MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY
Slovenia and Portugal Trip
Day 5 - May 8 2023
The predicted weather was cloudy and rainy anywhere we would want to go. We decided the night before we would sleep in, get breakfast, and decide in the morning what the day would look like. We started with breakfast at Le Petit Cafe on a covered patio table on a quiet neighborhood street. I ordered the baked eggs with Slovene cheese and prosciutto, Mike ordered the English breakfast. They both exceeded our expectations.
We sipped on some espresso and juice while chatting about what we wanted today to look like. We both were feeling like having a down day, so we would mill about the city without any true plans.
After breakfast, we made our way to The House of Illusions, a fun museum of interactive illusions. There were visual illusions, such as a running faucet without a pipe and MC Escher art and interactive illusions such as a room of mirrors and an upside-down bathroom set up so it looks like you are standing on the ceiling. It only took us about 30 minutes to go through, but it was a unique stop we had fun playing around in.
I had my eye on a place called Puffy Lil’ Pancakes nearby so we stopped in for some breakfast dessert. Mike got strawberry puree topping and I got raspberry puree and chocolate topping. They had a ton of topping options and you can choose any combinations to go with the 10 small, puffy pancakes!
Since it had been drizzling on and off all morning, we decided to go inside from the cold and jumped in the car for a 10-minute drive to a city mall to wander and shop.
It was afternoon when we made our way back into downtown and were ready for some more food! A Slovene restaurant we really wanted to try, Julija, only has a few tables outside and was full the last time we checked it out, so we figured the rain may have scared others away and sure enough, we got a table right away. We ordered traditional Slovenian cheese dumplings (a thin pasta-like dough rolled over and over with a filling, creating a huge spiral, then sliced like a cinnamon roll) and handmade Istrian pasta with a cream sauce, asparagus, and cremini mushrooms. Both were SO GOOD. We will definitely be coming here for another meal before leaving. We also had the unique Slovenian orange wine, which is a white wine they reintroduce the mash to, which changes the flavor and color of the wine.
Can you believe after this huge meal we wanted more food? Yes, you probably can. On our way to Julija, we walked past a French patisserie called Fetiche Patisserie. The small desserts looked like works of art and the small shop was full of people so we decided to give it a try. Thank goodness we did. I am not joking that after the first bites of our desserts, we asked their opening times and counted how many times a day we would have to stop in to be able to try all of their desserts. Turns out twice a day. And twice it will be. This time, we got a Tart au Citron and their “Bomb” which was black sesame, chocolate, and whisky flavored. quite possibly the best desserts we have ever had.
We wandered town a bit more, which is so relaxing and pleasant in this city. We really really like it here. We needed to get off our feet, so we grabbed a patio table at Wine Bar Suklje and ordered their fixed tasting of four Slovenian wines, two white and two red, from the different wine regions in the country. As always here, the view from the table is amazing. We shared one glass of a different orange wine, which was even better than the one with dinner. It tasted like honey and citrus. And the color is gorgeous.
Before heading back home, we had to stop in for our second helping of Fetiche desserts for the day: a rose, raspberry, and cream/mousse dessert and a dark chocolate, white chocolate mousse, and black cherry one.
