Ljubljana has become one of Europe’s capitals. The city was completely designed by one man: the architect Jože Plečnik, who, in the middle decades of the twentieth century, created a coherent, almost theatrical, image of what a small capital could look like, an image normally reserved for cities ten times its size, reshaping bridges, colonnades, a riverside market and a library. It is the rare capital city that has retained its heritage while the rest of Europe found it: Ljubljana has fortified itself as a capital since being named European Green Capital in 2016 and closed its historic centre to cars, without losing the insouciant, river-front vibe that made it so appealing. Few capitals can claim that every corner bears the stamp of the same architect’s hand, and a modern growth story that runs parallel and makes it interesting to travellers. 

This heritage is unique in its compactness in Ljubljana. From Prešeren Square, there is a funicular over the Ljubljanica to the Old Town with its two squares, Mestni trg and Stari trg, lying under Ljubljana Castle, which is reached in less than a minute, and, on a clear day, as far as the Julian Alps. The animal-gated Dragon Bridge is just on the other side of the river, whereas a short walk forward will take you to Tivoli Park or Plečnik’s National and University Library, whose building is read by architects around the world as one of the best of the twentieth century. But with the right introduction, one can navigate from a castle courtyard into Ljubljana’s wine cellars and into a boardroom in one afternoon, the kind of day Ljubljana is made for.

There is only one international airport in Slovenia, the Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport, which has a general aviation apron and FBO apart from the commercial terminal, landing slots that don’t suffer from the congestion found at busier European airports, and a transfer into Ljubljana, which is about 26 kilometres away to the south, which takes approximately half an hour by road. There is no commercial terminal to be observed; there is no queue, and there is no reason to observe other entities at the airport or on/by the ramp. For those who want to stay by the sea or the wine valleys, there is a relatively lesser-known Portorož airport on the Adriatic further south, near Piran and the Vipava wine region.