Notes from Ljubljana

Embarrassing corrections: I managed to misspell the names of both cities in Slovenia which I mentioned including the city in the title.  Of course, sharp-eyed readers corrected me and I’ve corrected the post and its title.

Am at the airport in Ljubljana (LJU) waiting for my easyJet flight to London Stansted (STN) comfortably seated next to a post with an electric outlet and enjoying a great WiFi connection.  Son Jarah just dropped me off here after a couple of days exploring Slovenia (of which Ljubljana is the capitol) together and I’ll see daughter Kate and her husband Hugh at the other end.  How much better can things get?

Internet Access

It’s awesomely good here in Slovenia.  A provider named NeoWLAN has hotspots everywhere we’ve been.  I bought 24 hours of cumulative use within a seventy-two hour period for 15 euro at our first hotel not sure whether I’d ever get to use them all.  In Bled the access only worked in the lobby so didn’t use much time; in Ljubljana it worked in the rooms as well (at 56Mbs!).  I left it on overnight to do my Mozy backup.  And now it’s working well at 11Mbs at the airport.  Nerd heaven.  BTW, the hotel in Ljubljana also offered service by one other wireless provider and bluetooth access in the public areas.

Online Booking

Mary was amazed that I left home without hotel reservations locked down for every night of our stay.  Jarah is an amazingly casual and tolerant (and experienced) traveler; my backpacking days are long over.  However, no later than each morning, I went online to make a reservation for that night’s hotel.  Learned some helpful things.

Starting by Googling hotel and the city name works fine.  Booking services rather than hotels themselves dominate the first page returned by Google.  Using the booking services can be good and bad.  If you don’t want to use the booking service, you can get the hotel name and/or chain affiliation from the listings at the booking service and then reGoogle with that and the city.  Usually you find the actually hotel website that way and can often book online there or at least get their phone number so you can call.

Many sites in Europe say they are credit card safe and some have Verisign or other logos.  But the comforting lock icon doesn’t always appear in the browser.  That’s a little nerve-wracking.

The booking services sometimes have rooms which are not available directly from the hotel.  They usually have better rates than the hotel quotes.  However, sometimes the “better” rate is for a really lousy room.  In Bled we got monastic cells with a single twin size bed (smallest size) in each room in a five-star lakeside hotel.  Needless to say, these room didn’t see the lake or much of anything else.

When using a booking service at the last minute, look carefully at whether you are really booking online or just submitting a request for a booking.  The trouble with the request is you don’t know right away whether or not you got it and can’t try somewhere else because you may get what you asked for and you are committed to paying for it.

An interesting technical wrinkle in booking online from your traveling laptop is that you probably have no way to print the voucher.  That caused a problem at Bled checkin because the desk clerk said they needed a paper voucher.  It was at this critical point that I discovered Neo WiFi and logged on.  However, the clerk still said he needed paper; just seeing the voucher on my screen and getting the number wasn’t enough.  “Vhat vill ve do?” he asked.

Email, of course was the answer.  The webpage said it couldn’t be emailed but I copied it to a Word document and emailed that to the hotel.  No problem.

Phrase Books

Jarah never travels without one and almost never speaks English when he’s traveling.  He wasn’t comfortable until he found a Slovenian phrase book.  Fine with him that it was Italian/Slovenian since he’s now fluent in Italian and sometimes teaches in it.

People melt when you use their language (except the French, of course, and the Brits who don’t melt and us Americans who simply can’t understand you if you don’t speak American).  Jarah got smiles from Soviet style waitresses, Slavic security guards, and nubile desk clerks alike.  I was happy to let him do all the talking.