Upon arrival in Ljubliana we walked the wrong way out of the train station and had to turn around and go back through the station to get to the other side, but then we found our way to our Airbnb. Luckily, our host was standing on the corner looking for 4 lost Americans with suitcases to lead us to the right place! First impressions of the place were not great. There are many buildings connected together with a big parking lot as the courtyard. The buildings are all muted colors and dirty, many with graffiti on them. Not a pretty sight, I would even say sketchy looking. We take an elevator up to the 10th floor, then climb through what appears to be a window, but actually it's a doorway, out onto a rooftop terrace, then proceed to climb an additional flight of stairs to get to our apartment on the 11th floor. It's a small place, but there are two separate beds for the boys and a desk in their room and a queen sized bed in the other room. The focal point of the apartment is the balcony overlooking the city and mountains. That's why I chose this place, the balcony alone (well I guess the three beds, AC, Wifi, washing machine, dishwasher, and location had something to do with my decision too!) We are located 7 minutes from Old town, where the main squares are and the famous Triple Bridge and Dragon Bridge across the Ljubliana River are situated.

On Thursday we did the escape game at Ljubliana Castle. The offer this fun interactive way to experience the castle, by doing an escape game. We were given a medallion that if put in the right spot gave us some clues in different parts of the castle. We had to solve tests and receive a code at each spot, then put all the codes in at the end to "save the dragon." We had a good time doing this and definitely got our exercise going back and forth and up and down lots of stairs trying to find each location, and then having to redo a clue or two because we had the wrong code. We completed it, with a little help from another team on one clue. Sorry, no photos allowed of the game itself, plus we were too busy figuring out the clues to take photos.

Afterwards we walked around old town, which is a really cute area along both sides of the river with lots of bridges crossing it. They have a big farmers market area with lots of vendors, and on one side of the market are different vending machines, which I had read about so searched them out. We had to get fresh milk from the vending machine. You can bring your own jug or buy a bottle to use, then put it under the spout to fill it. We also bought eggs from the vending machine as well. They all were quite good! 

I was fortunate enough to find a SUP tour on the Ljubliana River for Friday morning. It was a great activity and a wonderful way to see the city. Our tour guide was Damjan and he and his wife run the SUP Klub here. They are mainly for professionals and racing adventures but also do these tours occasionally. It was just the 4 of us and Damjan, which was really nice, he took lots of pictures of us and then sent them to us. Only one of us fell in completely, (Kyle) but I did fall in partially while attempting to do a Yoga balance pose but managed to save myself only dipping my legs into the water! Lucky me, because the water was not warm. 

After our 2 hour paddle, we grabbed some bikes and headed to a food market they hold in the Central market area on Fridays. Tons of food and drink stalls were out there. Ljubliana is a very green city, so all of the food containers, utensils and cups were biodegradable. Plus many of the alcoholic drinks were served in real glass and you were able to walk around with them, just return them when you are finished. The food was delicious, we all got something different. It was so nice sitting there on these steps which had little cushions and small tables set up on them. It was really quite nice. 

Saturday we biked all around Tivoli park, which was beautiful, we even saw an old ski jump. Went out to dinner that night at a great pizza restaurant. Slovenia has some great pizza, this place made it with sourdough crust that is fermented for at least 48 hours, (which reduces the gluten amount, allowing me to eat it!) 

Some notes on Ljubliana. As I mentioned above, it is a very green city, they have recycling containers all over the city and you must separate your trash/recycling and put it in the correct containers on the street. Also, they want to reduce the use of cars, so they have this virtually free bike share program. Once you download the App, register and pay 1 Euro for a week or 3 Euro for a year, you can have an unlimited number of free 1 hour rides. Meaning, you could use the bike for one hour, park it in a designated spot, wait 5 minutes and take the same bike out again for another free hour. You could do this endlessly. So we were able to grab bikes whenever we wanted to. The boys liked this feature, if they were tired of walking around with us, they could grab a bike and head back to the apartment. The city has designated bike lanes everywhere and the pedestrian only old town section is bike friendly as well. Now we did notice a lot of graffiti on the buildings all over the city, which gives it an ugly appearance in our opinion. It's not pretty art-inducing graffiti. I asked Damjan our SUP guide what was up with it and he said that the government turns a blind eye to it, because they'd rather have these people doing graffiti than other more rebellious and harmful acts, which keeps the city quite safe. I guess that's one way to look at it!