Ljubljana is, quite simply, the nicest and most pleasant city I have ever been to. And I’m from Salt Lake, land of incredibly nice and pleasant Mormons! Yet this Slovenian capital even trumps (sidenote: it’s a shame that this excellent verb now feels gross) my beloved hometown. Which is fitting, because Ljubljana (loob-lee-aw-nah, I think) is very similar to the Slovenian word “ljubljena”, which means “beloved”. Our tour guide told us that often, the mayor will go to the central market and ask tourists what the most beautiful city they’ve ever been to is…and before they can answer, he answers for them: Ljubljana! I don’t know if I’m ready to give out the “most beautiful” crown yet, but I can almost match the mayor’s enthusiasm for this wonderful small city.

I didn’t know anything about Ljubljana before we went, and almost–horrors–skipped visiting at the last second to go to Venice instead. No offense to the Venetians, but that would have been a huge mistake. I’m so glad we spent a week in Ljubljana. Here all the reasons I fell head over heels for this city.

1. Aesthetics and Cleanliness

Like I said, I didn’t do a ton of research on Ljubljana, so when we arrived and started walking towards our Air BnB, I was blown away by how gorgeous the city is. My first clue was the Dragon Bridge:

And it just got better from there. The colors, the mix of stately Art Nouveau and Neoclassical architecture, the fact that our Air BnB was on the edge of the prettiest park, littered with fall leaves ANDa gazebo.

The city center is on both side of the Ljubljanic river, crisscrossed by the most beautiful bridges. This includes the city’s pride and joy, the triple bridges.

Directly in front of the bridges is a beautiful square dominated by a statue of France Preseren and the perfect pink Franciscan Church of the Anunciation.

Preseren was a famous Slovenian Romantic poet, and as a former English major who wrote her thesis on a Romantic, I think it’s pretty cool that these people anchored their main square with a poet instead of a general or a king. Spreading out from the square are all kinds of appetizing bars and restaurants, all with outdoor seating overlooking the river, and cozy blankets and heaters to keep the chill away. Apparently, Ljubljaners do not let a pesky thing like “temperature” impact their al fresco dining.

Best of all, the entire center is a pedestrian zone. No cars, no cars parked on sidewalks (which is the real bane of my existence in Europe), just locals whizzing by on fashionable bicycles and everyone else walking around with a smile on their face because we are in Ljubljana and it is SO NICE!

Another aspect of Ljubljana that sets it apart is how clean everything is. It was named a European Green Capital in 2016, and there are recycling cans for every type of waste everywhere.

The air was fresh, I honestly did not see a single bit of litter our whole time there, and the lack of car exhaust was much appreciated.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

2. The Castle

 The skyline of Ljubljana is dominated by a castle on a hill (which we could see from our balcony!!!). I was eyeballing the hill with some trepidation, but was delighted to learn you could ride a funicular to the top! I love funiculars. Once I got up there, the views were postcard-perfect, and the castle itself was really cool.

• 

The whole thing was very recently renovated extensively, and it looks less like a medieval castle than a castle-esque resort. There are multiple museums and exhibits in the castle complex. I really liked the Slovenian history museum, a National Geographic exhibit about their Photo Ark project. This castle definitely didn’t have the wow factor of Wawel Castle or Prague Castle, but it DID have a puppetry museum, so there’s that. Apparently, puppetry is a really big deal in Slovenia. Who knew?!

• 

• 

3. The Wine

Slovenia is a really small country but has three distinct wine growing regions, which means it’s my kind of place. The wine was so good everywhere we went. My favorite was a wine bar we visited twice (Ben is really kind to indulge me in this). The first time I got a flight, and the second time I got my favorite of the wines I tasted plus a glass of orange wine, which is a Slovenian specialty. Heavenly!

4. The Market

Ljubljana has an incredible market in the central square: by far my favorite of the markets we’ve visited. On the day I visited the castle, I got a market lunch ahead of time of bread, meat, cheese, and a bag of saurekraut (…normal to include in a lunch, right? I love sauerkraut) and ate it overlooking the river in the sunshine. It was one of my favorite meals of the trip. Then, on Friday, we went to the “Open Kitchen” at the market, which is basically food stalls from the 100 best restaurants in Slovenia, and stuffed ourselves on all types of goodies. INCREDIBLE idea. Why don’t we have this in America?! They even had a wine truck!

5. The Food

Aside from the market, we ate so well in Ljubljana. Since it is the capital, they have every type of food there. We ate some great Thai food, had an incredible breakfast at EK Bistro, ate at global restaurant Skuhna which employs people who recently migrated to Europe, and gobbled down tapas at TaBar. Since the city is so walkable, all of the the restaurants were a beautiful 10 minute stroll at most from our Air Bnb.