Posts Tagged Ljubljana

Ljubljana Graffiti

I seem to have developed a habit of photographing graffiti on recent trips, and this visit to Slovenia is proving to be no exception. While a lot of the graffiti in Venice was just random text scrawled on the wall (and there was a lot of graffiti in Venice), and Postojna had a few decent pieces that I just wasn't able to get back to, Ljubljana seems to have rich pickings.

For starters, there's an area called Metelkova which started as a squat in a former Army barracks, and has now developed into an "autonomous" community. It seems that while the local government won't formally approve of people living in the buildings and pretty much doing as they like, they also haven't knocked it all down or actually evicted people. It seems a bit complicated, but the point is that there's loads of weird DIY stuff everywhere, and a load of graffiti to go with it.

Metelkova Grafitti. Copyright Haydn Williams 2008

Elsewhere, we've got that old classic…

punx not dead. Copyright Haydn Williams 2008

And finally, something I spotted on my way to Metelkova early this morning…

 

Skateboarding is a crime.

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Ljubljana – Pretty chilled out

It's our final morning in Ljubljana today, and I have to say that I like the Slovenian's style when it comes to their capital city. Firstly, it's small. In a country with an entire population which is less than one third of the population of Greater London, it was never going to be massive, but everything is very compact. We spent yesterday just walking around, taking in the old town and the castle, and visited the Slovenian National Museum (quite interesting) and the Natural History Museum (lots of stuffed animals, although the paw-print ink stamps can provide hours of pseudo-tattoo fun).

The Old Town, Ljubljana. Copyright Haydn Williams 2008.

Both nights we've stayed here, we've ended up in the only bar on the main square. That's right; there's one main square in the capital, and it's big enough for one bar. Everything here is really relaxed – the rowdiest groups we've seen so far have been Brits. There's no sense of everything being in a mad rush to get somewhere, there's constantly people stopping to chat to one another, and everyone's really friendly. It's rained constantly since we got here, but everyone just pops up their umbrellas and carries on as normal.

The Old Town, Ljubljana. Copyright Haydn Williams 2008.

Yup – I've found a city centre I actually like!

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