Day 50 - 9/9/11 - Friday - Ljubljana

It is fair to say I tired Cinthia out yesterday, as she lays motionless and unready to rise for the day, 10 hours after hitting the bed last night. The room, well, bigger than a matchbox, but not by much. We are hoping this is the last place we need to go 'cheap', as Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Morocco are countries where the $A will go far. Slovenia is not, and uses Euros. They take 50 Euros off us for this prison cell sized accomodation, with private stays around 100 Euros, and hotels, well I guess they would start around 150 Euros. Slovenia may not be as expensive as Copenhagen, however it is not far behind.

If you are scrathing your head as to where Slovenia is located that is understandable, as it is a small country, was only formed in 1991, and is sometimes confused with Slovakia, the other half of the former Checkoslavakia. No, Slovenia is east of Italy, south of Austria, and north-west of Croatia. It shares a very small westerly border with Hungary, and has a small amount of coastline south of the Italian border. Given its location and history of external influences, Slovenia sees itself as very much the heart of Europe, rather than part of the former Yugoslavia, or Eastern Europe.

The Western part of the country is into the Alps, and hence it is quite diverse for such a little country. We hope to see the Alps when we visit Bled on Sunday, which is alegedly an area so scenic it has been described as made by the God of Tourism. We'll let you know if it lives up to that rap. We have also come to see some of the caves in Slovenia, as the country is home to the most visited caves in Europe, and some of the world's best caves. So, the next few days should be full of adventure, beautiful landscape and interesting underground.

Thus far, I have talken around Ljubjana, which is our base for the next 3 days. Describing this small city is a base is not doing it justice, for it is charming in itself. I'll use Lonely Planet here- Ljubjana is a mini Prague, it is like Krakow (Poland tourist mecca) however without the crowds. Our first impressions are very favourable, especially Cinthia's, as she seems to put over emphasis on any town where there are lots of flowers in people's windows.

I would describe this city as scenically architectually beautiful, a lovely balance between feeling slow paced and sleepy and buzzing with restaurants and cafes, and somewhere where you feel very welcome as a tourist. Time to get up, have breakfast and explore it a little more, as the next two days are pre-booked tours- caves tomorrow and Bled on Sunday.

Day 50 would be a day when we allowed our batteries to recharge a little, however it also proved to me that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. In this case the woman was Cinthia, and luckily for me, I was not the scorner. I speak of not one, but two seperate incidents.
Firstly, we managed our second hostel walk out within 2 weeks. Checking in to the matchbox room had been acceptable for a night, however we had asked to change rooms the next day to a more decent sized room. When a different reception girl....TBC