Has anyone ever driven into Ljubljana with a rental car and parked to visit the city for a few hours?
My fiance and I are planning to go to Slovenia and Croatia on our Honeymoon this September. We are flying into Ljubljana airport and sleeping in Lake Bled our first night. We arrive to LJU around 11 am then will pick up our rental car at the airport. We were considering driving to Ljubljana, if we're not too jetlagged, for late lunch / people watching / walking around, so we wouldn't totally miss out on this beautiful city (and worst case we just drive straight to Bled, we are visiting many other great cities on our trip).
- Is it easy to find parking within a reasonably convenient distance of ideal areas for experiencing the city's ambiance?
- Is this city safe enough that you would park your car storing your luggage (provided we use common sense, lock the car, all belongings are completely hidden in the trunk, etc.)? For example, we would definitely feel comfortable parking with luggage hidden in the trunk on the streets of NYC, Philadelphia, DC - in the right neighborhood - and would be able to easily find free/metered street parking.
- What neighborhood would you recommend for easily finding safe and convenient parking?
- Does Ljubljana have muni-meter / meter kiosks that we could easily use our credit card at, like in US cities?
- Any input on parking garages? (I would prefer self-park, to avoid giving our car key to a valet tho)
- Anything else we should factor into our decision either way? Note: we will be arriving/trying to park on a Monday, and do not have a Ljubljana hotel that we could just park at.
Thanks!!