Slovenia: The Long Way to Italy (and our first mini video montage!)

The original plan was to take a ferry from  Split, Croatia to a city outside of Venice, Italy for our next stop.  To be honest I was pretty excited about the ferry ride, but when we saw a note posted on a bulletin board at our hostel in Split we knew we had a better adventure ahead of us.  A girl named Shosh had been traveling in her van for 3 months and was leaving Croatia on October 6th heading towards South France and would be passing through Northern Italy and would love to share the ride with hitchhikers willing to pitch in for gas.  October 6th happened to be the exact day we planned to leave Croatia and the idea of road tripping through Croatia and Slovenia to get to Italy with someone crazy enough to live out of her van for three months sounded awesome!

So we called the number she left on the note and made it happen.  She picked us up the morning of the 6th and we just started driving.  Her van was totally a home on wheels equipped with a kitchen and a bed in the back!  Robby felt right at home and loved what she had done with the place...him being a fellow van-habitant at one point in his life.  All three of us sat in front and got comfortable fast.  Shosh was such a cool person, was our same age and was from Brighton England but raised in Chicago til she was 13 and then lived in Australia for two years before her family moved to Brighton.  Her accent was a mix of everything and by the end of our trip together she was saying things like "totally" and "dude" and I was saying words like "proper" (english people use that one a lot!) It's amazing how fast you become friends with people you meet while traveling, you just have this instant bond and soon we were talking about everything including dating advice and life theories. It was also cool to be able to Talk about each others countries and learn different things about them, politics, social norms, types of cookies...all the major bases.  We didn't have a set agenda of where or what we were doing, but we just wanted to be in Italy by the 9th.  

The van!

All of us in shotgun! PS her van is from England so the drivers wheel is on the right side...but where we were driving it's American style with drivers side on the left but driving in the right lane.  Shosh was used to it but it was hard for us to get used to being on the left side of a car and in the right lane but not driving! Every now and then Robby would be like "I just freaked out thinking I was driving but not paying attention to the wheel!" haha 

The interior...full kitchen and bed in the back!

To be honest I had heard nothing about Slovenia, I'm not even sure I even knew it was a country.  Yes, I'm horrible at geography and my dad still makes fun of me for thinking that Boston was a state and not a city for far too long in my life! Haha Robby hadn't heard much about it either but we definitely thought it would be cool to see another country...why not!? you know what they say..."When in Croatia..."

The country through Croatia and Slovenia was beautiful! reminds me of Sound of Music or Storybook land with green rolling hills and sporadic small towns painted red and white.  Total farmland.  i cant help but wonder how all those people live so far from any kind of downtown area! the city girl in me doesn't know how its possible, but the other part of me thinks it must be such a nice, simple life and probably a little more carefree! I just wonder what they do all day but I guess the farms probably keep them busy or maybe back-to-back Monopoly games. 

For miles and miles 

Storybook land!

Anyway the drive was gorgeous and after about 5 hours we made it to the capital city of Slovenia, Ljubjiana!  After all this countryside we figured it probably wouldn't be that big of a city so we planned on maybe staying one night and then heading out again.  But after getting in late the first night and waking up to one of the cutest cities with so much to offer we couldn't leave! We ended up staying two days and nights and still would've loved more time to explore there.

Ljubljana!

Very unique buildings!

Every city we passed - big or small - had a clock tower 

They had these old statues everywhere...they love dragons!

First of all it was a lot bigger than i thought it would be but still Had small town charm with cobblestone roads and farmers markets everywhere.  So you have that feel but then you walk a little further past really old buildings, lovers bridge, and a clock tower and you step into another side that's full of high-end shopping and more modern buildings.  It was really interesting to see the mix!  But it didn't end there, Shosh had heard about these old war bunkers that were turned into some really cool graffiti art buildings and were now used for music venues, clubs and cafes and typically had live music every night! So you walk a little further and suddenly you are in this anarchist little niche of the city with the old run down buildings but fresh new spray paint and a trendy vibe livening up the place! It wasn't ghetto at all, the graffiti was all intentional and commissioned by amazing artists...well most of it.  It kind of reminded me of places I've seen in Portland but maybe even more extreme.  It was really cool to see all the different contrasts within the relatively small city of Ljubljana. We loved this little artsy corner we found and stayed there for a while and went back at night for some live music! 

Lovers bridge...they say if you and your lover put a lock on the bridge and throw away the key in the river then your love is locked forever!

Lovers!

The artsy area we loved!

So gangsta!

Another reason I loved Slovenia...the people there are so much nicer than people in Croatia! People in Croatia won't even look at you on the streets so when Slovenians smiled and said hi to us I was so happy!  It was such a wonderful change of pace.  Oh and not to mention the food was delish!! The first time we had a good meal since before Croatia...it's amazing what crossing just a hundred or so miles can change.

The best way to describe Slovenia is that it's a Storybook-land thats been hit up with a little graffiti...haha and not in an East LA graffiti way at all, but in a very artistic way. 

I am so glad we had a chance to see this place and that we could add a surprise country to our itinerary! And that we got to make an awesome friend while doing so!  We still had plenty of time in the car together to talk and check out scenery (which there was plenty of since we always took the long way, back roads to avoid tolls). Venice is about 5 hours from Ljubljana taking our long route and much of it was spent karaoking to U2s greatest hits. I won't ever be able to sing With or Without you and not think of Shosh hahah such a fun adventure!

On the road again

Here is a short video clip of our time in Slovenia.  It's pretty crappy, but don't be fooled..it took me HOURS to make and figure out how to post.  Not bringing a laptop is our biggest regret so this is brought to you by an old ipad with not much memory and an iPhone.  The beginning was our attempt at making a cool time eclipse video that didn't go well but our camera died so we couldn't try again! It was funny though we did it in a busy square and people gathered around watching and thinking something cool was going to happen like we were going to break out into a synchronized routine! And you'll notice an old Slovenia man come in in the middle trying to show me the right way to do push ups.  Now that I know how to post these hopefully we can get more videos together, we definitely have taken plenty of footage for it! Enjoy!