The Spirit of Wandering & Love of Novelty

The Spirit of Wandering & Love of Novelty

Ljubljana, Slovenia

The incandescent rays of dawn and retiring shadows from the night before flickered across my eyelids as I awkwardly dozed on the train from Split to Slovenia.  The sun seemed to rise suddenly, and it revealed a brand new panoramic morning to five squinted travellers.  With picturesque green and golden mountains undulating nonchalantly alongside the carriage window, I became hypnotised and began to think back on this experience which was soon coming to a close.  The map of Europe scrunched in my bag looked like a dot-to-dot puzzle, and we were the tiny pencil pinpricks that sketched the lines between, and joined the dots along our planned and plotted route.  Like so many others who had travelled before us, we had all done the same thing, and we all resembled each other.

It certainly takes a lot more than two and a half weeks of inter-railing to become an experienced traveller, as we realised when arriving at the wrong hostel at the opposite end of Ljubljana.  We soon discovered that there are three Alibi hostels, and ours was of course the one 1km out of town.  However, every mistake can be a benefit in another way, and this one showed us the blue-green twinkle of the Ljubljanica River that sleepily drifts through the heart of the Old Town, its reflection dazzling and enriching the lustre of this fresh September day.  The river is also known as The River of Seven Names; before it reaches Ljubljana it disappears under the ground and springs up again a number of times, each time with a different title.  Along the river’s banks sweeping willow trees dip their leafy ends curiously into the foreign thrill of the water, just like any young traveller experiencing someplace new, approaching with fresh eyes and a yearning for the electricity of first impressions, for the excitement of the unknown.

The view from Ljubljana Castle

Riverside restaurants and bars root the tall Baroque, Habsburg, Roman and medieval buildings that wall the bright and cheery afternoon air of this part of town, reconstructed after the earthquake of 1895. Plonked right in the centre is Castle Hill, an out-of-place mound at the top of which sits Ljubljana Castle.  This very odd sort of castle is semi-modernised beyond recognition with an exquisite-looking cafe and courtyard, and semi-medieval with crumbling stone and spectacular views of distant Alpine mountains.  The walk back down is a casual one through leafy pathways spotted with sunshine, which glared through the flourishing canopies above; a cool autumn breeze would soon strip this scene.

The view from Llubljana Castle

In my eyes the beauty of ‘holiday’ lies in the scenery, the atmosphere, the company, the weather, and most of all the freedom to spend your time as you please.  Having now visited countless European hotspots, we had somewhat lost interest in seeing every guidebook-recommended museum or cathedral. My initial enthusiasm to do so ran out quickly as I realised that visiting such attractions didn’t seem to deliver a true sense of that place for me, or any form of novelty or individuality when most museums or cathedrals look the same as the last.  I found much more visual and spiritual satisfaction in wandering and walking, taking the time to relax, to enjoy the changing sceneries, the new atmospheres, the company and the weather.  We wanted to let Ljubljana life come to us, and what better way of doing so than by sitting outside, watching the world and Slovenian Morris-like dancers go by, with five big bottles of Zlatorogs on our table and the lazy early-evening haze merging with our own increasingly fuzzy vision.

Zlatorogs in Llubljana

We woke up early the next day for our trip to Lake Bled, something I had been looking forward to enormously since seeing this vast tarn embellished on a peeling post card.  Bled is an easy train ride away from Ljubljana and on arrival a nippy bus took us to the lake. This place has been the location of many a film set; including the 2008 film ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ which used the surrounding valleys as the backdrop for the film.  The water gleamed and emitted a bright electric blue in the blazing sunshine, its vibrancy contradicting its smooth, unnaturally calm disposition.  I could picture the movie trailer now, panning through dark, thick fog until reaching the serene, mysterious island that lies in the middle of the lake.  From the island a bell tower chimes and the echo hollowly reverberates off the sloping and jagged mountains that guard this landscape on all sides.  Covered in lush green trees and cascading waterfalls, these sentries were crowned with white halos.  This really felt like a ‘Sound of Music’ scene.  The thermal waters of the lake are fed into the swimming pools of surrounding hotels and are thought to have curative qualities, relieving stress-related illnesses and age-related fatigue.  However it is difficult to imagine feeling stressed or tired in this breathtaking, tranquil and satisfying place.  This was unique, this was the real Slovenia, and I fell in love instantly.

Lake Bled

We sat on a grassy spot to eat our delicious salami, tomato and mozzarella ciabatta sandwiches, watching rowing boats skim across the water and escaping the odd greedy wasp that buzzed after our lunch.  We then spent the rest of our day rowing a boat forwards instead of backwards, zigzagging in all directions towards the island, breathing in the sunshine, drinking in the lush surroundings, enjoying the light silky breeze and the cool and clear fresh water at our fingertips.  We tied up our ramshackle boat on the island’s small wooden pier and treaded on the stony path beneath the shade of the trees, until we reached the chiming tower.  The three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views were so astonishing that we hadn’t noticed our boat slyly floating away, only to be saved by the island’s café owner.  Safely back on the mainland we came across a short wooden pier that stretched out into the lake we sat and dipped our hot, needy feet into the water, like the branches of a willow tree.  We fed the ducks and basked in the novelty and the breathtaking beauty of Lake Bled. 

This Slovenian visit seemed to be over so swiftly yet we had seen and wandered so much, and we had done it at our own pace.  Basking in the relaxed novelty of Ljubljana and Lake Bled, it felt like our travels were winding down.  However our journey was not over yet, for tomorrow we would carry on to our final destination, and the Viennese dot would be joined.  In this constant transitory existence we seemed unnoticed and insignificant to anyone but ourselves, as travellers come and go they are soon to be forgotten by the places they have been to, but they are never to be forgotten by us.