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Styled after the David Hockney work ‘The Bigger Splash’ from 1967, this sizeable artwork in the main atrium of the museum is by Zmaga Lenárdiča.

This seems to be one of these artworks that has numerous meanings depending on who is looking at it. There is maybe a statement on the water has gone, perhaps climate change or a suggestion that hope has declined since Hockney’s painting. Or it could mean that there’s something important about the elements that are visible and invisible, as Hockey’s initial work didn’t show any individual. Instead of the exuberant moment Hockney captured, this piece has the eerie and drained stillness of whatever happened after. Or it could mean that no-one normally captures the scene after it happens, when the spectacle has gone.

And my theme, if there is one here, is that it seems common for humans to find meaning in any given artwork. It’s not likely the meaning that the artist intended, but the viewer can walk away thinking there is meaning.

I asked AI to create a similar image and explain its meaning and why it chose what it did. It, rather cleverly, responded by saying that sometimes things don’t have to have meaning. And it delivered this image and I’m actually rather impressed at this philosophical line it went down….

Anyway, I digress.

This is the taproom of the Loo-Blah-Nah brewery and it took me longer than it should have done to work out how it was pronounced. It’s relatively newly opened and is well reviewed online, located next to the river. There is seating outside which might be rather more suitable in the warm summer rather than just before midnight on a cold and wet Saturday in November.

The venue only sells its own beer, but it’s an interesting little selection. I was served by the helpful team member when I entered, but then he went outside and ignored the other three. I suspect he was annoyed at Bev’s loudness, so he just wanted a moment to himself. We’ve all been there.

Steve looking confused where the team member had gone. I had my two beers though, so I was fine. It was a bright little environment in a row of shops which have a seating area by the market and a frontage to the river, it’s rather decent real estate. It wasn’t overly busy when we visited, but it was closing soon after although we were surprised in general how quiet Ljubljana was on a Saturday night.

My first beer was the Little IPA which was only 2.9%, so it wasn’t surprising that it was quite thin. However, it was light, gentle and inoffensive which is all a bit like me.

My second beer was the Porter and this was gentle in taste, with a flavour of coffee, chocolates and a bit of nut.

Bev, who hadn’t eaten in fifteen minutes since her two course meal, went to order a pretzel.

For my own preference, I thought that the music was quite loud for the number of customers and it did rather dominate the neighbourhood. The venue itself is relatively small, but I felt welcome and comfortable, it’s a decent little place to try the brewery’s beers. I thought it might have been nice to have a guest beer or two, but I enjoyed what they had.

After an incident involving Susanna and Bev getting drunk on cocktails and missing our planned Indian meal, I managed to salvage the situation with another restaurant option, namely Julija.

We were seated and Bev was worried that it was a bit decadent and expensive for us, as if I hadn’t checked that latter detail before going in. I can imagine that if Bev thought that something wasn’t decent value for money she’d pocket the wine glass or something, but fortunately she has me there to keep some kind of control.

The bread arrived and Bev didn’t worry about waiting for a plate, she’s very much like an unsupervised toddler at times. Steve and I didn’t say anything and Susanna was too busy recovering from her cocktails to notice.

This was predominantly a wine drinking venue and there were some very reasonably priced options. However, I’m more into beer and wine, but had to opt for the slightly generic local lager. It’s like cutlery in airports, the local lager might be functional but it’s not really the real deal.

Beef goulash with polenta, with the meat being tender and the sauce being rich in flavour. I’m not a huge advocate of polenta as I find it a bit bland, but it added some texture to the whole arrangement.

I don’t usually do desserts as I prefer starters, but this apple pie with ice cream tempted me. It was pleasant in taste but served slightly warm rather than cold or hot, I’d prefer that they plumped for one option and committed to it.

Bev was excited by the plum wine and you can see how quickly Susanna moves here when there’s free alcohol involved. Bev was annoyed by the waiter, but I didn’t fall out with him…. The tip screen gave the options of 5%, 15% or 20% which annoyed me, as I wanted to leave 10% and so in the end I went for 5%. I was annoyed at this because they had denied me my right to be moderately generous, instead expecting me to only very slightly generous or ridiculously indulgent.

Anyway, the meal was pleasant and we were pleased with the choice as although it was busy they found us a table relatively quickly. I’d have liked a wider beer menu, but I always want a wider beer menu. The food was reasonably priced and it was well presented, with Susanna being delighted at her pasta. Fortunately I don’t think the waiter heard Bev saying that she didn’t like him, so that was one crisis averted at least.

Located in the heart of Ljubljana Castle are a number of wall paintings which have been recovered from the Estate Hall which was recently heavily renovated. The English text on the wall notes that they’re “ancient wall paintings”, but that might be a slight translation error as they’re from the Baroque period, so the end of the seventeenth century. Although I suppose ancient can be interpreted in different ways.

