Wednesday May 4th: In the morning we were both definitely suffering from the effects of our vacation. My feet hurt and I think one foot was made entirely out of blisters at that point. Kat had developed some sort of scaly skin rash and had tweaked her neck so she could barely move it. I think I'd gotten a bit of a sunburn from the previous day. Plus we both reeked because there was only so much you could do wearing the same few clothes for three weeks straight and washing them in the sink from time to time. I think we were both about ready for vacation to be over and we were looking forward to getting back to our cats soon, but we had three more days to get through.
We didn't have anything in particular slotted for this day so we spent in Ljubljana. Because I'd been up late I almost slept through breakfast, but we made it just in time to boil an egg and eat the last of the croissants. The day was warmer than we had expected and Kat broke out her fancy chrysalis cardigan I got for her and wore it as a dress, which looked very good on her. We started with wandering the markets again as we liked doing. There were sausage stands with samples so we tried some bear sausage, which was pretty good, but we avoided the horse sausage.
There were only a few things left we hadn't made it to yet in town. First on the list was hiking up to the castle. I know, how many freakin' castles are there in Europe? Turns out quite a few. I blister-stepped all the way up the uneven path and we were rewarded with some nice views of the city. The hill was busy that day with many wild herds of school children on outings, families with babies in strollers and dogs on leashes, and packs of runners on all the trails. We weren't really all that interested in paying to go inside the castle, which had been converted to a museum, so we just wandered the grounds and got a little lost which was just fine. Kat was pleased when she spotted some lizards along the trail.
After we found our way back down the hill we headed back to old town center for a refreshment. We stopped at a cafe along the river that we'd eyed earlier because it advertised chai lattes and had a cat on the sign. We grabbed a table near the water and ordered some wine, but as it goes in these parts the best seats are usually where the smokers hang out and this was no exception. Pretty soon we were surrounded by clouds of smoke and Kat's eyes were watering. I tried to flag the waiter down so we could pay and leave, but getting their attention is a challenge sometimes.
Once that was over we continued checking things off our list. Next up was a wander through Congress Square, past the parliament building, a quick tour of some Roman artifacts in an outdoor exhibit near a museum, a brief stroll past the cutest US embassy in Europe, and then through an underpass to reach Tivoli Park, a massively sprawling green space on the edge of our city map. There we wandered aimlessly until we grew tired and both of our blistered feet couldn't take any more.
I found a route back to the B&B and it was time for more blogging and a nap. Kat woke up around 15:00 and we decided a late lunch / early dinner was just the thing we needed. This time we wandered all the way past old town and into the garden district to the South. We found an awesome little restaurant off the beaten path and had one of our best meals of the trip with fresh buckwheat soup, gnocchi, pork chops with figs, and fine wines. Kat was still craving that chai latte she'd seen earlier so we wandered back through old town to go to the cat sign place again to have our hot drinks while trying to avoid the smokers.
By the time we got back to the room it was only 19:00, but we felt like we'd had a full day already and deserved a bit of a break. We decided that tomorrow would be a good day for a trip to Piran on the coast and maybe we could even squeeze in a spelunking tour along the way. I did some laundry in the sink and Kat went right to bed. I stayed up listening to sort of jazz ensemble playing in the cafe downstairs and the sweet sounds of Kat snoring next to me as I uploaded pictures and tried desperately to catch up on my blog posts.
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