Ljubljana

On the hill up to Ljubljana Castle I met a man walking his black cat. Well, my guess was that he had been walking it, as it was wearing a harness with a lead, but as I passed him he was carrying it in his arms. The cat seemed rather embarrassed to be caught in this position and strained forwards like the figurehead on a ship as they moved slowly out of sight.

The streets are spotless, the cobblestones seem polished. The public bins have three slots for different types of rubbish. Even the river Ljubljanica is on its best behaviour, rolling silently through town.

In the joint Natural History and National Museum of Slovenia, I saw what is reputed to be the oldest musical instrument in the world - a flute carved from bone, dating from 60,000 BC. Of all the things I'm finding hard to fathom on this trip, someone playing a flute 62,000+ years ago is right up there.