Ljubljana was Roman Emona, a Habsburg provincial capital, Napoleon's Illyrian seat and a city sealed by barbed wire in WWII. Three days trace that layering through excavated townhouses, Plečnik's stonework and the occupation ring.
The Baroque Auersperg Palace basement preserves a Roman road and Emona wall in situ; above it sits the 5,200-year-old Ljubljana Marshes wheel, the oldest wooden wheel found anywhere. Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00, Thu to 21:00.
A surviving stretch of Emona's southern rampart, its lower courses genuine 1st-century masonry. Jože Plečnik reworked the ruin in 1934–37, crowning it with a stone pyramid gate and a truncated cone above the old Roman gateway.
A 4th-century Emona townhouse excavated at the crossing of two Roman streets, sheltered under a canopy. Underfloor hypocaust heating, coloured geometric mosaic floors and the original insula walls are visible at ground level.
Built 1701–06 by Andrea Pozzo on a Romanesque then Gothic predecessor, with Giulio Quaglio ceiling frescoes and Robba altar marble. The bronze doors were cast in 1996 for Pope John Paul II's visit.
Founded 1821 and in this Neo-Renaissance hall since 1888. Holds the bronze Vače situla of around 500 BC, the Divje babe Neanderthal bone flute and Slovenia's largest Roman lapidarium in the arcaded courtyard.
Laid out for the 1821 Congress of Laibach, where Metternich and the Holy Alliance monarchs met for four months. The same square saw the 1918 end of Habsburg rule proclaimed and the 1988 protests that opened Slovenia's road to independence.
Set in Cekin Mansion in Tivoli Park, the contemporary history museum runs from 1914 through Italian and German occupation, socialist Yugoslavia and the Ten-Day War of 1991, with a walk-through reconstructed WWI trench.
A 33km green ring follows the line where Italian and German forces fenced off occupied Ljubljana with barbed wire and 206 bunkers from February 1942 to May 1945. Stone markers stand every few hundred metres.
Plečnik's 1936–41 library faces the street in rough Karst stone mixed with salvaged Roman brick from Emona. A dark marble staircase climbs into the light-filled Great Reading Room, entered past bronze horse-head handles.
The Teutonic Knights held this commandery from 1230 until it was dissolved in 1945; Plečnik converted the complex into a courtyard theatre in 1952–56. The 1929 obelisk opposite marks Napoleon's Illyrian Provinces, capital here 1809–13.
The architect lived in this Trnovo cottage from 1921 until his death in 1957. His cylindrical study, drawing instruments, plaster models and the winter garden he built himself survive as he left them, with the original furniture.
Plečnik's 1938–40 funerary complex screens Slovenia's largest cemetery behind a colonnade and a row of farewell chapels, each built in a different classical order, one per Ljubljana parish. WWII hostage memorials lie inside.