29-30th June 2017

The night train to get here was fantastic. I met two awesome people from the Netherlands on it. One of whom was reading my favourite book at the moment: Sapiens. They taught me a great game called Black Stories, where you are given the premise to a story (a riddle) and you have to ask questions to find out what happened. For example: a man died on the item he was carrying. What happened? Jesus Christ carrying a cross, of course! It only took twenty minutes to get there though with your mind racing off in a hundred different directions.

To top it off, come night time I’m able to declare one of the entire cabins as James Cabin given how quiet the train is. All is well until the inspector comes in to check passports and tells me to sleep with my valuables under my pillow. Why? Because someone WILL steal them otherwise and there’s no locks on the cabins. Great.

Given the fact my sunburn is still a little bit raw it was a very good night’s sleep. Arriving in Ljubljana feeling pretty refreshed. I part ways with the Dutch couple and stop at a nice little café next to the station before heading to the hostel.

Turns out the hostel is overbooked, which is a shame because I had to get a taxi here in the first place. Lady Luck never leaves me hanging for long though because the owner has agreed to drive me to their other hostel right in the centre of town (much better for me!) and only charge me the cheaper hostel’s price. Fab!

The new hostels lovely. The room is great. The shower is much appreciated after a night on a train! Time to go exploring the city.

It’s at this point, miraculously, I bump into the Dutch couple again and tag on the end of their walking tour. At the end of the tour Thomas wants to go read his book – I don’t blame him, I LOVE that book – and Merel wants to keep exploring and go to the castle. Which is even better because it means I have someone to go explore with!

Other highlights included the jazz festival which happened to be on at the same time. Café Romeo. Central Station (a bar). The square with its own weather system (it makes it rain occasionally on you!). The food festival which had just started.

To top it all off, on the way out of the country I was even upgraded from a 6 person cabin to a single person private cabin. Result.