📍Slovenia 🇸🇮 & Luxembourg 🇱🇺

Day 1: We took the night train (confirming I am not the best train sleeper, which is very surprising because I can sleep just about anywhere), had a short stop in Trieste, Italy where we had a quick breakfast, and then took a bus to Ljubljana (pronounced: loo-bee-anna). Talk about a day of travel. Obviously, I wouldn’t mention breakfast and not give more detail. Turns out, Trieste is not really a breakfast town so only ONE place was offering food. Worked out well though because the food was good. So if you find yourself in Trieste, Italy and hungry at a very normal breakfast time, go to Home Sapore Di Casa.

When we finally made it to Ljubljana we put our stuff down and began exploring. We only had a few days in Slovenia because we didn’t know what to expect. We visited the Love Lock Bridge, saw Dragon Bridge, saw some unique statues, and floor art.

We strolled by the most photographed building in the city, Franciscan Church, and on the way I saw a food cart that spoke to me. We hadn’t eaten in a while and, well, it was time to change that. If you ask me, the food we ate was called “really juicy sausages in some really good soft bread.” If you ask a local it is called sarajevski čevapčiči…just like I said.

We walked around a bit more and then went to check into our hotel, Central Hotel Superior. Don’t let the name fool you, we aren’t as fancy as it sounds (but it was a 10/10 hotel for our standards).

We had to have an early night, because we had an early and busy next day. We found a Thai takeout spot that had amazing reviews and happened to be a very short walk from our hotel. So, we walked over to Babu’s and got ourselves some dinner. We had read reviews that the chef was super friendly and I can confirm said reviews are true. 10/10 recommend. We both agreed it was just as good, if not better, than the food we ate when we were in Thailand.

Day 2: We knew we wanted to go to Lake Bled, which was about an hour drive, but we didn’t know exactly how we were going to get there. The options were: rent a car and drive, take the bus (which doubled the time of the trip), or take the train. Conveniently, we were staying right next to a car rental place, so we went in to see how much a rental would be for the day. It was only $50 so for the sake of time we got the car and were on our way.

I had been told and I had read how beautiful this area was, but not even pictures can do it justice. It was beautiful. Probably one of my favorite stops on our trip so far and definitely the most unexpected one. Slovenia for the win. Get your fingers prepared for scrolling because I could not decide which pictures I loved most and needed to add lots of them.

We walked around a bit, went to the castle, and pretty much drove around the entire lake. Sometimes visiting in the off season pays off—the town was empty. Also the lake was like a mirror and the reflection was not bad to look at.

I had found on my trusted travel app, TikTok, a few key pieces of information for the day: First, there is a famous cake in Lake Bled called Bled Cream Cake and second, there is another lake nearby called Lake Bohinj that is a bit less touristy and is only a 30 minute drive from Lake Bled. We found the cake and took it to Lake Bohinj; this was one of my finer life decisions. We took a VERY overpriced gondola up (I was numb to the price because of said cake) and we got some lunch on the top of the mountain…and had the cake. When I thought of Slovenia before, I don’t know what came to mind but it wasn’t this. Highly underrated.

As we drove back, we stopped along the road to take some more pictures (as if our phones weren’t full enough) and saw the castle at night.

We weren’t paying THAT much attention to the time and before we knew it we were rushing back to return the car, pick up some dinner, and catch our bus to Venice. No, we weren’t going back for pizza & pasta, but we were flying from Venice to Luxembourg the next day. We barely made our bus and slept for a few hours before our early flight the next day.

Day 3: We arrived in Luxembourg VERY early with absolutely no plan—on brand. The country is tiny and all the public transportation is free. So, we took the bus to the hotel, Hotel Empire, walked around a bit, and then went to find something to eat. How else do you start your time in a new city.

We wanted to try some Luxembourg food, but the place J had found was closed so we went to Charles Sandwiches. Honestly, a bit underwhelming, but that hot chocolate J got was pretty good.

Seeing as we had absolutely no idea what to expect from this little place (or little country I should say), we went back to the hotel to look up things to do. Going back to the hotel after waking up early for a flight is never a good idea…it always leads to a horizontal position for a long foreseeable future…and that’s exactly what happened. We ordered some food in and crashed…hard.

Day 4: Seeing as we had not seen much of the city (really, we had only seen a sandwich and the back of our eyelids), we decided to get up, have some breakfast, and explore. We found this amazinggg breakfast spot called North Bay, which was a smaller café-type restaurant that was run by two brothers from Canada. Friendly people, but more importantly, great food.

Full and satisfied, we were ready to actually see some of the city. We took the bus to Adolphe Bridge for a viewpoint. Under the big bridge there was a pedestrian walkway, which was kinda crazy to walk under. (The following pictures with the arches are us under the bridge.)

We then went to the glass elevator that literally takes you from one higher part of a city to a lower part of the city. There is no building connected to it and is just a quicker way to get down/uphill. Coming from someone who hates incline, this is genius. We took some pictures and obviously rode the elevator down before riding it back up to continue our journey.

I had read about a cool looking building, Philharmonie Luxembourg, so we checked it out as it wasn’t too far.

Next stop: Le Chemin De La Corniche. I don’t know the exact translation (at all), but I’m going to take a guess here and say it means, “nice walkway with nice views.” Don’t fact check me, please.

We roamed the streets walled by the Grand Ducal Palace, where there are always two guards on duty. One is manning the station while the other walks (at the pace of a hurt snail) up and down a small walkway and they switch places. All day long.

We were close to another overlook so we ventured over for another view—to be fair, we were close to everything because the city is tiny. There was a bridge with train tracks under and the train passed by at the perfect time.

As if our day was not action-packed already, we had to make some time to do laundry. When we were at breakfast, we heard other customers talk about how good the burger was at the restaurant we were at. The rest of the city was pretty expensive, but this place was reasonable and had good food, so we went back for dinner. Once again, it did not disappoint. We’d come back to this country just for this one little restaurant.

We took a bus back to the hotel and passed out. Ok, two things I loved the most about this country: this little hole in the wall shop and the free transportation.

Day 5: The restaurant J found on the first day that had Luxembourgish food was finally available for us to go. So we did and it was WAY overpriced, but it tasted good. I had a quiche that was just about $20 and J tried horse, which is a very common food in this country. Overall 6/10, it has nothing on North Bay.

We walked around a bit, but it was raining so we found ourselves in the Chocolate House where they have a full menu of hot chocolate flavors.

If you read this blog often, you now know J loves to find things “off the beaten path” or obscure things. He had read that there are little gold faces around the city, but you have to look for them. He took this challenge personally and was on a mission to find said faces. After wondering around, a LOT, we found them. Where you may ask? Oh, just in front of the palace we had passed about 34 times.

And with that accomplishment, we were able to say goodbye to Luxembourg. We got our things from our hotel, went to a hotel right by the airport, and tried to fall asleep as early as possible. Our alarms were set for 3:45 am for a very early flight.