Slovenia Observations

Graffiti in Ljubljana.

Just a few remaining notes about Slovenia before I move on with the narrative…

• Although there is a fair amount of graffiti in Ljubjana, its style is completely different from Budapest – or anywhere I’ve been for that matter. At first arrival, my impression was that Ljubljana is pretty graffiti-free. This turned out not to be true, as it seems to be limited to only certain specific areas – and even in these areas there’s still very little “scribbled-text-style” graffiti. Instead, you have huge artistic murals painted so meticulously that they almost contribute to the personality of the city rather than detract from it. The variety of these scenes is quite remarkable: from intricate landscapes to scenes of video game characters like the one I posted above. Furthermore, I don’t recall noticing graffiti in even one inappropriate place (i.e. churches or classical buildings) – only on blank walls and such. Upon learning about Hostel Celica’s “artist motif” I asked one of the staff if all the paintings on the surrounding area were part of it. Nope, it’s just plain old Slovenian graffiti.

• I’m sure I’ve made my positive impressions of Ljubljana, and indeed Slovenia in general, abundantly clear by now – but one thing I thought I’d mention is that I don’t seem to be the only one with such an opinion. In fact, virtually every traveler I’ve encountered – most of whom only stopped by in transit to somewhere else – has ended up staying longer than intended. Some of them also described it as their favorite stop on their entire trip. It’s just so remarkably beautiful. I’m not sure why it’s so unknown as a tourist destination, but for any readers who maybe planning a trip to Eastern Europe, take my advice: come here. You won’t be disappointed 🙂

• Rollerblades! As you all know, countless parts of the world rely on bicycles as a primary – or at least very common secondary – form of transportation. But I don’t think I’ve seen so many people on Rollerblades since, well, the mid 90’s. And I love it! I used to be really into skating, but stopped when they went out of fashion because I no longer had anyone to skate with. Here it’s popular as ever – people are doing it all over the place 🙂

• Black spandex pants seem to be a very common female fashion in Ljubljana. I’m certainly not one who usually notices fashion, but here, it’s so common that you can’t help but notice – and wonder why? It’s not like this just East in Hungary, nor just South in Croatia…

• I’ve raved and raved about Hostel Celica, so I should be fair and mention the two negative observations as well. First, the Internet was absolutely atrocious – unusably slow – and the signal didn’t reach my upstairs room at all. Of course this may have been an isolated problem during my stay, but it wasn’t a positive factor to be sure. Also, one thing that I found a bit weird was that in the 7-bed dorm, two pairs of beds were SO close together – and right up against a wall – that it felt like I was virtually cuddling with someone I’d never met before. And I had to climb over someone just to get out of bed and go to the bathroom. While this obviously doesn’t apply to the cell-rooms, I found it a bit strange – they really should’ve cut back just a little and treated the 7-bed dorm as a 5-bed dorm. Luckily, after the first night I was able to grab the best single bed in the room where I remained for the next two nights. After that, no complaints 🙂