The morning light is soft on the lake and the church on the island glows. I must have taken a hundred photos. A great breakfast later we are ready to hit the day.
As of today we have only two weeks to go on our trip.
I went over to ride the luge down the mountain. After a few fast runs down the twisty metal rails I got Gail and we drove on to Radovijica, yet another cute old town (this one with an abundance of vowels. It is really hit or miss in this country). Not much there, a church and square, one main street (and of all the towns, I lost Gail here and spent an hour sitting, waiting for her to return). So we got in Punta for our last little ride together. We dropped the car at the airport and took the shuttle into Ljubljana, which Gail informed me, in addition to being the capital of CutieLOVEnia, is the safest big city in the world. I am doubly not impressed with Thrifty/Dollar car rental here. There was not even anyone in the office to hand over the car to, we asked next door at the EuropCar place and they said to just drop the paperwork and key in a box. I am sticking with EuropeCar or auto Europe next time. Never any question or screw ups with them.
The shuttle dropped us at the train station and I tried to buy our tickets on the night train to Budapest. Unfortunately the night train, which on the official web site runs only on Saturday and Thursday (tomorrow)), in reality only runs Wednesdays. That is today. I am triple-bummed. So now we are forced into a nine hour day train tomorrow, second, I still have not had the fun experience of sleeping on a night train with dining car, and third it cuts a day off our stay here in Ljubljana. Crap.
We end up for lunch at the oldest building in the city, a restaurant called Abecedarium. Something about the first book published, old library, oldest building... Anyway it was ok but nothing special. We spent the afternoon and evening cramming in two days worth of wandering, which forces us to skip out on all the fun café sitting, wine drinking and people watching.
It is a beautiful little city, with a very interesting and colorful town center. There are three pedestrian bridges right next to each other in a fan shape, leading from a main square surrounded by churches and cool old buildings, and leading to a wide street and the other main square with an obelisk, huge cathedral and more impressive buildings. The bridges span a canal lined with tall, colorful buildings and weeping willow type trees, in a way it sort of looks like a mix of an Amsterdam canal with a Seine river boat coming down it. Lots of statues and public art everywhere, little squares, every kind of cafe from old to modern wine bar, very pedestrian friendly area with shops. And, as you would expect, there is a castle overlooking it all.
We ended up eating dinner at a nice wine bar (no tables after we showed up, and so people just sat around on the steps of the piazza.) where we had a couple tapas, a couple glasses of wine, after which we were fortified to wander the streets at night. We listened to a few street performers play, admired the lights, then headed off around midnight:thirty.
Tomorrow we head to Budapest.