After our cruise the previous week, we disembarked the ship on Sunday. The process of getting ourselves and the luggage back to the car was a lot easier and stress free than the process of getting on.
We decided to not drive all the way back to Stuttgart in one day and instead crossed two items off of our Slovenia bucket list: Ljubljana and Predjama Castle. Trieste, we’re our ship docked, is actually only 30 minutes from the Slovenian border so we were there in no time.
Predjama Castle was our first stop. It’s a medieval castle built into the mouth of a cave. There’s been a castle on the site since the 1200s, but the current castle dates back to the 1500s. Predjama Castle is a UNESCO world heritage site and is the world’s largest intact castle to sit inside a cave.
The castle provided audio guides and the tour was actually pretty interesting. The most famous resident, Erasmus, was kind of like Robin Hood in that he stole from the rich and gave to the poor, etc. He finally angered too many people over the years and found himself and the castle under siege. Because of many secret passages out of the castle through the caves behind it that provided food, water, and supplies, he was able to outlast them for over a year. He was only killed when a servant signaled to the enemy that he was on the toilet, which hung out over the edge of the castle and the enemy hit him with a cannonball.
After the castle tour, we had lunch and then continued driving on towards Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana. We checked in to our hotel then made our way downtown. Ljubljana is really small so was easy to cover in an afternoon and evening.
We walked all over Ljubljana’s old town, saw the main square, and the famous Triple Bridge, and had dinner at a burger restaurant. Since we had time, we decided to take the funicular up to Ljubljana Castle. We were expecting, well, something castle-y with some time of tour, museum, etc. However, we quickly found it had been commercialized into restaurant park and events venue. There really isn’t much to do up there if you don’t want to eat. But, they do have a viewing terrace where you can take in the views of Ljubljana with the Julien Alps in the background.
Ljubljana, despite being pretty unknown, seemed like a pretty trendy city with a pretty big pedestrian shopping zone with lots of cool restaurants, bars, and cafes. A big indicator for us was that while searching for ice cream, we had a hard time finding the basics like chocolate and strawberry. Instead most places served flavors like ‘elderberry mint’ and ‘pomegranate fig.’ Our picky family is obviously not cool enough for a place like Ljubljana 😂
Monday morning, we hit the road to drive the rest of the way home. The drive out of Slovenia is so beautiful through some of the craggiest mountains. We had intended to stop at the Bunker Museum again for Ryan, but they were closed so we settled for a picture of him with the tank and then continued on our way.
Wednesday, it was time for Matt and the kids to head back to the states. Air travel has been so crazy this summer and we had been checking the status of their flights, several times a day. We woke up early on Wednesday and were pleasantly surprised to see the flight was still on. I dropped them off at Stuttgart airport but didn’t make it back home before Matt called to say the Stuttgart to Frankfurt portion was cancelled. I quickly turned around, picked them up again, and we rushed to make the 2.5 hour drive to Frankfurt. Luckily, they were able to get checked in and made it to the second flight, and then made it safely back to the states with all of their bags.
Matt used the rest of the week to get the kids to their doctor and dentist appointments and do the final preparations for summer camp. And on Sunday, Matt dropped the kids off for a two week stay at their old summer camp, Camp St. Charles.
Gilcrests Abroad 