A coat of arms from what I assume was a wealthy family or region, designed to excite any visitors who might have arrived at the castle and needed reminding who was in charge.

A scrolling motif to add a bit of excitement to the whole arrangement. At least they haven’t shoved some tacky gold everywhere and built a ballroom on the side of the castle after having demolished half of the old structure, but I digress….

It’s bright with dramatic contrasts, using warm colours. I like that these old wall paintings have survived, as it’s so easy for them to be destroyed by building work, damaged ceilings, cold and just the ravages of time. Given the turbulence that this castle has gone through, any survival at all deserves to be appreciated.

The fragments were all restored in 1980 by the Restoration Centre of Slovenia at the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage of Slovenia. There was additional restoration that took place when the entire castle was renovated between 2009 and 2011.

All four of us on this trip like museums, but Susanna likes them just that bit more. What might take Bev, Steve and myself around two hours to go around will take Susanna around nine hours. She’s fiercely clever and has a thirst for knowledge, but it means we’ve often finished when she’s still in the second room. That happened on this trip at the city’s history museum, so the three of us decided to go to a craft beer bar to wait for her.

Look at how tempting that little line-up is. Nicely curated with a range of beer styles and all clearly displayed. They had a wide selection of Põhjala beers, but I’ve been to their taproom in Tallinn twice and so was looking for something more local this time.

I ordered food and drink, Steve was ordering and Bev walked around looking lost. The team member was helpful in explaining which the local beers were, which helped me narrow down my four choices for the flight somewhat.

We visited on a Saturday afternoon and it’s fair to say that it wasn’t exactly packed with customers. But, it’s a popular venue, but more so in the evenings I’d suggest.

It’s all modern and on-trend. I like this kind of seating, although it’s not to everyone’s tastes.

And the beers. From left to right:

(i) Crux from Reservoir Dogs Brewery, this was a fruited gose which had a taste of mango, a salty edge and it was also refreshing and juicy.

(ii) Prule Pale Ale from Lobik, this was gentle, herbal and hoppy.

(iii) Prepovedana from Bevog Brewery, this was light, hoppy and clean.

(iv) Starvation from Reservoir Dogs Brewery, this had roasted flavours with tastes of coffee and chocolate.

I like a bit of beer themed artwork.

This is the slow baked grated beef hot dog with house marinade, smoked ketchup, salsa and fried onions. I thought that it was delicious, rich in flavour and chunky in portion size. It was a perfect complement to the beers that I’d ordered.

I really liked this venue, it was welcoming, friendly and felt inviting. It was also clean, the service was efficient and I very much enjoyed the beers and food. Even Bev didn’t grumble as she ordered about eight local white wines to go with her hot dog, so I’ll take that as a success.

This sculpture of Adam is today in the city’s history museum, but it was once outside the Town Hall alongside the sculpture of Eve (which is also on display here). There is nothing left of that Town Hall other than these two sculptures, it was was replaced with a new building in the early eighteenth century.

There’s a symbolism to this sculpture which is that it was a tradition to kiss them (although I think Eve was the one that was usually used) when visiting Ljubljana to obtain good luck. It’s evident that this good luck hasn’t transferred to the stone sculpture itself, which has become rather worn and battered. However, to be fair, it dates to 1484 and most things over 500 years are going to show some signs of wear and tear.

The sculptor for Adam and Eve was Janez Lipec and I’m sure he was competent, but it’s quite hard to judge his artistic skill now with the stone in this state. But, at least it has been preserved.

Steve and I are very tolerant people and we remained calm when our planned Indian meal had to be cancelled because Susanna and Bev found themselves drunk at a cocktail bar. They were so long at this cocktail bar that the Indian restaurant had closed, that’s how bad the situation became.

Steve and I have never heard either of them talk about cocktails, but they were obsessed about it all day and claimed they’ve always liked cocktails. They cited a cocktail bar that they went to six years ago as evidence of this. Steve and I didn’t say anything. Fortunately, we had tripped into a craft beer bar by mistake, so all was well.

Bev acquired me an espresso martini, which was very nice even though I couldn’t put a drink like that on Untappd. Bev and Susanna had already had several drinks by the time Steve and I got there, with Bev’s drink in this photo being the Miss Piggy. They were both very jolly, but that wasn’t a surprise since they’d had about a bottle of vodka each.

She doesn’t get out much…..

There were parts of animals attached to the chairs and patio heaters which combined to make the temperature outside the cocktail bar as positively tropical. I was too hot, but Bev and Susanna were far too gone to worry about the temperature.

In fairness to the venue, the service was friendly, the location was clean and my cocktail did taste of a decent quality. But, all this excitement (especially as Bev had recruited a young English tourist to our group that probably wanted to be freed) meant one thing, I had to replan our evening meal and also get a beer to wash down the cocktail.

