Introduction: The city of Lubjana, a small jewel of Central Europe, or maybe Balkans? I still don't know...

Hello Hivers,

Today I would like to take you through one of the most beautiful cities of the balkans: Lubjana, capital of Slovenia.

Slavoj Žižek

Some weeks ago I was looking an interview of Slavoj Žižek... And I am sure that everyone of you knows who he is 😂. Slavoj is a Slovenian philosopher and is also a sort of comedian, since it's interviews on you tube are really funny. In one of those he argued that it is really difficult to define the limit of the Balkans, basically if you ask to everyone in one of the country which actually are part of Balkans, they would say that in reality they are not a part of it. He argues that if you ask to any Slovenian racist (😂) he will tell you that Slovenia is Central Europe and not part of the Balkans.
In another joke, which is very old, he is in front of the river Ljubljanica, which passes through the capital, and he argues that this is the official geographical limit between Mitteleuropa and the Balkans. So he argues that:" on one side (the balkanink one) there is horror, oriental despotism, women get beaten, get raped and they like it. On this side, Europe, Civilization, women get beaten and raped but don't like it".
This is a very harsh joke, but in my opinion is a very nice criticism to both parts. I myself am originally form Balkans (from Albania) and I know that in my country women are treated badly. I can somehow try to understand older generations, which have lived in a world very different from ours and have some beliefs which are really hard to remove, but the new ones which live in the worldwide era, are really unforgivable.
I have spoken to some guys which are my age and they still think that a good woman should stay at home and raise the kids while the man should be the one working and must rule the family. This are prehistoric beliefs and it really gets on my nerves when I hear someone saying those things. Luckily I also know a lot of people that doesn't see things like this, and for which gender equality is something which should be as normal as breathing.
I hope that with time passing by the new generations will start to be more open minded and that also in my country woman will start to be treated as they deserve, with respect.

Ljubljana

After this small preamble, which I was really keen to do, let's start talking about the main character of this post.
In addition to being a cultural, scientific and economic center, the city represents the political and administrative center of Slovenia, in fact there is the seat of the central government, the Slovenian parliament, the President's Office, the administrative bodies and all the ministries of the state.

Due to his geographic and strategic position it has been influenced through its history by different cultures, namely German, Slavic and Latin.

The first time I have been to Lubjana, I was going to the Island of Pag in Croatia, and my friends and me decided to stay one night in Slovenia which was half way. We had this beautiful hotel, with a room that overlooked on the river. This area is actually the nicest of the city since there are a lot of bars and clubs where at night you can meet a lot of people from all different parts of the world.

In the following some photos of the city, which were taken at night and with an old phone, so I apologize if the quality is very low.

Problems with the car

The second time I visited Ljubljana was several years later with my parents. We were coming back to Italy after visiting our relatives in Albania. We usually make this trip by car, which Is quite an adventure, since you have to make almost 1500 Km and cross 5 different countries.
This time the trip was really bad since while we were in Croatia, the engine spy of our car started flashing. We were in the middle of nowhere, in a small city of which I don't remember the name and luckily for us there was a mechanic. It was really hard to try understanding each other, since this guy could speak only Croatian. But at the end he was able to figure out the problem and apparently repaired our car. So we were able to restart our trip, and we arrived to Ljubljana. We slept there and the day after when we tried to turn on the machine, nothing happened 😅.
The engine was gone, there was no way to repair it. We were in a really bad situation, but luckily for us, a friend of my father (which was Albanian as us), worked with a tow truck. He was sop kind that he came up to take us, from Ravenna my home city (which is something like 450 Km far 😱) and didn't charge us anything. I don't know if this is the same also for other countries, but we Albanian are very kind one to each other, especially if we are in a foreign country.

Dragon Bridge

One of the things that I appreciated most of the city is the dragon bridge, built in the 1901, decorated with dragon statues on pedestals at the four corners. It is really nice at night where a game of lights makes it is even more enjoyable as you can see from the front image of this post.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed Ljubljana, and the proof is that a I have come to the city other 2 times (one of which was not so lucky as I wrote before).

P.S. The ugliest church of all time

As a final note, I want to express all my resentments to whoever decided the color of the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation, which is located in Prešeren Square. Now, I don't want to be too harsh, but I will be, since I really like Lubjana and it's unique style. When you are descending from the old part of the city and you see this really really really pink church, it is like a torture for the eyes.
I don't have any photo of it, because I refused to take any, but you can search it on google and see this abomination (yeah probably I got too carried away 😂) for your self.

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