#Dragon Bridge Ljubljana

[suetravelblog]

Ljubljana and Lake Bled Slovenia

Ljubljana and Lake Bled Slovenia

[dancingsalome]

The Historian: Part One, Chapter 1.

A little housekeeping. The Historian has several narrators, all, but the teenaged narrator in the 1972 parts, are named. So for ease, I will call her N, instead of the nameless narrator. Also, these posts will contain spoilers.

Summary:

How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made manifest in the reading of them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost at variance with the possibilities of later-day belief may stand forth as simple fact. There is throughout no statement of past things wherein memory may err, for all the records chosen are exactly contemporary, given from the standpoints and within the range of knowledge of those who made them.

Part One starts with this quote from Dracula, by Bram Stoker. It reinforces the idea that The Historian is a true account, a collection of papers that tells a story that has really happened.

In chapter 1 we learn a bit about N. She's 16 and lives with her diplomat father in Amsterdam. Her mother died as a baby, and she lives a very sheltered life, mostly occupied with her studies. At this point N thinks her father’s effort to shield her is because he is her only parent. But the reader may wonder if it’s not to protect her from something. One day she finds a book, and collection of letters in her father’s library. N doesn’t tell us what she finds in the book that captivates her, and she only reads a little from the first letter before she puts it away, but it’s a rather sinister paragraph:

My dear and unfortunate successor:

It is with regret that I imagine you, whoever you are, reading the account I must put down here. The regret is partly for myself – because I will surely be at least in trouble, maybe dead, or perhaps worse, if this is in your hands. But my regret is also for you, my yet-unknown friend, because only by someone who needs such vile information will this letter someday be read. If you are not my successor in some other sense, you will soon be my heir – and I feel sorrow at bequeathing to another human being my own, perhaps unbelievable, experience of evil. Why I myself inherited it I don’t know, but I hope to discover that fact, eventually – perhaps in the course of writing to you or perhaps in the course of further events…

Instead of asking her father about her find at once, N begs to follow him on his next diplomatic journey, something she has so far never been allowed to. He agrees, and she accompanies him to a Yugoslavian city she calls Emona. Well there, N tells her father what she has found, and now it is revealed that the book contained the printed image of a dragon, and she asks him to tell her about it, which he reluctantly agrees to do.

The real name of Emona is Ljublana, which today is the capital of Slovenia. N points out this is where the story starts, but up until this re-read I could never understand why Kostova chose this particular place. Not until this time, did I notice that N and her father cross a bridge, guarded by bronze dragons. The Dragon Bridge, Zmajski most, was built in 1901, and as you can see from the picture, the dragons are impressive. By walking over it, N truly walks into the start of this story, where the motif of the dragon will return again, and again. Ljubljana also has a dragon on the city’s coat of arms, referring to a legend that this is the place where the Greek hero Jason slayed the dragon. Or, possibly, it’s about the legend of St. George and the dragon. Either way, Ljubljana is a city of dragons, and I find it very fitting to start a book about Dracula here.

[lelejskagora]

Slovenia by boondocks refugee

[valtsv]

would you perhaps like to see a dragon bridge ?

(Zmajski most - Ljubljana, Slovenia)

i love these little guys :)

i would pet them every time i walked past them

[seeingeurope]

Ljubljana, Slovenia - One of Four Dragon Statues on the Dragon Bridge (in Slovenian known as Zmajski most)

[rayeshistoryhouse]

Dragon statue on the Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Constructed in 1901

rayeshistory.com

[xanaphiia]

With Slovenia recently trending because of Eurovision and their fabulous entry, Joker Out, I wanted to promote Slovenia a bit as someone who travelled there and even before Eurovision had it as the top of my list of places to go back to. So if you’re Käärijä or someone else on the fence of going to Slovenia, you absolutely should!

We did a massive interrail trip last summer and Ljubljana and the train ride through Slovenia was a secret gem that we didn’t expect to love as much as we did! Ljubljana is the absolute cutest little city, it’s extremely pretty with lots of interesting history, a gorgeous old town.

