Ljulbjana (pronounced Loo-blee-ahn-ah)

 Our first real day in Europe began with a lovely drive through southern Germany and Austria, which entailed driving on two of what must be the loveliest highways that exist.  It was just one idyllic-cute-town-with-tall-church after another, with a few castles mixed in.  The mountains got closer and closer -- until we were going under them in 10 km long tunnels, which actually freaked Pete out a little.  (Sidenote -- it was nice to see that it wasn't ME that was the freaked out one for once)

We picked a random town to stop in for lunch, and even though it was drizzling, it was still a surprisingly lovely place!  We thought we were just doing a roadside stop at the equivalent of Subway or something, but instead we were treated to the best salad we've ever had in a quaint little old town.

Then we continued on to Ljubljana, arriving to find that we were staying in an apartment right in the heart of all the great sights!  Literally, we opened to the door to the building to go outside and found this:

It was a perfect location -- we could even see the castle from our door.

We set off to find the visitor's center, which ended up being right around the corner, and learned that there was one more guided tour being offered that day -- starting in 15 minutes.  We quickly walked down to the town center and found our tour guide, a nice man named Oban who loved to talk and was passionate about his city (in other words, he's in the perfect job).

We meandered around the town for the next couple of hours with Oban and a couple from Mexico City and learned all kinds of interesting history and saw amazing architecture and art. The most recent city planner was apparently a genius who made all kinds of interesting connections in how the city was laid out.

Our night ended with a beautiful location for dinner, right along the river.

It was a lovely first day!