldn't resist this pic of a divine Alpine cow... complete with giant bell!!

The very next day after the hike was my birthday. I woke up to a beautiful breakfast prepared by Klaus and Cornelia:


33 again - how does she keep doing it???

Phil had asked me the previous week what I wanted to do for my bday and I'd started thinking about a trip to Munich zoo. It was a great call on what turned out to be a v hot July day. We patted the tamest goats, saw the birds of prey and watched the penguins showing off by speeding through the water.



So pretty!!!


Patting a kid - he was super cute


Intense...


Baby pink flamingo!!!

Even though Spring was a while ago, there were baby birds everywhere - ducklings, goslings, even baby pink flamingos - see pic above!! I think the two lynx Cubs were the cutest - but too shy for decent photos. Those and the little field mouse darting in and out of the garden bed next to us while we were eating lunch!

We spent the whole day at the zoo, followed by a delicious dinner made by Cornelia and then a Canadian band at my favourite Munich night spot, the Rattlesnake. I've waxed lyrical about my love of the 'snake before here. A fantastic way to end an awesome bday.




The band was great and so was this HUGE bday aperol spritz!!

So, a really fun bday. Thanks for all the lovely messages from Oz too - it totally made my day!!

The wedding
Our next celebration was a mere 2 days later and took us from Munich to Bremerhaven, a village in the north of Germany about 90 minutes from Hamburg where Phil's uncle Gerd lives with his lovely now-wife, Eva.

We arrived the evening before the wedding to find their back garden transformed by several huge marquees with seating for 120 people. We got to meet a whole lot of family - including Eva's son and nephew and their partners who were great company over the festivities.

The legal part of the ceremony took place in the morning at the Town Hall for a smaller group of family and friends, and we spent most of the afternoon chatting to various relatives and friends.



Pre-ceremony


Toasting the newly weds!

At 6pm, the big wedding reception began. It was a fantastic party!! A whole pig on a spit, endless delicious salads, a very full bar, a dance floor, a DJ and high spirited revellers; a perfect combo for a fun wedding!!


A packed house!!

We realised early on that our sweet waitress was Polish and spoke very little German. Phil and I wracked our brains for any leftover Polish words from our Warsaw trip... Ah, yes!! Jen-koo-yah (not the correct spelling) is the Polish word for thank you. So whenever she dropped by, we said it. She really seemed to appreciate it and reciprocated by bringing one round of Aperol spritzes after another... This may have helped our whole table get out on the dance floor later in the evening.

Maybe it wasn't just our table who was well looked after - one two three people had fallen in the swimming pool by the end of the night! None of them me... To be fair, two of them were teenage girls who pushed each other into the pool, pretty early on in the night.

In addition to being Gerd's wedding it was also a birthday celebration for Gerd and Phil's dad, Klaus (who are twins - did I mention that already??). So at midnight we presented Klaus with a birthday card and celebrated.

Our night ended with Phil and I running (me, barefoot) in the pouring rain back to our hotel at 1.30am. Good times had by all! Lucky for us, the post-wedding breakfast didn't start until 10am...

Speaking German
I also spoke a lot of German over those two days. It is fairly impressive given I have a vocabulary of about 50 words... and also strangely exhausting.

Cornelia had encouraged me to try speaking a bit more German a week or so before. So I had been practising a little before the wedding with a language app and speaking as much German as possible in Munich. But this was definitely a big test...

I prepared a little before we arrived, asking Phil how to say congratulations in German. He strangled some words.

'Huh? Say it slower, please'.

More slowly, I catch something that sounds like a malcontented cow chewing. Eventually, after several repetitions and a truly lengthy stint of practice, I repeat, 'hertzlichen gluchwunch'. Yeah, try that if you don't speak German! But I did try it - and strangled it a bit - but it seemed to be appreciated by the bride and groom.

The following morning, I hear a few people saying what sounds a lot like "congratulations". I say to Phil, suspiciously, 'what did that person just say?' 'Oh, they said "gratulation", it sort of means congratulations in German'.

Hmmm... you don't say. I ask bewildered, 'why on earth didn't you teach me that??'

'This one is more useful'... was the definitive response.

We now have a new German-learning rule... If there's a word that sounds JUST like the English word, teach me that one...

Overall, the German speaking went pretty well. It helps a lot when the people you are talking to speak great English so when you run out of words, you can shrug an apology and go with the English word. It also helps to have a translator (ie Phil) sitting next to you at the wedding! And all that practice definitely came in handy for our next few days post-wedding in Hamburg.

But more on that in the next instalment...

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