Trieste is a beautiful and elegant city. The imposing buildings constructed when the city was part of the Hapsburg empire announce wealth and power. The port was once one of the most important on the globe and those engaged in trade built themselves lavish and ornate palaces to display their wealth.  It is also a windy city and reminded us of Wellington in that respect.  Our New Zealand capital city, however, lacks any building to rival those of Trieste. Not even Te Papa,  with its car park frontage and blank wall aesthetic can rival the elegance of Trieste. 

When we asked at the tourist office in Trieste about trains to Ljubliana the lady rolled her eyes, sighed and said "Yes but it takes forever." We laughed and she rolled her eyes again as if she thought we were not taking the matter seriously enough. " No seriously I mean forever" with a long emphasis on the last syllable of the last word.  We asked how long 'however' was and she shrugged her shoulders, " I think maybe two hours and a half". 

I wasn't really sure of the distance involved but this didn't seem unreasonable. As if reading my thoughts she said " The bus takes 90 minutes". Another roll of the eyes communicated her disbelief that a train could possibly be slower than a bus. In addition to the tortoise like timetable of the train, there was also the fact that there was only two trains a day, one leaving early in the morning the other in late afternoon.  She helpfully looked up the bus timetable,  gave us a print out and sent us on our way.

We booked a bus ticket online and turned up at the bus station at 11.30 am the next morning. 'Station' is, perhaps, too generous a word for the dark cavernous bus park where we had to wait. It was the sort of place which film location scouts immediately file under " Good places to find a murdered corpse."   A group of us stood around in the semi darkness waiting for something to happen. The architect of this depressing place had obviously not thought it necessary to provide seating, or indeed much lighting.  Had the Hapsburgs had busses I can't help but feel they would have designed a far more pleasing environment.

Gill was getting a little worried as the time of departure approached and no bus materialised.  Suddenly a door opened in the wall and  a man stuck his head through and shouted " Ljubliana, Budapest this way.,.follow me.."
It turns out we had all been waiting in the wrong place. We trudged through a  miserable foyer to find the bus parked outside on the street.  

The journey to Ljubliana was through roling pastoral countryside. The early spring leaves in the trees were that delicate shade  of green that only lasts a few weeks before darkening. The grazing fields were full of tiny yellow flowers. The bus station in Ljubliana was chaotic with busses parked every which way with passengers milling about trying to find their particular bus.  We eventually found a taxi whose driver looked to be in his seventies and somewhat frail. He had absolutely no idea of the whereabouts of out hotel but some other drivers gave him some general idea, or that seemed to be what was happening as we didn't understand a word.  Once in the car he shouted our hotel name into his phone and the route magically appeared. We sighed in relief.  About 15 minutes later we stopped in front of some barriers preventing vehicles from entering the old town. We got our luggage and he waved vaguely in the direction of the barriers and drove off leaving us to work out where our hotel might be. Luckily Google maps located it about 5 minutes away and we had come to rest.

The hotel is quaint and something of a rabbit warren. The concierge was extremely through in explaining everything to us. He insisted on taking us back out into the street to demonstrate how we could use our  room key card to open the street door of the hotel if, perchance, we returned late. Then he demonstrated how to use the card to open the inner door of the hotel. This was all done in a charming but quite firm way as if he suspected that we were not quite up to the task of remembering the instructions. Next he took us up to a small dining room in which were laid out mouth watering treats which he said we were free to partake of any time we felt like it. There was a huge bowl of delicious looking croissants, a plate of golden brown shiny applestrudel, a sponge cake and bowls of fruit. Needless to say once we had checked out the room we rushed down with indecent haste to have a late, but sweet, lunch. Once we had passed judgment on the croissants we made a coffee in the room and drank it in a garden full of birdsong. 

Ljubliana is a captivating city. It's purpose seems to be to provide a beautiful backdrop for countless eating and drinking establishments. The residents have obviously  gone along with this concept with considerable enthusiasm. By chance there was a food and drink festival in one of the squares by the river and hundreds of people were munching and drinking their way through the delicious produce on offer. We walked along the river promenade, chose a suitable shady bar and spent the rest of the afternoon watching the world go by and drinking excellent Slovenian beer. This trip is not turning out as arduous as I had  expected.