Okay, who would have thought a trip to Slovenia would have yielded delicious strawberries and terrific Mexican? We are so fortunate to border Slovenia (the former Yugoslavia). It is just a beautiful country and we are already making plans to go back.
We traveled there with some friends for the President's Day weekend. It is a two-hour drive away on the Autostrada (the Capitol, Lbjuilana). We stayed at a very pleasant Best Western, but when we checked-in we had a tiny room. The folks at the front desk upgraded us to a suite! YEAH.
Lbjilana is an interesting architectural mix of very old baroque style architecture and 60's architecture. Let's just say the 60's buildings aren't kind to the skyline.
It was extremely cold so we bundled up and headed out to the market. It is a huge market in the Old City. It unfortunately closes up at 2 so we only had a little while to wander around. Most of the vendors spoke English and the prices were so much cheaper than here. Jacqueline trained her eye on a huge box of strawberries - about the equivalant of two pints in the US. The box was only 4 Euros ($6.75). These strawberries were heaven. We couldn't keep our hands out of them b/c they smelled so much like.... strawberries. They also just burst in your mouth. We had to buy more so we did.
For lunch I had pizza - it was a layered pizza with the sauce etc. inside the flaky crusts. Michael and the girls had hot dogs. We loved the way they made them - they took a long roll, shoved it on a steel round thing to make a hole, then put your mustard inside the hole, then, the dog - NO MESS! I still can't believe we ate outside b/c of the cold.
We wandered around the Old Town some more then went shopping! The shopping is so great (and it is sale time). I had just tried to buy a sweater or two in Sacile. I couldn't bring myself to purchase them b/c they were no less than 85 Euro ($150). There was an H and M, Zara, a big mall and lots of little shops with terrific prices.
We then headed back to the very dangerous pastry shop on the bottom floor of our hotel. Jacqueline ordered some lemonade with her strawberry cake and it was that - lemon juice only with no sugar. Puck up. I think that was the only bad thing we had (yes, we tried adding sugar).
We wandered around some more and rested. We headed to Joe Pena's.
Chips and salsa, the true test. Delish and much better than our old Mexican place in Virginia.
I had a quite tasty margarita. Everyone's food was so good we decided we just drive here for a day for the Mexican food.
The next morning we headed up to the castle. It was a clear day so we had stunning views of the Julian Alps. Jacqueline headed up to the turret. There is evidence the castle was intially built in the 12th century B.C.
We wandered around the city some more. Looking at the river and the buildings. We were a little curious why on one side of the river there was no grafitti while the other walls were covered with it.
Later in the day, we hopped in some taxi's and went to the huge American styled movie theater to see "Enchanted" in English! It was too cold for more exploring. They have assigned seating in the theaters, which we thought was ingenious. None of our cell phones would work to call another taxi so the very sweet guys at the coffee bar called us one.
We ate at the hotel - one of our friends had "roasted kid" just b/c we were pretty curious as to what they would bring out. We also drank Slovenian wine. Michael enjoyed his steak. Again, another great meal.
We left for our quick drive back home on President's Day. What an unexpected treat.