Did I mention that the patron animal of the city of Ljubljana is a DRAGON? There’s a bridge with little dragons on either end 🐉

We took the train from Zagreb to Ljubljana and it was the prettiest journey. We missed out on seeing Lake Bled and some other cool sights in Slovenia but that’s yet another reason to go back. Ljubljana alone is totally worth visiting though - for the last nearly a year or so I’ve been chewing everyone’s ear off about how even next to Rome, Milan, and Budapest, Ljubljana was actually the secret star of our Interrail trip.

So whether or not you’re Käärijä, you might wanna visit Slovenia! 🇸🇮

[pgarfa2024fishert]

Ljubljana - Dragon Bridge

December 2023

[randomtimes-com]

Ljubljana’s Dragons: from myth to reality

If you have ever taken a stroll around the beautiful city of Ljubljana, capital city of Slovenia, you couldn’t have failed to notice the abundance of dragons, in particular, the famous Dragon Bridge. But if you’ve also wondered why there are so many, then here is the legend of how the Dragon became the symbol of Ljubljana! The dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana, and has pride of place also on the…

[suitcase-worm]

📍 Ljubljana, Slovenia 🇸🇮 #travel #nature #travelphotography #photography #love #photooftheday #instagood #bridge #picoftheday #instagram #beautiful #photo #dragon #naturephotography #adventure #art #travelblogger #instatravel #landscape #like #summer #explore #trip #vacation #follow #traveling #ig #ljubljana #happy #slovenia (at Ljubljana, Slovenia) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn5TFkiNwUl/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[theavenuebox]

Photo by | Congratulations to Irina Sigl on becoming the September 2022 Photog...

Photo by | Congratulations to Irina Sigl on becoming the September 2022 Photog…

Photo by @irina_sigl_photography | Congratulations to Irina Sigl on becoming the September 2022 @natgeoyourshot Photographer of the Month! Each month, we select a Your Shot Photographer who produced stunning work and fostered a sense of community. The dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. It is proudly enthroned on the city’s coat of arms and on the Dragon Bridge named after…

[rasmasandra]

Traveling in Europe Slovenia

Ljubljana on the Ljubljanica River The beautiful capital of Slovenia Ljubljana is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. The symbol of this impressive and beautiful city is the dragon. The dragon dominates the iconic Dragon Bridge and the popular tourist attraction Ljubljana Castle. Ljubljana is a green city and has many lovely parks and a botanical garden. Its largest park is Tivoli right…

[forabeatofadrum]

The Slovenian Glossary - Part 1

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

1. Team

He knows that Tivoli Park is just outside the centre, so the greenery is a nice surprise.

Honestly, I love the fact that we’re starting this glossary with a spot we’ll never even see in this fic. That’s mainly because I only set foot in Tivoli Park once. That’s because I would always go to Park Zvezda at Kongresni trg (which is probably why that did become a huge part of the fic) or at the more green areas of the Ljubljana river.

But yeah, Tivoli Park is the biggest park of Ljubljana and there is a lot of stuff to see, but I just didn’t. There’s a Castle and a mansion and lavish gardens. I suppose I didn’t really feel the need. Maybe if I had more time… That’s something you’ll read a lot in this glossary: I wish I had seen more of Ljubljana and Slovenia, but I lived here in the first half of 2020.

His joy gets doubled when he sees a pizza place. It might not be the smartest idea, but Blaine walks towards it.

This pizza place is a reoccurring spot. It’s called Ljubljanski dvor. It’s where Kurt and Blaine first met. They met at the take-out part of the restaurant.

If you turn the corner, you reach the full restaurant:

2. Cork

Kongresni trg is the place to be.

Kurt loves sitting in the grass - on a blanket, mind you, he’s not going to ruin his clothes - and breathing in the scent from the pizza place in the corner. He’s not attached to the square because of its historical value, but because he likes being here. It’s a nice green spot in the heart of the capital. It’s surrounded by gorgeous buildings and you have a stunning view of the Ljubljana Castle on top of the Castle Hill.

