About Touring Ljubljana and the Europe of My Books
We woke up to rain drumming gently on the campervan roof — not like bullets, but more like a lullaby we hadn’t heard in years. In Dubai, rain is rumor. Here, it was real. Heavy, sure, but beautiful. The kind that coats the windows in soft-focus grey and makes you feel like the world has hit pause for your sake. We stayed in bed longer than usual, tracing the streaks on the glass, listening. I almost didn’t want it to stop. Neither did Mo.
But our Vespa didn’t love the storm as much as we did. The puddles outside deepened into mirrors, and the fog rolled down like a velvet curtain. So we waited — not impatiently, but wrapped in the luxury of doing nothing together.
Eventually, we rose. Mo brewed the coffee while I plated our breakfast like it was a private ritual: soft-boiled eggs, their yolks still blushing in the center; thick slices of sourdough, toasted and layered with cream cheese; a salad of mixed greens, cherry tomatoes halved and glistening with sea salt and lemon zest. No noise, no phone scrolling, just the sound of cutlery, sips, and the steady comfort of food made by hands that love you. That’s how we eat — even on the road.
We rode the Vespa in half-dry clothes through puddles and fog to AKC Metelkova, an autonomous social and cultural centre built inside what used to be army barracks — first Austro-Hungarian, then Yugoslav. Now reclaimed, reimagined, reborn. You don’t “visit” Metelkova, you enter it like a fever dream. Neon serpents curl around drainpipes. Ceramic mosaics climb the walls like ivy. A severed doll’s head rests in a planter. Rusted metal limbs dangle from ceilings. The walls speak a language of protest — anti-fascist slogans, queer love, rage, joy, resistance.
It’s a clash of Berlin and Belgrade, squat culture and surrealism, anarchist playground and accidental gallery. It reminded me of Christiania in Copenhagen, but with fewer hemp vibes and more edge, more past. Still, there was something off. A couple of guys leaning against the graffiti, sunken eyes, beer cans in hand, visibly high, unbothered by our presence but present enough to make my spine twitch. We took our photos and left, silent but mutual in our unease.
Back on the Vespa, we zigzagged through the city and started the climb up to Ljubljana Castle. That’s when we made the discovery. The under-seat storage had turned into an oil crime scene. Our spare motor oil had leaked all over — drenching the insurance, the registration document, and even the bag with our chargers. Everything smelled like a mechanic’s garage in July.
We tried mopping it up with rainwater. Bad idea. Leaves? Worse. Mo swore. I laughed. He slipped down the wooded path beside the parking lot while trying to gather some dirt to rub into his hands. He glared at me. I kept laughing. Then he glared harder. I blew him a kiss. He rolled his eyes.
In the end, he pulled out his portable hygiene spray bottle — the one he carries everywhere like it’s a holy relic — and we squirted enough water to wash off the oil and most of the shame. Not perfect, but good enough to move on with our sightseeing adventures.
We didn’t enter the castle. Not out of protest, just pragmatism. If we paid entry to every medieval fortress in this part of Europe, we’d be broke before Croatia. So we walked. From the main entrance, we followed the gravel path that loops behind the castle and cuts through the vineyards. The leaves were thick and dark green, heavy with late-summer grapes. Mo picked one and popped it into his mouth with a grin. “Sweet,” he said. I tried mine and almost spat it out — sour like betrayal. He laughed. I sulked. We played tag on the path, ducking under stone arches and winding through hedges, half children, half lovers, always somewhere in between.
We stopped for a photo — his idea, always is. I lined him up against a backdrop of ivy and city skyline, tried to frame him with the light breaking through the clouds. He hated it. Critiqued the angle. The lighting. My technique. I got annoyed. Threw a look. He threw one back. I pouted. He melted. That’s our language. Not tug-of-war, not hot-and-cold. More like two magnets pulling and repelling, always spinning back into orbit.
From up there, Ljubljana stretched out under the storm-cleared sky — the Ljubljanica River curling like a ribbon through the city, the Triple Bridge glowing faintly with foot traffic, Prešeren Square pulsing gently in the distance. Green rooftops. Copper spires. A skyline that still remembered how to hold itself with pride.
We rode back down and parked near Dragon Bridge, Ljubljana’s guardian beast, its oxidized wings catching the light like armor. The streets were slick with rain, and the air smelled like wet stone and exhaust. The Central Market was alive — not frantic, just awake. Stalls lined up like prayers answered in produce: plump tomatoes, figs ready to burst, blueberries in paper punnets, honey jars catching what was left of the light. We bought the usual suspects, and then some. A tiny bottle of medica, the Slovenian honey brandy, caught Mo’s eye. We shared a shot and instantly regretted it — fire, sweetness, nausea. “Cures everything,” the seller said. “Even marriage,” I replied.
