Ljubljana is a charming place with more restaurants than tourist attractions. Like San Francisco. The first night, we ate at Gostilna Krpan, a fish restaurant whose menu is only for reading. When it is time to order, the waiter comes to your table and shows you, on a platter, the fish they have tonight, and talks about what other dishes are good, and gently discourages you from whatever you might have been planning to have unless it is in top form that night. Maybe the best approach is just to say “Feed me.” He also recommends the good wines from Slovenia. We did not have room for dessert, but small glasses of blueberry grappa and herbal digestif were offered after the bill was paid. The waiter turns out to be the son of the owner. His sister made the grappa. The best restaurants are the ones with drinks with the staff, afterwards.

The following day, we went to Gostilna na Gradu for lunch, one of the many perfect dining places around the world which use mostly local ingredients but oddly have no geography the way Sam’s Casa de Goulash would. Beef tongue with Parsnips started us off. There were chive sprouts on things, or maybe chia. The scampi in squid ink on corn looked like huitlacoche. Visual puns are always found at such places. So is Pinot Noir. It was not expensive, by the standards of the breed. Of course it was excellent; excellence is in the root class of such restaurants.

We walked around town after lunch. Came back via the south end of the castle, not much to see there. The temperature continued to hover slightly above freezing.

On Sunday morning, Dave tried using the “Hopin” app to get me a taxi to the Postaja (bus & train station). “Here’s hopin’ that some driver will accept our request.” None did. The bus is much cheaper than a taxi to the airport (4.10 vs. 25). There wasn’t a taxi to take us to the central station, though. We walked. I got on the bus. On Sunday, the bus schedule to the airport is much curtailed. Dave stayed behind, for a later flight to Kiev, where he will work for a week.