In the middle of Ljubljana, on Mirje street, a long stretch of reconstructed wall recalls the Roman town of Emona. The Romans founded Emona in the early first century AD, on a grid of streets beside the Ljubljanica river, as a frontier outpost and trading town on the road between Italy and the Danube. It had walls, gates, forums, baths and a population of several thousand. Later, the town was sacked by Huns and other invaders, and its stones were reused for centuries, so that very little survived above ground.
What you see on Mirje today is the work of the architect Jože Plečnik, who in the 1930s rebuilt a section of the wall as a landscaped monument, with a pyramid-shaped gate, a garden and a path. It is not a reconstruction in the strict sense, more an artist's act of remembering, and it is typical of Plečnik's way of weaving the past into the daily life of the city. His work in Ljubljana, including the Triple Bridge, the market colonnade and the National Library, was listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Ljubljana is a small, friendly capital of about two hundred and seventy thousand, with a car-free historic centre, a castle on a hill and cafes along the river. The light in the evening on the water, with willows and bridges, is lovely. The food has Alpine, Balkan and Italian influences, and a plate of local sausages, a bowl of jota, a hearty bean and sauerkraut soup, or a cake of prekmurska gibanica, layered with poppy seeds, apples and curd, is a good introduction.
For a rider, the city is easy: traffic is calm, parking is usually available on the edge of the centre and the bike is best left at a car park before walking in. Fuel stations are plentiful around the ring road. The real riding starts outside, on the great passes to the north and west. The Vršič pass, with its fifty hairpins, is a famous one, and the Soča valley beyond is considered one of the finest in Europe. The long ride to Palmanova in Italy crosses the Karst and the border, where the landscape changes quickly from forests and farms to plains and vineyards.