June 12, 2022

Today we had to say goodbye to the beautiful city of Salzburg and head to Ljubljana, Slovenia. Before leaving, we revisited the Mirabell Palace near our hotel in the early morning. The palace was built in 1606 by the Prince-Archbishop, Wolf Dietrich Raitenau. He erected this luxury palace for himself and his mistress Salome Alt. But the good time didn't last very long, and he was deposed six years later. His successor kicked the mistress and her family out. Today, the city government uses the palace for official functions, but the garden is open to the public. It is one of Salzburg's most popular tourist attractions, and several scenes from the "Sound of Music" were filmed here. We had visited this place a couple of times since we arrived here. Today's weather was perfect. Under the blue sky and white clouds, the garden was even more attractive. Since it was early in the morning, there weren't many tourists, and we enjoyed the quiet atmosphere and beautiful landscaping. After Mirabell garden, we went to the city center for breakfast and did our last walk around the city of Salzburg before heading to the train station.

The train from Salzburg to Ljubljana took four and a half hours, which was covered with the Eurail Pass we purchased. Something interesting happened during our train ride. We made seat reservations for our train ride as we learned by now that the train could sometimes get crowded even for the 1st class tickets. When we boarded the train and located our train cabin, our seats were occupied by two women. We thought we might enter the wrong cabin since one of the ladies insisted it was her seat. We double-checked our reservation and cabin number. It turned out she did not even have the 1st class ticket. She quietly left the cabin and went to a different car. The other lady politely switched to a different seat but stayed with us in the same cabin. She was not very talkative during the ride, but we did chat for a little. Before we arrived in Ljubljana, the second train conductor came to the cabin to check our tickets. Surprisingly the train conductor pointed out that the lady had the 2nd class ticket. But the conductor let her stay because the 2nd class cabins were full and the train was just a few minutes away from the destination. Only at this point the lady told us it was her lucky day because the first train conductor in Austria knew she sat in the wrong car but did not say anything. All we could think of was glad we made our seat reservation. It was almost three and a half weeks into our Europe trip, and we always admired Switzerland and Austria's public transportation honor system. Today's encounter showed us a different side.

Arrived in Ljubljana, our rented apartment was five minutes walk from the Ljubljana central train station. We texted the apartment owner using the WhatsUp app to inform our arrival. The app was a popular and helpful communication tool outside the States. The owner's son was waiting for us outside of the apartment. It was a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor. The unit was not bad, except the shower was tiny. Another strange arrangement was that the bedroom was connected to the kitchen without the door, but the dining/living room was in a separate room. As usual, once we settled, we headed out to see the new place and get familiar with the area.

On Sunday, most of the stores were closed. We found a restaurant nearby that was still open and had a good review on Yelp. We sat and ordered a local beer, beef tongue, salad, and Slovenia sausage. They didn't disappoint us; it was one of the best dinners on this trip. Their sausage seemed to be better taste than those in Switzerland and Austria. After dinner, we walked to the city center. We got the first taste of the beautiful Ljubljana, like Triple Bridge, Franciscan Church of the Annunciation, Preseren square, and the summer concert in Park Zvezda.

第二十三天：非常喜欢萨尔茨堡这个城市，今天下午要离开，有点依依不舍。早上再次去旅馆旁的米拉贝尔花园(Mirabell Palace)走走, 蓝天白云下的花园非常的美，尤其是大清早大部分游客还没出门。之后来到城中心，坐下吃个早餐，听着教堂的钟声，看看过往行人🚶‍♀️🚶，发个呆。下午坐火车来到斯洛维尼亚的首都卢布尔雅那。老规矩，放下行李🧳，先去外面走走熟悉下环境，为明后二天做准备。晚餐是当地的啤酒，牛舌，色拉和香肠，味道很不错。斯洛维尼亚香肠比我们在瑞士和奥地利吃到的好吃多了。