I just went to Ljubljana for one day trip, last Saturday. I'm going there Friday night from Osijek, Croatia, take a bus transit to Zagreb and arrived in Ljubljana by morning. As a student myself i have a strict budget aka low budget traveling. I go just by bringing one backpack and a camera. Arrived super early in the morning around 7am and turns out (because we entering autumn) it's super cold and foggy. Ljubljana is a super easy city for a beginner like me to travel alone. The bus station is near to the city center and most of the tourists destinations. I went first to Metelkova, right in front of bus station, the street is full of art wall graffiti, that looks super cool and then i have my breakfast in the park near there and continue walking to city center for like 7-10 minutes from there and park, so it's also basically same amount of time from bus station. You could just found the city center if you see a river and you'll also see one of the most iconic bridge there "Dragon Bridge", you could just tell by the dragon on every corner of the bridge. And yap, you just arrived at the city center. There you'll find and can stroll around at central market, ljubljana old town, triple bridge, Prešeren Square, and many souvenir shop. Also near the city center you'll find a Funicular lane to go to Ljubljana castle for 6€ for adults and 4€ for reduced. But i prefer hike like locals😃 cause it's free, healthy and not that far. From city center it's only like 10-15 minutes hike and the lane is easy to find. If you ask me is it worth it to buy the castle ticket? Well, i bought it because i like museum, but if you don't like museum kind of things, you could skip it and still be able to go inside the castle but you only can look at the castle tower from below. If you pay the ticket (adults 14€ if i'm not mistaken, 10.5€ for reduced) you can go to all attractions there, museums, history 4D cinema, puppet museum, go to tower and look at Ljubljana city from above🤩. It's worth at least once in a lifetime if you have a time and ofc the budget for it. It's not that pricey for all of the attractions you will get imo. Also luckily when i went there, there is an event called Festivasia, where there's a lot of food tenants selling asian food🤤as an asian myself it's feels like home! But yeah it only last for 2 days (12&13 Sept). The end of the day before i go back to Osijek, i went to Tivoli Park to eat my food that i bought at the festival and spent the rest of my day there before went back bus terminal. So yeah, if you have a tight time but still want to explore some part of the Europe, I recommend Ljubljana, cause you could finish most of the city in one day, just by walk! You don't have to pay for city transport and most of the tourist attractions are free! Hopes it helps for anyone who planning to go there near in the future!
Feel free to ask (if i could answer ofc😅).