God, I loved Kongresni trg as much as Kurt. It was just a nice place, although a lot of mosquitos swarm around. The plaza is split in two parts. There’s the park area, Park Zvezda, and the actual square. Ljubljana Festival is held in summer.

Here’s a photo of a pizza from the pizza place. You can see the grass, because I would regularly take my slices to Park Zvezda.

This little snippet also shows that Kurt and Blaine will be very inconsistent with the names of all these spots. Some will be in English, some will be in Slovene. That’s because I did the same thing when I was there. It was a mix between English (Ljubljana Castle, Dragon Bridge), Slovene (Kongresni trg, Slovenska Cesta) and Dutch (Prešerenplein, Drie bruggetjes). Or I never learnt the name and I remembered it by a vague description (”the pizza place”, “that great Chinese restaurant”, “the market place” “that one street”). I decided to not use the vague descriptions, but I kept the inconsistency. It feels more authentic.

The Maxi Mercator is literally across the street and Blaine laughs when he realises.

The Maxi is a department store. I actually forgot it was across Kongresni trg, so it was a fun coincidence. This building also houses a huge supermarket on its ground floor/basement floor (look, the building has two entrances on different levels, see the second photo, taken from the other side).

“Yes you were, although you probably were looking for the Mercator ten minutes that way,” Kurt says and he points in the right direction. That Mercator is easy to recognise. This Maxi one is basically underground.

I originally wanted Kurt and Blaine to go to this Mercator, since I also remember it being on the big Slovenska Cesta, so yeah, Blaine would’ve passed it during his taxi ride.

“I follow classes at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television of the University of Ljubljana.”

I passed this building several times, but I never really paid attention to it, so when I googled where Kurt had to go, I had an “oh, it’s THAT” moment. Obviously, I’ve never been inside. I’ve only seen the inside of the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Social Sciences (which had tentacle porn on the wall) (yes, really) and I roamed around campus for a total of 2 weeks before the university closed because of the pandemic.

3. Detailed

This chapter has a lot of stuff, since Kurt gives Blaine a tour of the city!

“And this big road from the inside of the taxi,” Blaine nods towards the road. All the busses and taxis pass it. The Mercator that he saw yesterday evening is also on this road.

��Slovenska Cesta,” Kurt tells him

Honestly, it’s just a big main street, just outside of the heart of the city centre. You get off the bus here and then walk to the centre. Slovenska Cesta also has a lot of shops and two department stores, including the aforementioned Maxi. Bigger brands like Zara are on this street.

They turn right on Čopova ulica, the street that leads to Prešeren Square, or Prešernov trg in Slovene.

Čopova ulica is the aforementioned “that one street”. It is filled with some more bigger and well-known brands, but the street itself is very short. You get to Prešeren Square quickly.

Prešeren Square is a central square. It’s surrounded by gorgeous buildings, as you can see here. The street to the left of the big church is the Čopova ulica.

Seeing the places in real life is still different. The square is surrounded by beautiful buildings with detailed decorations. There is a statue of Prešeren, where people can sit underneath, and also a city model of Ljubljana’s city centre. You can cross the Ljubljanica, the river, to go to the other part of the city centre through the Triple Bridges, the Tromostovje. They walk over the middle bridge.

I got approached by American Christian missionaries here. France Prešeren was a Slovene poet and he is the leading name of the Slovene literary canon. He inspired later Slovene literature and yes, he’s a pretty big deal.

If I remember correctly, there’s also braille here. It’s made from bronze. It’s 2.2 by 2.2 metres, which is pretty huge.

I admit I don’t really know the story behind the Three Bridges. They’re very beautiful, but I don’t know why they’re important apart from architectural value.

Okay, I looked it up. Doesn’t seem like there’s a huge story here. That’s fine. Sometimes it’s just nice to appreciate architecture.

