Ljubljana Castle sits on a wooded hill in the middle of the city, and people have been fortifying it since the 11th century. What you walk around today is mostly 16th and 17th century, wrapped around a courtyard that was rebuilt almost completely in the 15th. It is not a royal palace and it never pretended to be — it was a defensive seat, then a barracks, then a prison, and for a long stretch of the 19th century it was housing for the city's poor.
Two things are worth climbing for. The Outlook Tower was built between 1845 and 1848, raised by another 1.2 metres in 1982, and on a clear day it gives you the whole Ljubljana basin with the Julian Alps behind it. The Chapel of St George, consecrated in 1489, is small and easy to miss, and its walls carry the painted shields of the provincial governors, added in 1747.
You can walk up through the old town in about twenty minutes, or take the funicular, which opened on 28 December 2006, climbs 69.7 vertical metres, and carries up to 500 people an hour. Our ticket includes the return ride, so the walk is optional in both directions.
