Ljubljana Castle on a crisp blue day in Slovenia

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Another day in Europe, another transportative hilltop castle. Today Masayo and I took advantage of some spectacular clear December weather in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana to finally see more of the city we’ve been in for two days without getting out much. The high point of the day, in both senses, was a hike up to Ljubljana Castle on a big hill that dominates the small capital. My blood sugars were excellent all day long, for a change – until after dinner, as usual, when everything went to hell.

The first reading of the day was 147 when I woke up. Morning readings are quite often ok, because nighttime readings are usually bad so I correct them before bed.

We walked to a restaurant called Plato near our hostel, Viva Rooms, for our first meal of the day. They have English breakfasts, with eggs and real crunchy bacon. And, of course, cups of coffee with just a tiny little amount of coffee at the bottom. Europeans and their strange ideas about coffee – how are we supposed to sip and enjoy a thimble-full of coffee with breakfast?

The meal was great, and the busyness of Plato and its layout reminded me of an American-style road restaurant. Like a Denny’s or a Waffle House. It was a big open space dominated by giant plate-glass windows letting in bright white light and giving views of a plaza outside where shoppers and others passed by in the sunny, cold morning air.

So we left, full but spoiling for a real cup of coffee. In the town square, where we’ve been hanging around the last couple evenings and where today we finally got to see it in the daytime, we saw a little kiosk advertising, in English, “Coffee to go!” so we stopped there. Masayo ordered coffee and again it was too small, so Masayo asked the girl working there to fill it up the rest of the way with hot water.

She did, but it made the coffee too thin. We uncultured visitors seem doomed to not understand some of these European coffee habits. At least it wasn’t full of thick grounds like in Malbork, Poland.

Walking slowly through town enjoying the ornate buildings, twisting statues in plazas, and the biting, clear December air, we turned a corner and I saw something that stopped my heart: to the north of Ljubljana in the distance I saw large, snow-covered mountains. I love a city with big snowy mountains visible not too far away, and I hadn’t seen these the last couple days since it was overcast.

Nothing stirs feelings of wonder like huge and beautiful snow-capped mountains. And I could gander at these just by looking down the street that runs beside Viva Rooms!

Thus inspired we walked back through town, crossed the small Ljubljanica River on one of the famous Three Bridges (which are very close to one another and offer pedestrians there choice of a way over the water). Our destination was Ljubljana Castle, which we’d been seeing from everywhere in town. Its huge square tower shone in the sun, an it held a truly gigantic-looking green and white flag (Ljubljana’s) that flapped furiously in the slicing wind.

There is a funicular that takes people up the hillside to the top, but as we had in Budapest, Hungary, we elected to walk up the zig-zag path under our own power. As we ascended under bare trees the views of the town got more and more impressive – as did those of the snowy mountains.

At the top of the hill is a kind of courtyard surrounded by rows of light stone buildings, very tasteful places that appeal to tourists of various descriptions. Ljubljana Castle has its origins in the eleventh century, though the stone version is from a few hundred years later. And today, overhead, that now-larger flag was audibly snapping in the strong wind above us.

We paid €6 each to enter the castle museum and walk up a bright red spiral staircase to the top of the tower. And it was worth it – this seems like the highest spot by far in the greater Ljubljana area, and everything we’d been looking up at the last two days was now far below us, a motley and insubstantial collection of toy houses and rivulet rivers. And yes, those white mountains to the north. I couldn’t take my wondering eyes off of them.

The Ljubljana flag was now just above our heads and the wind was whipping it fiercely and very noisily. As a dedicated diabetes travel blogger I took advantage of the breathtaking surroundings and got a blood sugar photo. My reading was 122, perfect.

See what some exercise and buoyant attitude can do for your blood sugar? That’s why you travel!

Masayo and I stuck around for a little while on top of the tower, not wanting to end the experience, until we realized that it cold and that we’d pretty much seen all there was to see. So we walked back down the dizzying spiral staircase and went to check out the indoor museum.

The Museum of Slovenian History is genuinely interesting and illuminating, well-designed and compelling. The displays took us from the prehistory of the area through the de rigueur atrocities and mass heartache of the twentieth century.

Satisfied with our experience in Ljubljana Castle we hiked back down to town, following a different path (always see something new if you can) and re-entered civilization, choosing a small cafe for a snack along a busy row of Christmas stalls.

It was warm enough – just – to sit outside, and we had a nice view of the castle and its tower to gaze at reminiscently while we ate. I had coffee (a real one!) and a piece of chocolate cake, and took my Humalog through my Bluff Works pants as usual. That has not been a problem, ever, as far as I can recall on this trip. I’ve been very pleased with these travel pants so far.

Back in the room, by 7:45 pm my blood sugar was an impressive 118. All very good readings so far today. It had been a long time since I could say that, it seemed.

Too bad dinner would wreck it all again.

For the sake of ease and price we went to a takeout place called The Wok in downtown Ljubljana for dinner. It’s a simple place with a simple system, consisting of three choices that each diner makes: a base (rice, noodles, or vegetables); toppings (shrimp, pork, etc); and the sauce. Menus and signs make it easy to figure out. You pay, take a number, and wait for it to be called out. The staff, hands flying, whip everything up right in front of you.

Fast food done right, in my opinion.

Mine was egg noodles with cashews and shrimp, plus a bottle of beer. Dinner makes me so consistently high that I took a little extra insulin than I usually would. This oughta help me finally achieve an all perfect-BG day! I thought hopefully as the needle went in.

The Wok packed more of a punch than I surmised, though. It was good and a nice warm meal to end a day of hiking in the cold sunny air, but at 11:00 pm I was 267. Dense noodles. And I ate every one of them.

Oh well. One bad blood sugar is better than four or five. Diabetes forces you to see the optimistic side of things, and it was certainly a better day for blood sugars than the last several have been.

And no matter what was happening with my diabetes, I saw yet another amazing European castle and I was lucky enough to do it with absolutely perfect weather! As a couple of units of corrective Humalog started to work in my glucose-heavy veins I lay my head on the pillow in Viva Rooms with a Slovenian smile on my face, thinking about the events of today and dreaming of our journey tomorrow: our first look at the Adriatic Sea coast.

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