In the side market, they sold handmade wooden spoons, herbal ointments, traditional embroidery. I touched everything. Mo bought honey for his mother, as he always does. His way of saying “I’m thinking of you” without ever saying it.
We wandered the Old Town, past Baroque façades and Art Nouveau balconies, the buildings washed clean like they hadn’t aged since 1902. Everything looked maintained, not revived. Like it had never been allowed to decay. Even the McDonald’s felt apologetic in its signage. I looked around and felt something I hadn’t felt in years: intactness. Cafés, markets, public spaces still used by locals, not purely staged for tourists. The market squares and old bridges still performing their historic social roles (albeit in new ways) rather than being only photo spots.
This was a Europe I had almost forgotten. Not the tired one limping through gentrification and garbage strikes. Not the one choking on its own tourism. But the Europe of my books — the continent that raised dreamers and diplomats and heartbreakers. The cities that once spoke to each other in train whistles and handwritten postcards. I missed it. Not as a concept, but as a body I used to inhabit. And for a moment, Ljubljana let me back in.
We passed a bookstore, a violinist playing something too delicate for the rain, and a tiny shop selling legal weed. We entered. Mo was skeptical. THC-free, he clarified three times. I nodded, amused. I knew it wouldn’t do anything, but I also knew better than to push anyone’s limits. Especially with substances — even soft ones. He bought a pouch. We left, hand in hand, blending into a city that still felt like itself.
And then, as if we’d never left it, we were back at the Dragon Bridge. Two shadows on a cobblestone stage. Ready for the next scene.
Back to the Mountains and a Fight for Survival
We left Ljubljana with figs in our mouths and rain on our sleeves.
Not just any departure — but a quiet goodbye to a version of Europe I hadn’t seen in years. Not just the one from classic novels — the one with duchesses in silk, lost gamblers in Monte Carlo, lonely ladies in hotel lounges staring into their third glass of sherry. But also the one from our schoolbooks. The late-90s, early-2000s Europe they taught us to dream about — where British teenagers met at cafés and shopping centres, where their bedrooms looked like Claire’s exploded inside: lava lamps, mouth-shaped telephones, platform mules, lip-glossed diaries, denim army hats thrown over posters of Big Ben. London was the place — because of fashion, because of the rain, because of the stories.
And Spain? Spain was sunshine on skates. Paso Adelante told us we could become dancers, actors — anything — if only we made it to Madrid. Ice cream on the Costa del Sol was a metaphor, not a snack. It meant freedom. It meant not being stuck in a small town in northern Italy that had quietly turned from farmland to factory land — a place caught between nostalgia and necessity.
Back then, Europe was the dream. Why would we look elsewhere?
But by the time I finished high school in 2014, that dream had started to collapse. Europe was cracking: economic recoveries masking deeper fractures, the 2015 refugee crisis reshaping borders and conversations, and soon after, the quiet cough that turned into Brexit.
So when life kicked me out of my cocoon in 2016, I didn’t go to London, or Madrid, or Marseille. I went to Key West, Florida — thinking it might feel like Miami, and grateful I hadn’t aimed for the UK after all. But that relief was short-lived. The U.S. elections hit, and the cultural temperature plummeted. I was an outsider, again. And so, I chased the horizon — not metaphorically, literally. From Shanghai to Suva, Bogotá to Fortaleza, Cape Town to where I am now: Dubai.
I’d never imagined these places for myself. I’d never even dared to. But when the European bubble popped, the map flipped upside down, and I went looking for a new North.
Still, Ljubljana brought it all back. The Art Nouveau balconies, the faded dignity, the way the streets didn’t need to shout to be heard. For a few hours, I felt folded back into a continent that used to know how to dream.
And yet — I was happy to leave.
The mountains were calling.
Mo was excited too, but I felt it in my bones. That pull. That familiarity. Like music I hadn’t danced to in years. I grew up with the Italian Alps as background noise — the Dolomites just a weekend plan away. Later, Cape Town taught me to go steeper, longer, harder — breathless morning hikes, trail runs that doubled as therapy.
But the real roots were back home. Where we’d ride our scooters into the woods, laughing too loudly, too young to care. We’d find a wooden picnic table and light up a joint like it was part of the ritual. Talk about the future, the people we wanted to become. Sometimes, we’d scare ourselves silly — once we screamed bloody murder over what turned out to be a cat rustling in the bushes. Other times, we got completely lost and had to guess our way back down, muddy, starving, sunburnt and happy.
It wasn’t just about views. It was about chaos and quiet. Green stillness and reckless limbs. The kind of peace that isn’t polished. The kind that smells like moss and freedom.
Dubai doesn’t have that. It has other things — slick things, shiny things. Weekends in Zanzibar, Maldives getaways, rooftop brunches with seafood towers and strangers in sunglasses. But not this.
The Hatta Mountains are a drive away, yes. But they’re bare. Silent in a different, sterile kind of way. No trees to whisper secrets. No trails that remember your feet.
