Follow in the footsteps of Slovenia's greatest architect to find mythical dragons, tomb candles, and ‘The Devil’s Court.’
The Secret Lives of Cities: Ljubljana

Some cities are associated with architects, like Antoni Gaudí for Barcelona. But whereas Gaudí only made a few buildings and a park, Ljubljana bears the signature of its genius loci, architect Jože Plečnik, practically everywhere. An earthquake in 1895 ruined some 15 percent of the city, and Plečnik came of age when his hometown was ready to be rebuilt. As far and away the greatest architect in Slovenian history, he received all the choicest commissions, not only of buildings, parks, bridges, and waterways but also municipal plans. Just about any intriguing building in the center, the medieval castle and Baroque cathedral aside, are Plečnik’s work. 

Like most of the brightest Slovenes of his time, he trained and first worked in Vienna, but in 1919, he became the first professor of architecture at the newly established University of Ljubljana and also renovated a family home, which is now an award-winning museum. To this day, it resembles a cabinet of curiosities carefully assembled by Plečnik himself. To wander through it, to see his dressing table arrayed with tools and collectibles and tins and pencils just as he had left it, is to see a negative space portrait of the man himself. 

You can get lost in here, pouring over details and surprises. Ana Porok, the curator of the museum, said, “I’ve been working here since 2001 and still will find elements I’d never noticed before.” When Plečnik was asked how he knew when he was back in Slovenia when he’d return home from Austria, he said that he felt a palpable Stimmung of Slovene-ness. Stimmung is an untranslatable German word that basically means a vibe or aura. You can feel Plečnik’s Stimmung throughout Ljubljana, but nowhere more so than in his home.

The name means “sky toucher,” which is technically true for this, Yugoslavia's first “skyscraper,” finished in 1933. But then again, technically anything touches the sky and this is hardly scraping it—it's only 13 floors tall at 231 feet. Today it’s hard to imagine that this was awe-inspiring, but at the time, indeed it was. When it first debuted, this was the ninth-tallest building in Europe. Today, it’s almost cute, with its petite dimensions and grandiose name. Inside, you’ll find striking stone atriums and a gorgeous torqued winding staircase with a view up to the roof. That roof contains a wraparound terrace and café with the best views in the city, so order a bela kava (white coffee) or a glass of Rebula, a rare indigenous Slovenian white wine, and enjoy the vista.

The part open-air, part covered Ljubljana Central Market is another of Plečnik’s designs. A sign of his forward-thinking, the market has needed no renovations since it first opened in 1939. Be sure to stop by the sauerkraut stall run by Marjetka Zabjek, a local legend whose family sells an indigenous cabbage that makes the best sauerkraut. You can also get sour turnip (which sounds kind of dreadful but is delicious, sauerkraut made with turnip instead of cabbage)—a perfect side served with sausage and dressed in cracklings, to warm you up on an alpine evening. 

A vending machine run by a family dairy farm sells unpasteurized, fresh raw milk, yogurt, and cheese 24/7. You can also take home a souvenir jewel-colored candle—just be aware that while they may look like lovely decorative objects for the home, they’re designed to adorn the graves of your loved ones. Tomb candles or grave candles are often used in celebration of All Souls' Day in Slovenia.

Ljubljana is a city without an architectural icon. No single building stands in for the city like the Eiffel Tower does for Paris or Sagrada Familia does for Barcelona. But the four bronze dragons that top this bridge are the closest the city comes to a mascot. Built in 1901, this was one of the earliest reinforced concrete bridges in Europe, a fun fact that may only excite engineering students. The green dragon became the symbol of the city (and mascot of its sports team) thanks to an apocryphal legend that Jason (of “and the Argonauts” fame) stopped by the marshes of what would later become Ljubljana to slay a dragon on his winding way home with the Golden Fleece.

The best cakes in the capital are found at Zvezda (which means “star”), one of a small local chain of fashionable patisseries. You can lose yourself admiring the vitrine, a veritable jewel box of cakes and confections. The most traditional are gibanica (a filling layer cake made of poppy seeds, apples, walnut, and sweet curd cheese), kremna rezina (a famous cake from Lake Bled, with custard and cream sandwiched between mille-feuille), and strudel (that one you probably know, as it is a pan-alpine favorite, but I love their warm plum version). Their original cakes are what summon me: chocolate dream cake (like an ultra-sophisticated Nutella mousse situation), Pear Crostata (caramelized pear and vanilla tart), or their top house-made gelato.

