The Next Adventure Begins

It's 5pm on a Friday, what better way to start the weekend than a British Airways business class flight to London.

It’s the start of a two and a half week adventure, which has been in the planning for the last 6 months. We are staying at the Hilton Garden Inn London Heathrow for the evening as we have an early morning flight from Heathrow Terminal 3, I can't recall if I’ve ever flown out of there before but we had to get to London first anyway.

My dad took us to the airport in plenty of time so that we could avoid the bypass traffic and take advantage of the BA Lounge in Edinburgh. We had a few hours to enjoy, before finally boarding after a 20 minute delay due to severe weather at Heathrow. The flight was reasonably uneventful and I enjoyed champagne and some roasted celeriac; bit of a strange combo but it worked.

We arrived in London and just had to make our way to the hotel as we had checked our luggage straight through to our next destination. Now I thought it would be much easier than it was, getting to T2 from T5 was easy enough, but trying to find the hotel was way more difficult. If the Hilton needs any feedback, make the picture with the Hilton sign on it about 20 times bigger! We finally got there, its through the car park at T2 if anyone is interested! The room was OK by airport standards, but we decided to go find a bar instead.

On the way to our room, we spotted a sign for the Runway Bar on level 14 so decided we would go to it rather than the main bar and restaurant. After a bottle of wine later, and some stimulating conversation, we collapsed into bed at midnight, not really thinking about the fact that the alarm was set for 4am that morning..

As you can imagine, the sleep was good but far too short. We swiftly checked out and walked to T3, heading straight for departures and then the lounge. I was in no mood for Champagne so it was shandy all the way, but that didn’t help much either. 

Our first stop on this next adventure is Slovenia, or more accurately Ljubljana; the flight left at 7am, and we were in front row seats. I had another shandy and a full English Breakfast to see if that would cure the incoming hangover but I can’t say it did. On the other hand, the flight was great and the scenery even better. It’s not often you see much from the plane, but we were flying over the Alps and it was bright blue  sky.

The flight was only a few hours and we cleared passport control very quickly. The next hurdle was luggage, as we were joking that the baggage may or may not have made it; never tempt fate! Iain’s baggage was nowhere to be seen so we had to fill in a missing luggage form. Our taxi driver, who had already called me twice was wondering where we were a wasn't  entirely sympathetic when we told him the story. 

The journey to our hotel took 35 minutes and we basically had a full tour on the way, he even pointed out the main brewery and two restaurants where we could have traditional Slovenian food. We arrived at the Urban Boutique Hotel, quite ready to dump the case and head straight out as it was well before check in time. I was delighted when the slightly grumpy receptionist said it was ready, so I could go change and we could figure out where to buy Iain some clothes for the next day or so. H&M was just a street or two away, so we wandered there hoping to get what he needed, particularly as it was 30 degrees and roasting already. After spending 70 euros, we walked back to the hotel to change, drop off the other clothes and find a bar.

We decided to walk toward Prešeren Square as this seemed to be a general meeting point for some of the tours I looked at; as we walked along the river, we spied a craft beer pub called Pops Place which would do nicely. We sat at a table out of the way, ordered a lager and some fries as well as Padrón peppers. While we planned the rest of the day, it was getting hotter and hotter plus there was just no air at all. The sweat was pouring off me, so it seemed sensible to go on a boat tour and relax rather than plan anything too strenuous. We paid our bill then walked 20 yards to the boat tour sign, passing a man walking an emu on the way….

We did ask the boat captain if this was normal, which it apparently was! It was also friendly, or so we were told, but I was going nowhere near it. We boarded the boat for a 45 minute journey along the river; there were lots of ducks and people out in canoes, as well as paddle boarders and fishermen. The boat trip was 14 Euros each, but we enjoyed it, plus it was the relaxation we needed before joining the Communist Walking tour.

The tour left from Congress Square and took us back to the days of Communism and Communist Yugoslavia with Tito. We started with Titos speech on the balcony of the University building to the memorials to those who were against the regime, followed by the interrogation cells and the Parliament. It’s still not clear to me whether Tito was liked, but it was clear that no-one spoke out against him even up until his death. I’m hoping that we will hear more about him as we travel around the Balkans, and understand the influence and power he had when he was alive.

 

After the tour, we decided to cool off and go for a drink and maybe something to eat; that something just happened to be Iains favourite…..

Out first stop was just for a drink, but that was really to cool off. We only had a couple of drinks here before deciding to walk back along the river towards the hotel. We found a place called Fetiche which served pizza that looked interesting, and the cocktails looked good too.

It was already 9.30pm, and we decided to call it a night, roll on bed time as we had only been up since 4am. We walked back to the hotel, via Spar, so that we could stock up on supplies including water and beer.

Both of us were asleep before you could say Slovenia!