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09:14: Up at 07:08, washed, socks washed, jocks washed, breakfasted and now I’m packing. I’ve booked into a hostel in Ljubljana. I’ve marked the walk on my new map. It’s bright and sunny, and due to stay this way for the next week at least, then thunderstorms. I’ll be in Zagreb by then.
09:43: On the road. What an awesome hostel.
10:06: Past Hofer, into fields and suburbia.
10:34:33
10:34:46
10:35:08
10:36: Farms, housing. Prebačevo.
10:55: Leaving Prebačevo. Open fields and forest.
10:55:47
10:56:08
11:08: Žerjavka.
11:18: Leaving Žerjavka. Entering Trboje.
11:45:51
12:01: Off the road and onto a gravel track.
12:16: Through cornfields.
12:19: Into the village of Smlednik.
12:23:13
12:56: Leaving Smlednik. Past golf courses.
13:01: Zavrh. Downhill.
13:04: Leaving Zavrh.
13:28: Vikrče. This is where I cross the Sava river1.
14:18:13: I was pretty sure of it at the time, but now looking at the photo, I’m not so sure.
14:20: Fields of Cannabis.
14:25: Urban outskirts.
14:40: Ljubljana town limit.
14:47: Stopping at what might be an utterly shite place for lunch. I’m having a big salad with chicken and bacon. Fingers crossed.
15:36: €12.90 for an apple juice, salad and three-scoop ice-cream.
15:44:07
15:44:31
16:50: Scruffy, low-rent housing, bars, frizurs2 and kebab shops.
16:57:08: Three days previously, at the top of the Loibelpass, I had sat at the exact table depicted in this advert, sipping a Cockta. The model in the photo is portraying an aspirational lifestyle, but I was living it!
16:59:01
17:11:47
17:21: At the hostel. €24.27.
18:17: Sitting down for a bangla thali3.
18:26: Ljubljana is even cooler and hipper than I remember it to be.4 It’s got a terrific grungy but friendly edge, not taking itself seriously at all. I’d love to spend more time here! If Zagreb is half as cool as this, Aisling and I are in for a treat!
19:11: €7.50. (€5 for thali, €1.70 for ginger beer, €0.80 for black tea). Sniffing out an ice-cream now.
20:17: €4.40 for an ice-cream. (Chocolate, café, lemon) and black tea. Now wandering along the river promenade and cafés with the rest of the city. So mellow.
20:49: €8.10 for a road map of the former Yugoslavia, all the way to Sofia.
21:16: Back in the hostel room, planning tomorrow’s route. Four twenty-something interraillers are stunned by the trip I’m making.
I had no idea at the time, but this river would prove very significant during my walk. I had first met the Sava at Kranj, and would walk along it all the way to Belgrade, 562km ahead of me.↩
Hair salons↩
My all-time favourite cuisine is Indian food. Tonight’s dinner is Bengali Thali.↩
I had first visited Ljubljana on a work trip in 1996 or so, very early in my career as a software tester. Myself and Gary, a fellow tester, installed X.400 message switches on a host of computers for the Bank of Slovenia over the course of a few days. Serious work, but Gary is the most irreverant guy I’ve ever met, before or since. My sides ached from laughing and I actually ended up sleep-deprived thanks to his crazy banter.↩