One of the oldest and most bohemian streets in town is named after Primož Trubar (1508-1586), a Protestant priest who published the first books in the Slovenian language and smuggled them into Catholic, German-speaking Slovenia, then part of the Habsburg Empire. Here you’ll find the House of Experiments (an interactive science museum for kids), a half-century-old umbrella repair shop, bookshops, cafés, and Carniola Antiqua, a soulful antiques shop run by the jovial, flying-mustached Jaka Prijatelj (whose name translates appropriately as Jack Friend). The prices are reasonable and the treasures immense, from Slovene Impressionist paintings to Yugoslav posters and graphic work by IRWIN, the progressive art collective associated with the ironic performance art rock band Laibach. 

Before McDonald’s arrived in Slovenia, the go-to fast food option was Hot Horse, a then-24-hour horse burger stand located in Tivoli, an expansive park in the middle of the city. This was where you’d gravitate after a night of revels for an enormous bun stuffed with your choice of toppings and sauces over a pleskavica (a minced meat patty, like a thinner burger) made of horse. This won’t meet with universal moral approval, but it does taste good and it’s a classic option. You can find Hot Horse stands in several spots today. Sadly, they are no longer open all night, but they still should be on any carnivore’s to-do list.

Slovenian architect Plečnik sought to make Ljubljana into a “new Athens” and managed to get the commissions to design all of the spaces and buildings that would feature in an ancient Greek city like Athens: a stadium, cemetery, (necropolis), market square, covered walkway (stoa) meeting square (agora), temple mount (acropolis). He redesigned Preseren Square, named after Slovenia’s most famous poet, the Romantic France Preseren, and included a giant bronze statue of him being crowned with a laurel wreath. 

Beside the square is Plečnik’s Triple Bridge, or Tromostovje—three bridges at slight angles to one another that cross the Ljubljanica River. Historians believe that a bridge of one sort or another has spanned the river at this point since the 13th century, but in 1932, Plečnik’s redesign radically rethought the structure, with one bridge for pedestrians, one for cars, and one for bicyclists. Inspired by the Rialto Bridge in Venice, this also contains some of the earliest public toilets in Europe, which are still in use.

Janez Bratovž, aka JB, founded this eponymous restaurant at a time when nouvelle cuisine was unknown in Yugoslavia. He’s been described as the godfather of fine dining in this part of the world and has a reputation for developing sophisticated dishes based on the best local ingredients, many of them indigenous: from trdinka (a red corn varietal) to blackstrap pigs (considered to have the best fat of any breed), from pumpkinseed oil to Soča River trout. 

The food here is soulful, sophisticated, and personal. Take, for example, one of JB’s most famous dishes, which simply consists of a fresh egg cooked at the table by pouring pork cracklings over it. This is his Proustian moment—he grew up so poor that a big treat was a single fried egg that his grandmother would make him once a week. And in case you were wondering, the restaurant is in a building designed by—you guessed it by now—Plečnik, as the headquarters of Triglav Insurance Company.

One of Plečnik's last creations was a renovation, in 1952, of a former monastery of an order of Teutonic knights into an outdoor concert venue. For the main performance space, he designed an open-air seating arrangement inspired by ancient Greek theaters. Unlike the steep, semi-circular seating of classical theaters, Križanke required a proscenium arch format with a gentler slope. He deliberately kept a low wall around the performance area and created a public garden beyond it, allowing those unable to afford tickets to still enjoy the music from outside. 

One of his most inventive designs at Križanke was a smaller, secluded space known as “The Devil’s Court.” Nestled between the presbytery and cloister walls, this area featured low benches running along the walls beneath four vertical rows of embedded lamps. During the day, these lights—resembling hooded drainpipes—are unassuming. But at night, when the interior lights are turned off and only the wall-embedded lamps are illuminated, the effect is mesmerizing. The walls seem to dissolve, replaced by a constellation of floating lights, transforming the space into something almost celestial.