So as much as Ljubljana stirred something soft and flickering in me, heading north felt like stepping back into something true.
We parked the campervan at the Bohinjska Bistrica train station, a quiet spot wrapped in damp mountain air and the metallic clank of old tracks. From there, we rode the Vespa through sleepy roads ribboning between pine forests and postcard chalets. Rain left beads on the asphalt like scattered pearls. The kind of ride where you don’t speak much — you just breathe, adjust your grip, and let the landscape slip by like a reel of stills: wooden cabins with flowers on the balconies, mist-tipped trees, cows chewing slowly in the fields, watching us pass like we were part of some slow-moving dream.
When we reached Lake Bohinj, the world exhaled. The gravel crunched beneath our shoes, and the air changed — denser, wetter, clearer. We dropped the Vespa and ran toward the shore like kids breaking out of school.
We’re both water people. Maybe it’s the signs — I’m a Pisces, he’s a Scorpio — not that I swear by astrology, but there’s something primal about the way we dive into water like it’s home. We played. Splashed. Teased. Held our breath to see who could sink deeper, farther. I dove down with my eyes open, touching the rocks beneath.
We stayed like that until our skin pruned and the rain returned, first as drizzle, then as a full curtain. We grabbed our towels and sprinted to the nearest café, wet, shivering, and completely alive.
Inside, the atmosphere was the same we’d come to expect from Slovenian hospitality — a baseline of irritation, as if our existence disrupted the air pressure. We ordered two slices of Bled cream cake and Prekmurska gibanica. Famous, yes. Delicious? Not quite. The sugar felt artificial, the layers collapsed under their own ambition. But it was food, and we were starved.
We ended up chatting with two New Yorkers sitting next to us, a couple about our age. They were heading to Butik Electronic Festival the next day. She worked in radio, he brewed beer in Brooklyn. We, too, introduced ourselves. Mo said he was a facility engineer. I said I worked in real estate. And then — of course — Mo launched into a spirited rant about the catastrophic state of Dubai’s construction quality. Right there. In front of me. Like I wasn’t sitting across the table, making a living off the very towers he was tearing apart. I shot him a stare sharp enough to slice cake. The “fix this later” kind. (Spoiler: I did.)
Conversation picked up speed — hopping from festival lineups to humidity hacks, from overpriced Berlin clubs to why European air just feels… cleaner. She and I bonded instantly. We compared notes on our inner Karens — women who live for a well-worded complaint, a customer service escalation, a refund won through sheer rhetoric. Mo and the guy slipped into techno, music, and DJs’ talk.
Once the rain eased, we bid farewell to our new acquaintances and went for a walk around the lakeside — arms intertwined, wet hair clinging to our necks, water shoes squeaking. The Savica waterfall was no longer an option, but we didn’t mind. We strolled around the lake, woods, and the old Church until the light thinned out.
Back at the campervan, we tackled dinner with hunger and a sense of routine. Steak and salad, made in the tight rhythm of a mobile kitchen. Then came laundry — handwashing days’ worth of clothes, hanging them on the railway’s fences in one of the coolest summer nights we had experienced so far, as if we do not understand how psychrometrics work.
Somewhere between teaming up with Mo to squeeze water out of a dumped towel and cleaning out the kitchenette, I heard a sound. I ignored it at first. But I could not ignore the presence that I saw lurking in the shadows while I was grabbing something from the campervan. I squinted to see better, but the presence manifested itself soon enough I could clearly see it in front of me. Thought it was a dog at first. But then I looked better — long tail, lean legs, sharp stare. A fox! Confident. Too confident. I shut the campervan door and moonwalked backwards while quietly drawing Mo’s attention.
He, who has never seen a fox in his life (my family lost plenty of hens at the mercy of these sly animals), tried to scare it off, walking toward it with big arms and assertive steps. The fox blinked slowly, like, “And?” Nothing worked.
Eventually, Mo grabbed the water hose — not the most intimidating weapon, but enough to start a game of cat-and-fox. The animal disappeared behind a car, reappeared behind another. It was cheeky, persistent, and not easily impressed.
While Mo was busy playing rural defence squad, I finished mopping floors, scrubbing bathroom sanitisers, and transferring damp clothes to the inside, covering every available surface in the campervan with them. Mo was urging me to rush, as he seemed to be losing the fight against the fox. I handed him the mop to reinforce his arsenal and asked him to continue fighting to save his queen. He gave a look, as he wanted to shove the mop in my mouth, then quickly reverted his attention to his cold war.
By the time I was done cleaning and Mo won the fight against the fox, the night had fully settled. We showered, refilled the water, wrapped ourselves in warm clothes to avoid freezing in the cold Slovenian air, sat in our respective seats, let out a big sigh of relief and exhaustion, then turned on the engine and drove to our next destination.
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