I recently visited Ljubljana on work and was quite excited to be there till the time I was told that the capital of Slovenia is very poorly connected with the rest of the world and not many flights fly in and out of the airport n a daily basis.
I was in Belgrade for some time traveling on business and took an overnight train from Belgrade to Ljubljana. Before that I was reminded to take a transit visa for Croatia as the train passes through Croatia. The job was easy as I had taken it the previous day with the help of my local host. I boarded the train and was greatly disappointed seeing the condition of the train.
Old coaches, very dirty and not so sufficient place to sleep . On the top of it, I had custom officials waking me up every two hours for some ot the other reason and not each of them understood English that well. To top it all, the train reached late by 1.30 hrs. to Ljubljana.
Fortunately I was picked up y a local person there with whom I was to have some business development talks and she told me that this was very usual there (and we blame Indian Railways!! Believe me, Indian Railways is at least 5 times better than it’s Serbian counterpart) .
The city is small but nicely maintained. But I found people very lethargic and not so active. To top it all, the cost of living and food is too high. It’s a very expensive place, despite of the fact being, the people have started losing their jobs because of slow down, but those who have them, are suffering from the old communist thinking and attitude and hence you don’t see much growth in the economy.
I had visited a castle near by called Bled, where there was a lake. A beautiful place.The sunnier side of Alps and the Alpine ranges have blessed this country with breathtaking landscapes. Despite of the fact that it was the peak summer season, many shops and restaurants were closed because even those shop owners wanted to have a summer break and the holiday.
We came across a few boats and asked the boat owners for the rates to take us for a sail in the lake and they quoted 65 € for an hour. People found it expensive and hence didn’t choose to go for it, but even the boat owners preferred not to negotiate and sit quietly rather than do some business at a negotiated price.This shows the over all attitude of the workers.
Slovenia is famous for it’s Blue berry wine and honey. Even there are varieties of honey to be chosen from. Difficult place for vegetarians like me, but I could manage with salads and sandwiches. Sloven food is very heavy and one feels quite drowsy after having it as it is full of white mushrooms, a specialty of Slovenia.
All in all, the country is waking up to the reality that it needs enterprenuers who can make the things turn around. But will the old communists ever listen to it? Else soon we could find another Icelandic situation in a beautiful nce Alpine country which means the Sunnier side of Alps (Slovenia)!! One must travel here to find a different world!!