As Tom and Izzy break up for the summer at the very start of July we always like to squeeze in a short break right at the beginning of the holidays. I had wanted to visit Slovenia for years (ever since I saw a friends holiday pictures on Facebook).

We were flying from Heathrow T3 – and we were a bit worried as the news had constantly been telling us how bad the airport queues were etc. We arrived – check-in took 5 minutes and security was about 45 minutes – which wasn’t too bad. I disappeared off the the BA silver lounge with Tom and Stu went to the Amex lounge with Izzy.

It was my first time in the lounge at T3 and it was quite nice. Lots of wine and champagne and some hot food. I opted for meatballs and potatoes whilst Tom had crisps and biscuits. After an hour we decided to join the others in the Amex lounge as there was plenty of space.

Our flight was delayed by about 30 minutes which was fine and we landed at Ljubljana Airport at about 9pm. It was quite a small airport so it didn’t take long to get our bags and pick up our hire car for the week. The view from the baggage collection was of the mountains.

We set off towards our AirBnb which was in a small town called Rakitna about an hour away. As it was a Sunday night no shops were open and we were hungry so we made a detour to a McDonalds – one of the best McDonalds burgers we had ever had – full of fresh salad.

By this stage it was dark and our property was in the middle of no where and we were driving along country lanes. We spotted a fox which ran into the road, looked at us when we stopped for it, then ran away. We saw lots of deer eating grass along the sides of the road and we saw what we think was a bear but couldn’t be sure.

We arrived at the property at 11pm and it was stunning. It even had a wine fridge in the kitchen! We couldn’t explore the gardens as it was pitch black so we just settled in as we were tired.

^{Our Airbnb in Rakitna}

The next morning Stu had to get up early to find a shop as we needed food for breakfast and milk for tea and coffee. The nearest shop was a one hour round trip so he set off whilst I explored the gardens and planned our day in Ljubljana.

^{Our Airbnb for the next few days in daylight}

After a breakfast of fruit, toast and jam, scrambled eggs and cereals we headed to the capital for the day.

Ljubljana Castle

Our first stop was Ljubljana Castle which is perched on top of a hill so has beautiful views of the town. The castle dates back to the 11th century and is one of the main tourist sites in Ljubljana. We decided to drive up as opposed to taking the funicular and luckily there was one parking space left on the road so we took it. We didn’t want to go in the castle but we explored the grounds.

^{Views from Castle Hill}

The Old Town

It was time for lunch so we drove back down the hill to the old town. It wasn’t easy to find parking but eventually we found some metered on-road parking not far from the river.

There were loads of out door restaurants so we chose one which looked busy. Izzy had a margarita pizza, I chose a pizza with olives, prosciutto and sour cream and Stu had a spicy meat and pepper pizza. Tom ordered ribs and chips.

After lunch we went for a walk along the river trying to choose which ice cream shop we would stop at on the way back. The river was really blue and the architecture in the town was stunning.

^{River walk}

It was really hot (about 34 degrees) and in one of the squares the town had set up some water sprays in the air to replicate rain. We were quite tired and hot so after an ice cream we headed back to our property (via a supermarket) where we spent a lovely evening enjoying the sauna and hot tub.

^{Evening at our AirBnb}