Things to do in Ljubljana

Landmark · Central

The river through the old town, lined with terraces and crossed by Jože Plečnik's Triple Bridge, Cobblers' Bridge and market colonnade.

Local tip: Plečnik's works in Ljubljana were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2021 — a single architect's reshaping of an entire capital. The covered market colonnade along the river is the least visited and the most quietly brilliant part of it.

Landmark · On the hill above the old town

The hilltop castle reached by funicular or on foot in twenty minutes, with a viewing tower over the city and the Alps beyond.

Local tip: The funicular is quick and the walk up through the woods from Študentovska ulica is better. On a clear day the tower shows the Kamnik Alps and the Julian Alps at the same time, which is the fastest way to understand how small this country is.

Nature · West of the centre

A large landscaped park running straight into wooded hills, with running trails climbing to Rožnik and Šišenski hrib.

Local tip: The park is the postcard; the hills behind it are what people actually use. The Path of Remembrance and Comradeship — a 34-kilometre trail following the line of the wartime occupation fence around the city — starts here and is the best long run in any European capital.

Food · Along the river by the Triple Bridge

Plečnik's riverside market colonnade, with an open-air street food market taking over the square every Friday from spring to autumn.

Local tip: Odprta kuhna — Open Kitchen — runs on Fridays in good weather and is where the city's restaurants cook outdoors. Go early; by one o'clock the queues at the good stalls are twenty deep. The fish hall under the colonnade is open all week and almost empty.

Nightlife · Behind the railway station

A former Yugoslav army barracks occupied in 1993 and turned into an autonomous cultural centre — galleries, clubs and painted walls.

Local tip: It looks derelict and is not. Metelkova has run continuously for over thirty years and is the closest thing Ljubljana has to a counterculture, sitting a hundred metres from the national museum of contemporary art. Weekends only for the clubs.

Nature · A 34-kilometre ring around the whole city

A tree-lined trail following the exact line of the barbed wire fence with which occupying forces encircled Ljubljana between 1942 and 1945.

Local tip: It is a memorial, a commuter route and the city's main running circuit at the same time. Every May a mass march covers the whole loop. Most visitors never learn it exists, and it is the single most Ljubljana thing in Ljubljana — a wartime siege line turned into a park you jog on.