Ljubljana – what a place!

13 May 2018

As previously mentioned, there is no restaurant at the hotel, so despite their website promising a breakfast costing 7 Euros, there was no such thing available to us.  I was heading out for a run anyway, so promised to stop off on the way back and pick up some pastries and coffee.  No such luck… I had a super run, and was delighted to see lots of cafes open on the other side of the river to which I was running,  but when I ran back past the cafes, I discovered that they were actually bars that were just open really early, and all the people sitting outside them were already on the beers!  I must’ve changed A LOT, because I’m quite sure that 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have found that unusual at all, yet today, I was totally shocked!  Haha, I must be getting old…

Anyway, when I returned, Ian and Cornelia were enjoying a coffee and a baby-ccino in the otherwise-devoid-of-food sports hall cafe.  We decided to check out early (after a shower!) and cycle into the city centre in search of what would now be brunch.  Wow,  what a place Ljubljana is!  It was buzzing with the Sunday morning flea market, and all the cafe bars jam-packed with hen/stag dos, golfers and locals, some drinking beer, some just in need of a decent breakfast.  We locked up the bikes and wandered along the river and found a cafe which promised an excellent breakfast… just what we were in need of!  It was glorious hot sunshine, and we found a table to take advantage of this, and it turned out to be a great place for people-watching too.  The service was a bit slow and a bit rude (in fact, Ian lost his temper with one of the waitresses, something I rarely see happen), but nonetheless, the food was absolutely spot on. Ian and I both had “yoghurt with cereals and fruit” and it was far tastier than it sounds! Cornelia had toast and jam, and discovered that she now also loves cherry jam! Once we’d managed to pay, we dawdled through the city centre, looking in the tourist shops, stopping for Bugsy to chase bubbles and more pigeons.  I regretted that we hadn’t booked to stay longer, as we would have loved to have explored the city more, but by this time, the sea was calling us! Once again, we could see the clouds rolling in towards us and sure enough, no sooner had we arrived back to Bluebell, it began to rain.

Ian and I had a small discussion in Bluebell about diverting to Trieste in Italy on our way to Croatia. He wanted to add another country to our ever-growing list, but I was concerned that the long journeys were difficult enough for Cornelia without us addding to them unnecessarily. In any event, fate took over, as Ian missed the exit we would’ve needed, so we headed straight down to Umag in western Croatia.

This campsite is massive and we had no idea what to expect.  We had booked a premium “right by the sea” pitch but when we arrived, our pitch was the only one with knee-length grass on it! The entire campsite bar this one plot had been mowed! It felt like a bit of a joke! We drove back to reception (which was over a mile away) where I politely requested a better pitch. We agreed to have the pitch ext door, which seemed perfect. But on entering, we discovered that we couldn’t work out where or how to park the van so that the awning was on the grass but not near the ants nest in the tree on our pitch! It took nearly half an hour of frustrating deliberation before we agreedwhere it would go. After that initial hiccup, Cornelia was eager to get her swimming costume on and go straight to the beach. It is a rocky beach, but you’d be surprised how much fun a toddler can have throwing stones into the water and how long she would do it for! This all meant that I could cook supper in our Cobb BBQ (chicken drumsticks, some sort of meaty sausages, potatoes, broccoli and green beans, in case you were wondering!) while Ian unpacked and set up.  We knew the weather was due to change overnight but for now, we sat in the stunning evening sunshine, stuffing our faces and feeling very lucky indeed.