Christmas 2017: Ljubljana, Slovenia

The day we arrived in Ljubljana was really rainy and cold so decided to spend the day in our little neighborhood eating Italian food and watching movies. The kids were thrilled!

Today we took a taxi into the old town of Ljubljana. The city is home to only 300,000 people and we were told it would take a day to see all the major sites and the Christmas markets. We started with the Castle. 

Instead of just buying a ticket to the castle, we bought a ticket for the dragon escape game which would allow us to see the castle but also to have some fun with the kids. The object is to find the clues around the castle to free the castle's dragon. The earliest known mention of a dragon is from one thousand years ago in Ljubljana so dragons are very important to this city.

The game took us to the wine cellar...

The tower for a beautiful view of the city...

And a view of the castle courtyard...

And the super cool double spiral staircase...

With a dragon on each stair...

And to a beautiful chapel...

And under the castle...

Until we finally got to enter the codes to unlock the door to the dragon...

But the dragon flew away before we got to see it. Here is a photo of our scavenger hunt clue sheet.

We then went to the creepy puppet museum in the castle. Nice Hitler puppet, right? Yikes!

After the castle we walked down into town to the famous Dragon Bridge.

We were hungry so we walked through the Christmas markets to find some food. This Christmas market was in front of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius Church.

I fell in love with these dragon man hole covers.

And to the Christmas markets.

We also passed this strange statue called "Awesome Baby Jesus Stabbing a Dragon."

By now the sun was starting to set and we decided to go ice skating. There was this amazing multi-tiered ice skating rink which was connected by little iced pathways.

With amazing night views of the castle.

It was getting cold and late so we wandered back into the Christmas markets before heading home.

Christmas 2017: Lake Bled, Slovenia

We took a bus into Bled, which is the biggest tourist destination in Slovenia. It is a beautiful small town with a stunning castle on a hill and a church on an island in the lake.

We started the day by walking to the castle. On the way we passed this beautiful church. It was Sunday and Mass was going on. The church is called the Church of St. Martin.

We then climbed over 300 steps to Bled Castle.

When we got into the castle there was a reinactment going on of dancing, sword fighting and fire eating.

Only a few rooms of the castle remain but we were able to see the chapel and several exhibition halls.

And we found some spectacular views of the lake.

After visiting the castle, we walked into town to eat lunch (traditional Slovenian hot dogs with sauerkraut, mayonnaise, and sweet barbecue sauce) at the Christmas market and to feed the ducks.

After lunch, we took a local gondola boat to the beautiful island on the lake.

And the view of town from the island.