“Get an Urbana card for public transport,” he starts, “I get student discount and I travel for max €20 a month, but usually a bus trip is €1,30 for 90 minutes. This includes transfers.”

It’s the public transport card of Ljubljana. You can get a yellow one when you’re a guest, or a personal one if you’re not. I had a personal one, connected to my name, so that I could have the student discount. I miss the fares of Ljubljana a lot, because here in the Netherlands it is fucking expensive to use public transport. I could travel for 90 minutes for €1,30! In the Netherlands I once had to ride for one stop, 5 minutes, and it cost me €2,50.

“And apply for a Temporary Resident Permit as soon as possible,” Kurt continues, “Print the forms at home, fill them in, and hand them in. You can’t do this digitally, so be prepared to wait eight hours for a small ten minute conversation.”

“What the fuck.”

This photo is from a Slovenian news site written in English, since I am definitely not posting my own. It’s expired, but it has my stuff on it so yeah. These cards are more flimsy than actual ID cards. It’s just laminated paper and yes, it took me 8 fucking hours to request this thing. I was completely fucking losing it.

I did run into some Dutch people here, which was fun. I was waiting with my Dutch roommate and I said to here “Hoe lang denk je dat de mensen naast ons er al zitten?” (“How long do you think the people next to us have been sitting here?”) only for the woman next to me to say “We’ve been here since quarter to eight.” So, that was fun. Turns out this woman has lived in Slovenia for years and she needs to re-activate her residence every year or something. And this is also the place where I complimented someone on their shoelaces. It was a genuine compliment, but the person fell silent before tentatively thanking me and I realised they are probably on Tumblr.

It was a terrible day with a long wait, but it did lead to some fun stories.

“I also highly recommend downloading the Travana app for the bus schedule and the Bicikel app for BicikeLJ, the bike share system, although I also must add that biking here seems to be hazardous.”

God, I loved this app. It worked really well and you could track where the bus was going. I only didn’t have proper data roaming in the country, but alas.

These bike spots were everywhere. They were placed in great spots too, making it very accessible. Unfortunately, they were incredibly uncomfortable. And I just had to have Kurt bitch about the cycling infrastructure of this city. I know that as a Dutch person, I am spoiled, but come on. Bike lanes at the same height as the pavements? Bike lanes straight up disappearing? Holes and everything? And those damn electric steps zooming past you at high speed? I was afraid I’d fall on the street in front of a bus! And then when you get to the bus station Bavarski Dvor, which is the start of the city centre, the bike lane just disappears altogether! My, my, my.

“The študentska prehrana. Boni. Whatever you want to call it,” Kurt says with a shrug, “It’s a student meal system. Students can get cheap food at most restaurants for a small price, twice a day with a four hour interval between them. I think it’s a max price of €4,30 for a main course, side course, something healthy and water.”

I miss the Boni. Basically what happens is that you have to open your Boni app, hold it over that electric device (the ones I saw all had pink cases) and then that’s it. Okay, you do have to show your ID and your student card, which makes sense. My roommate K did once ask how it works, because with the pandemic we didn’t want to underpay restaurants, but this nice delivery person reassured us that the full price will immediately be transferred to the restaurant.

If you want to see some examples of Boni meals, then you can see them here.

Kurt jokes that the city centre is basically two large streets, divided by the river. Blaine would argue that there are at least four streets!

This is also my joke. Of course Ljubljana is bigger than two long streets, but a lot is located on those streets. Basically, the way I see it: you have Slovenska Cesta, the big road on one side of the river, the big road on the other side of the river, and the fourth street parallel to it. I have tried looking up the street names for this post, but it seems like different points have different street names (once again reminding me that this city is indeed larger than 2 or 4 streets). I instead highlighted them on Google maps and I named them, since I will be referring to street 1 to 4 some more in this post.

Kurt shows him some of the more well-known places, like the Town Hall and the market place and of course the Dragon bridge. Ljubljana loves dragons.

