We really didn't know what to expect for Slovenia as our train rumbled toward Ljubljana. We arrived on a Tuesday and found a great hostel that was converted from an old Slovenian prison. Our room even had bars on it like a jail cell.
After we checked in we headed for the city to see what it was like. We grabbed a bite to eat and walked down to the main part of Ljubljana. There was live music in a square that we watched for a bit, then continued walking around. We were very impressed with the city in a short amount of time. As we continued our walk we startled by massive explosions behind us. We swung around to see the sky lit up by fireworks. The fireworks were up on the castle on the hill behind us and we sat for a good 15 minutes and watched the most impressive fireworks display either one of us has seen. Who knew there were such good pyrotechnicians in Slovenia and all this on a Tuesday night with us just arriving in town! At first we thought the fireworks were for us and I tried to convince CJ that I had planned the whole thing. For some reason she didn't buy that and as it turns out the display was for EU Day.
The next day we took a bus to Bled up in the Julian Alps. We spent a great day there walking around the lake and admiring the scenic beauty of the Slovenian mountains.
After a great 2 days in Slovenia we headed for the Staiermark region of Austria where we met up with our family friends Helga and Sepperl. They picked us up at the train station in Leibniz and we drove through the rolling hills of Austria towards Arnfels. We stopped at a winery on the way home and had a great bean salad with pumpkin seed oil and some asparagus wine. It is certainly asparagus season in this part of the world. We've seen it everywhere we go! As we quickly found out though, the wine itself wasn't made from asparagus, it just went well with asparagus.
We spent a great 3 days in Arnfels learning about how the locals heat their houses and the different wines of the region. There are great places to hike around the area too. We went to a wine festival at a castle nearby and enjoyed many of the local white wines. CJ especially like the trockenbeerenauslese, which is a sweet dessert wine. It was a great visit to southern Austria and our hosts were spectacular. They truly made us feel welcomed...and they just so happened to be heading to Vienna so we all hopped in the car and made our way to the big capital of Austria! After 3 days in the country, we were ready for some more city action!
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