Trip to Slovenia

 Just a couple of weeks ago I made a short trip to Slovenia.  Stayed here in Ljubljana, the most amazing city.  In fact Lublijana was awarded the Green Capital of Europe in 2016.  Recycling everywhere in the city centre, cars are prohibited from the old historic centre and most areas are pedestrian and bicycle only.    This wonderful street market is open 7 days a week, all year round.

Local restaurants sell dishes inspired by local food which is in season!  How wonderful is that?  Living a green life and eating local food is the norm here!

Here, the market stalls at the moment have individual local people who have harvested their own crops and brought them to market.  Ladies here go out into the forests to pick mushrooms like these wonderful ceps here.

One of the local specialties in Eastern Slovenia is Pumpkin Seed Oil.  You can buy it toasted or raw.  This is so delicious, if you ever get to try it I most highly recommend it.   The first course of many restaurants here is local bread dipped in pumpkin seed oil.

Oh... and there is this!  Prekmurska Gibanica  - layers of filo pastry, apples, poppy seeds, walnuts and curd cheese.   I enjoyed this several times, actually not sickly sweet like so many deserts but just natural sweetness from the apples and a little icing sugar on top.

Driving through the countryside in Slovenia you could see walnut trees everywhere.  So again in the local market people harvested and sold their own fresh walnuts.  I couldn't resist these!