The white building on the left is the Town Hall. It’s the building with all the flags. I have never been inside, but the exterior is already really nice to look at. And boy, I passed this Town Hall a lot, since it is located on street 4, which is pretty central. Also, the dm (a drugstore) was right in front of it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The market place isn’t always this crowded, though. Most of the time, it was an empty square. I actually don’t know when the actual markets happened, which is another reminder of the pandemic, since they didn’t really do markets because of the virus. In the summer, when things started opening up, the market place did host Open Kitchen (more on that later). Honestly, what I remember is that there’s a shitty souvenir shop in the corner and that it has vending machines with milk.

The second photo is… can I call it the exterior? Basically, the market place is a square that is surrounded by nice buildings on three side. The side of the river is photographed above. The photo is taken from street one from street 2, so not from the market place itself. This wall is actually a row of little buildings that are also part of the market.

Maybe I am just not the biggest fan of bridges, but I also don’t really get the hype around the famous Dragon Bridge. It’s just a bridge with four dragon statues on it. Fun fact, when my parents came to pick me up in summer, we walked across it and I told them this is a very famous bridge and suddenly my mum started making a lot of photos of it. That’s how it goes. She wouldn’t have even seen the statues otherwise.

Okay, it is a really beautiful bridge. And it actually does have a story. Ljubljana loves its dragons. There are dragons everywhere in this city. It’s because the story of Jason, a hero from Greek mythology. He supposedly founded Ljubljana and he defeated a dragon at one point.

Kurt recommends Slovenska Hiša, so that’s where they’re heading.

Street 2 and 3 are filled with cafés at the river and it’s a lovely sight. Slovenska Hiša is one of them. I always walked past it and when my parents came over in the summer, I took them there, because it’s related to the restaurant Figovec. I originally wanted Blaine to take Quinn on a date to Figovec, but that didn’t make the final cut.

4. Bat

“Oh. Well. We’re going to try out the Boni. There’s this Asian fusion restaurant that our other roommate swears on.”

DA BU DA is a huge restaurant and it’s definitely become a student hub because of its Boni menu. Funnily enough, the thing that always comes to mind when I think of DA BU DA is that they have great sturdy take-away boxes. I re-used them a lot during my entire stay in Slovenia!

Oh, and C. thought it was a Thai restaurant. She asked if I wanted to join her for Boni at the “best Thai in the city” and the moment I walked in I saw all the Chinese or Japanese (I don’t remember) writing on the wall and went: “Yeah, so, this isn’t Thai.” It’s definitely fusion, since their menu has curries, pad thai, miso soup, ramen, satay and a lot more.

5. Oval

“There’s a rugby field called the Stanežiče Oval, but we can see further in March or April. Kurt, do you want to come along too?”

I have never been here, since like Kurt, I don’t give a shit about sports, but this is what Google showed me. The only reason it’s in the fic is because I needed something for the oval prompt and Jen helped me out. It worked out fine in the end, since I could write the follow-up scene with Sunil confronting Blaine in chapter 17.

[alldragonsaregood]

there are FOUR dragons on the dragon bridge in ljubljana, slovenia. one on the city's coat of arms, too

OK So I went to Google to look this up, and-

"""The Dragon Bridge is a road bridge located in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. It crosses the Ljubljanica River between Kopitar Street and Ressel Street to the north of the Ljubljana Central Market at Vodnik Square. It was built in the beginning of the 20th century, when Ljubljana was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As one of the best examples of reinforced concrete bridges and of the Vienna Secession style, the bridge is today protected as a technical monument. It is intended primarily for motorized traffic."""

"""The chief attraction of the bridge are these four dragon statues standing on pedestals at its four corners. In addition, the bridge is decorated by sixteen smaller dragon statues."""

That's TWENTY Dragons! Waoh. . Drgouns. ..

[alisaineurope]

Dragon Bridge, Ljubljana - Slovenia

[photographingeverythingnearme]

One of the dragon-guardians of Ljubljana (Slowenia)