This little selection of items on display in the museums are from Partisans involved in opposing the Italian and German occupying regimes during the Second World War. From left to right:

(i) A milk can used by the Liberation Front activists for transporting illegal mail.

(ii) A Partisan’s cap.

(iii) The cap of an internee of Dachau Concentration Camp.

The occupying forces obviously didn’t like all this opposition and they tried to crack down on it as much as they could, including by surrounding the entire city with barbed wire. Many were murdered at Gramozna jama and one of the most horrifying situations is that if there was Partisan success in some operation they would simply find some random innocent local resident and execute them instead. Others were sent to concentration camps such as Dachau, Ravensbrück or Mauthausen, none of these were particularly desirable outcomes either.

Another place I’d like to visit is the Slovenia Partisan printing shop, located in Vojsko which is relatively near to the Italian border. The Italians and Germans never even found this printing press operation which was merrily printing tens of thousands of newspapers to distribute around the occupied territories.

The bravery of the partisans was evident, despite their sometimes different thoughts on the future of the region. The Italians declared that the city was “full of rebels” and the Germans said that “it was impossible to secure”, showing just what opposition can achieve. Back to the original items, it’s rather lovely to see some link back to the bravery that they showed, as they were always at risk of being executed if they were caught.

I’m not sure if this exhibit at the city’s history museum is symbolic or an actual roll of barbed wire that they’ve found from World War Two, but it relates to the situation that Ljubljana faced in 1941. Italian forces seized the city, but they were soon overrun by attacks from partisans and panic in the Italian leadership set in.

Much of the local population didn’t accept Italian occupation and the military felt that it could only respond by putting barbed wire up around the entire city. That was thirty kilometres of barbed wire, gateposts and checkpoints. Quite an effort really, but it was the only way they could find of trying to maintain order.

The project was not a success. It was just too much area to secure with guards being bribed and partisans continuing to operate by just being resourceful. It also annoyed the residents of Ljubljana who found themselves hemmed into their own city, when they actually liked to leave it every now and then.

It all fell apart for the Italians in 1943 when Mussolini was overthrown and the Germans stormed in to take over the city in case the partisans managed to run things themselves. The Germans quite liked the barbed wire fence, so they decided to keep that. They initially used Quisling guards to maintain it, but by 1944 there were fears that Tito’s forces would take the city, so what they considered as the better trained German military took over instead.

Actually, whilst on the matter of Tito (1892-1980), who was a controversial politician who led the partisans and then led communist Yugoslavia for many years, he was someone who displeased Stalin who tried to kill him. I like Tito’s public response:

“Stalin. Stop sending assassins to murder me. We have already caught five, one with a bomb, another with a rifle. If this doesn’t stop, I will send one man to Moscow and there will be no need to send another.”

Classy to be fair. Tito ripped up the barbed wire fence when he took control of the country, so it was gone by the autumn of 1945.

Today, there is a permanent reminder of this ridiculous barbed wire fence, it’s called the Trail of Remembrance and Comradeship and it’s a 33km walk around the city. Work started on the construction of this path in the mid-1970s and it was completed in the 1980s, a reminder of the only city in the Second World War that found itself entirely surrounded by barbed wire. I’d quite like to walk that one day, that’s another little project for my never-ending list.

Next on our list of places to visit was Metelkova, now something of a squat as well as being an artistic centre that has an unusual recent history. It was originally an Austro-Hungarian military barracks constructed in 1882, but when the Yugoslavian army withdrew in the early 1990s, it was unclear in the unfolding chaos what was happening with these buildings.

Before the authorities could work out what future the buildings should have, they were taken over by a squat which by 1993 was declared as a self-declared autonomous cultural zone. By this point, it was going to be hard to get people to move out and they had some sympathy from the wider community so there wasn’t the political will to change things.

Today, the result is really quite distinctive and intriguing. The former barracks are covered in a variety of mosaics, murals and sculptures, with new artworks being added as the community evolves. There’s a dichotomy here, there’s this free and untethered community which has also become a tourist zone where people come to take photos. There are some signs that say don’t take photos of the locals, that seems to be the compromise.

The area is lively, although I didn’t feel entirely at ease here as it wasn’t quite clear what the set-up actually was. Apparently at night there’s a variety of clubs and bars which open up, with a variety of music being played. It’s perhaps all just a bit raucous for me, but Bev loved it and I think that she was tempted to move in.

It’s not an ordered area full of straight lines and new upmarket apartments, but it is something different and quirky. There were more tourists visible than locals when we visited, but the community co-exists with the museums, residents and businesses located near to it. It’s been the heart of the alternative scene in Ljubljana for thirty years, with a focus on protecting minorities and people who might be seen as ‘different’, with its future seemingly secure.

Anyway, here are my photos….