Slovenia challenge - Jono explores Slovenia in 10 days
In the
first article, we described Jono’s exploration of Slovenia in the first 5 days. Now we continue his journey from Maribor.
Jono's thoughts on Slovenian language, people, sights, attractions:
'It's an incredible nation with something for everyone and all types of travellers. From luxury travel through to adventure travel Slovenia has everything for the perfect holiday. I think that it's a nation that needs to be taken into consideration more for people going on holidays. I can really only speak for Australians on this, but when we come to Europe we stay for at least six weeks, even if it's just a holiday. We try to make the most of our time. I think a journey into Slovenia will give the traveller a taste of all that Europe has. As for the Slovenian language, well I speak a bit of Russian so I was able to guess as to what was going on. Luckily for me I'm a native English speaker so I was able to get by just fine, also having Igor and Anja take me around helped me quite a bit.'
Day 6
Jono spend the night in
hostel Pekarna, Maribor, where was also the place where we held a press conference. Quite a few journalist came from the local newspapers and TV channels to ask Jono questions and to interview and record all about the Australian traveler.
After that, we showed him Maribor. And of course Maribor’s famous oldest grape vine in the world. Over 450 years old, it survived all the changes of the city and today it is a world attraction, where you also hear the story of the vine and the vine production in the area. After the tour, Jono also tried the most famous local wines. Unfortunately, the wine from the grape vine is reserved only for presidents, kings and emperors.
In the afternoon, Jono went to Celje, where he was shown the art district, the castle and the old town. For the night, he was welcomed in the
Youth Hostel Celje.
Day 7
The whole day was reserved to show Jono another small town, Velenje. Here, our guest was taken to the lowest museum in Slovenia, museum of the biggest coal mine. Jono also saw the castle and was able to take a picture with the monument of the famous Jugoslavian leader, Josip Broz Tito. Jono spend the night in
hostel Velenje.
Day 8
Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. For the next few days, Jono was able to enjoy the lovely city as just one of the tourists, doing whatever he wanted. So, he walked around and did all the sightseeing, and also visited some pubs and restaurants and talked to some local city folk. The first night he slept in
Youth Hostel Ljubljana but the next night, we took him to the
Youth Hostel Tresor, which is a hostel, where it was a national bank in the old days, so the whole hostel has a special theme.
We asked Jono about how he spend his time in Ljubljana and what was his impression:
‘’For me I spent my time in Ljubljana revisiting the places that I had seen before. I took a little time out to just immerse myself as a local. In other words, I tried not to be a tourist. I like travelling slow, obviously it's rarely possible that I can do this in my life, but when I can I just like to take it all in. I also went to the exhibition of Slovenian bands at Metelkova, awesome. So good to see where the real culture of Ljubljana resides.’’
Day 9
The next day Jono got to take a trip to Kranj, which is 45 minutes from Ljubljana.
Jono: "I was only actually able to spend three hours in Kranj, so we went for a short walk through the city, to the cities viewpoint and to the hostel run by Judita. It was also pouring down rain so we weren't able to take full advantage of our short time there. The hospitality of Judita and her daughter was incredible though. It's a place that I definitely want to come back to.’’
Day 10
The last day, we took Jono to see Slovenia’s biggest world famous tourist atrraction: The Postojna Cave. The hostel team form
hostel Proteus, Postojna, took Jono to the cave and showed him everything. The cave, the castle, the human fish which only lives in Postojna cave, etc. It really is a sight to see.
Jono’s thoughts:
"Beyond magnificent. For over two hundred years people have been visiting Postojna Cave. It's somewhere that makes you realize just how special this world of ours is.’’
We asked Jono what would he say to other travelers who want to visit Slovenia? And would he ever come back to visit our beautiful country?
"Most people would say that they 'saw' Slovenia in a couple of days, but that would be wrong. There is so much more than simply going to Ljubljana, Postojna and Bled. It's a place that deserves to be treated as equally as special as the other big European draw cards. Of course part of the charm of Slovenia right now is that it is the undiscovered gem in Europe.’’
"I certainly want to come back in summer, there are so many places that I would love to visit when they are full of life in the warmer months. There are summer festivals across the nation that I would love to have seen, and certainly I want to come back to the coast when it's warm enough for a swim!’’
Author Bio
From Buenos Aires, to Milan, to Moscow, I've lived across the world for the past decade. At the beginning of 2014 I started again and finished the first of five long haul trips around the world, the Pan-American Highway. Along the way I searched for the stories of these incredible people whose tales remain unknown. Follow along at
www.seesomething.com.au and
www.facebook.com/seesomething.
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