We'd arrived in Ljubljana for three nights, and it was love at second sight for me.
During our stay in Ljubljana, my thoughts naturally returned to the only previous time I'd been there, 32 years ago for two nights and a scant full day. I haven't retained much about that far-off time, just a few disconnected vignettes, shadows and a ghost or three.
Understandably much has changed. Perhaps the most prosperous city in then-Yugoslavia, Ljubljana now is the bustling and hospitable capital of an EU member nation, and the journey from dinars to Euros would have been lengthy by any measurement. How different have we become as individuals now, as opposed to then?
Such a random connection surfaced for me as we wandered the streets of Ljubljana in 2019. I remember eating a pizza and drinking a beer as my midday meal on Saturday in 1987, at a place that struck me at the time as new and perhaps even trendy. I recalled it was by the river, and seemed quite the capitalist venture in a socialist country.
As we were walking by the river, I looked across the way. There was a pizza joint on the other side called Ljubljanski Dvor, and something about it struck me; we'd already eaten, so I snapped a photo of the building (above) and resolved to research it after returning home.
This I have done. It's the very same place, a pizzeria founded in 1986, just a year before my first appearance in Ljubljana. I remain dumbfounded that at the age of 26, a small personal-size pizza and draft beer would have come anywhere close to filling me up.
Maybe that's why I weighed 205 lbs then, not (redacted) now.
Here are a few other photos in Ljubljana, then and now. First, throwback Union Pivo (beer) signage.
The brewery itself.
The central market.
And, one of the denizens of Ljubljana's dragon-embellished bridge.
Next, the Ljubljana Castle.
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