After Maribor, we continued on the highway and soon arrived in the capital, Ljubljana.
Ljubljana is exactly what you imagine an ideal European capital to be: lively, yet human-scale, clean and incredibly stylish. There are plenty of restaurants and bars around the Triple Bridge to entice visitors.
According to legend, the city was founded by Jason himself and the Argonauts after they fought the dragon that lived in the swamp here – which is why the dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana. In reality, of course, it was the Romans who started serious construction here under the name Emona, traces of which can still be seen today in the form of an underpass or wall remnant.
In the Middle Ages, the city fell into the hands of the Habsburgs, and for centuries it was one of the important southern bastions of the empire under the name Laibach. This Austrian, precise, yet Mediterranean-leaning atmosphere is still hidden in the walls of the Baroque palaces.
What is particularly interesting for us Hungarians is the shared historical past. Ljubljana is not only connected to us because of the Monarchy. Few people know, but after the 1848–49 War of Independence, the infamous Ljubljana Castle (Ljubljanski grad) was the prison of Lajos Batthyány’s wife, Antónia Zichy, and many Hungarian patriots were imprisoned here after the fall.
Later, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the city’s landscape also became more “Hungarian”. When a huge earthquake devastated the city in 1895, the best architects of the Monarchy helped rebuild it. Walking among the Art Nouveau buildings, I often felt as if I were walking on one of the more elegant streets of Budapest or Szeged.
Today, Ljubljana is one of the most livable and greenest capitals in Europe. This is largely thanks to Jože Plečnik, the brilliant architect who gave the city a completely unique look between the two world wars with his unique style, combining antique elements and modern forms. He also designed the riverside colonnades and the market hall.
After we had thoroughly eaten our fill of local specialties, we walked back to the car and headed to our accommodation to rest, as we were preparing to travel to the stalagmite caves of Postojna the next day.
