The Furmanska Lipa (Carter's Linden)

Carters bound between Vienna and Trieste used to stop under this linden to buy hay for their horses, and the trade gave the tree its name, Furmanska lipa, the Carter's Linden. It went into the ground in 1626, on what is now Borstnikov trg, and by the time Florijancic drew his map of Ljubljana in 1744 the tree was already old enough, at roughly 118, to be worth marking. In 2026 it turns 400, the oldest documented tree in the city by a wide margin. Its shade did more than shelter horse traders. France Preseren, Slovenia's national poet, wrote under it alongside his closest friend Matija Cop and the writer Andrej Smole, all three now central figures in the country's literary canon; later the architect Joze Plecnik and the priest-writer Fran Saleski Finzgar sat under the same crown. The square itself sits on ground that was once Roman Emona, the road running past it still called Rimska cesta, Roman Road, so the tree has spent four centuries growing on a spot that was already old when it was planted. The inn it still fronts, Gostilna Pod lipo, under the linden, takes its own name directly from the tree. Four hundred years on, both are still standing.