As the train moved into Slovenia the landscape and the buildings became distinctly alpine, in fact the changing view from the carriage was stunning, snow topped mountains and wooded hills. And the trend from dilapidation to attention and repair continued. By the time we arrived at Ljubliana, not the train’s last stop, it was dark. Most of our travelling has been at night so it was good to witness this changing landscape. The stations have also got less hassling as a we’ve travelled west and Ljubliana was open and quiet and the evening was balmy.

We had good instructions to walk to the Atticus B&B, straight down from the station, over the Dragon bridge and then second left. Our instructions said that the key had been left in a box in the courtyard so it was a relief to find it there and that it let us into a stately solid building that used to be a boarding school and up the stone stairs into the top floor and into a small room with a ceiling made up largely of Velux windows.

The place was freshly built into the eaves of this grand building with newly installed bathroom, a change from the previous night’s adequate but not quite working I.e. Leaky facilities in Belgrade B and B. We spent a bit of time up there, eating another picnic dinner on the night of our arrival and went back there for an afternoon nap and shower the next day (it was really warm weather).
The main thing about Ljubliana is its perfect size… in fact its all a little too perfect. Endless beautiful outdoor bars and restaurants, the nicest ones lining the sides of the river, lots of boutiques and clothes shops (I bought some Crocs and a pair of Afghani trousers).
One nice memory was eating grilled sardines with white wine in plastic cups from a van by the market. Another and final nice memory was discovering the addresses of a wine merchant that stocked good Slovenian and other regional wines. The evening before the day we were due to leave for Zurich we visited and asked advice for a good sparkling wine to take on the train with us. After an initial slight grump we won over Mr wine and the next evening, on the way to the station, visited and bought it (an Italian wine made with the Champaign method), along with a generous supply of ice. Opening this, and drinking it, on the train as we pulled out of Ljubliana was one of the holiday’s pleasures.


The view from the more interesting than you’d think castle.

The cabin was the most modern but not the most spacious and doing anything involved playing jig saw (that’s not the right game) with our bags.

The next morning we arrived firmly back in the West, in Zurich, busier but cleaner than most of the Eastern European stations.

From Zurich, after a quick strong coffee and croissant, we took the three hour train to Geneva.

The final part of the travel was my flying back from Geneva to Gatwick – the Easyjet flight left 5 hours late, something that none of the rail systems of Eastern Europe did. Every train left on time and there was only one delay.