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From the bus and train stations, head south down Miklosiceva for ten minutes and you're on Presernov trg , the hub around which everything in Ljubljana's Old Town revolves. Overlooking everything, the seventeenth-century Franciscan Church (daily 6.45am-12.30pm & 3-8pm) blushes a sandy red above the bustling square and the River Ljubljanica: in its tired-feeling interior the old wall paintings look like faded photographs, and even Francesco Robba's Baroque high altar seems a little weary. Robba, an Italian architect and sculptor, was brought in to remodel the city in its eighteenth-century heyday. Across the Tromostovje, or Triple Bridge, a fountain , also by Robba, symbolizes the meeting of the rivers Sava, Krka and Ljubljanica (he stole the idea from Bernini's fountain in Rome), and the whole stretch down from Presernov trg west of the river is decaying Baroque grandeur. East of the river along Gallusovo Nabrezje most of the houses are ramshackle and medieval, occasionally slicked up as clothes shops and stores but mainly high, dark and crumbling. Opposite Robba's fountain is the Town Hall (Magistrat) on Mestni trg - an undistinguished Baroque building around a courtyard. A little east of here St Nicholas' Cathedral (Stolna Cerkev Sv Nikolaja) on Ciril-Metodov trg is the most sumptuous and overblown of Ljubljana's Baroque statements, all whimsical ostentation and elaborate embellishment, its sheer size inducing hushed reverence as you enter. Designed by Andrea Pozzo (also architect of Dubrovnik's Jesuit Church), this is the best preserved of the city's ecclesiastical buildings. Just to the west of the cathedral buildings you can't fail to miss the general market (Mon-Sat) on Vodnikov trg, a brash free-for-all along the riverside, where everyone competes to sell their particular produce. Opposite the market, Studentovska winds up the thickly wooded hillside to the Castle , visible from all over town and currently being restored to the glory it had when protecting Ljubljana's defensive position in earlier times - what's left today dates mainly from a sixteenth-century rebuilding. Climb the clock tower (10am-dusk; 300SIT) for a superlative view of the crowded Old Town below, the urban sprawl of high-rises beyond and the Kamniske Alps to the north. The best time to visit is towards sunset, when the haze across the plains burns red and gold, suffusing the town in luxurious light.
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