Slovenia

The Republic of Slovenia lies at the heart of Europe, where the Alps and the Mediterranean meet the Pannonian plains and the mysterious Karst.

In Slovenia, the sun shines approximately 2,000 hours per year. And there is plenty of snow in winter. The average temperatures are -2°C in January and 21°C in July.

Green is the dominant colour. There are many woods and forests in Slovenia – covering more than half of the country – and numerous preserved and protected plant and animal species. Mountains, lakes, waterfalls, forests, caves, hills, plains, rivers and the sea – you name it, we’ve got it all on the 20.273 km2, as well as many natural and landscape parks.

As a small picturesque country, Slovenia makes a great tourist destination. You can ski in the morning and surrender yourself to the luxury of the Adriatic Sea in the afternoon.

The highest mountain is called Triglav – the name meaning “three-heads” – and it is 2864m high. The mountain is a true national symbol, featured on the national coat of arms and the flag.

The country is also known for its great wines and delicious traditional food.

For a lot more information about Slovenia, visit the official website of Slovenia or read up on it on Wikipedia.

Few sights:

Slovenian coast

The Slovenia coast is only 46kms long and has no sandy beaches to speak of. Portoroz (Port of Roses) is the largest resort and, although modern in appearance, has a long history. There are plenty of hotels, bars, restaurants and shops that help make this a popular beach resort. Right on the border with Croatia, to the south of Portoroz you will find the Salt Pans of Secovlje. The only place where salt is still harvested in Slovenia, it is now a designated regional park.

Two kilometres north of Portoroz you will find the charming coastal town of Piran, whose medieval centre bears witness to 500 years of Venetian rule with narrow alleyways, tightly packed houses and beautiful churches. The delightful main square, Tartinijev Trg, (named after Giuseppe Tartini, the famous violin virtuoso) is just opposite the harbour. At the tip of the peninsular of Piran you will find the main bathing area (man-made), a handful of restaurants overlooking the sea, and some of the best diving along this coast.

To the north of Piran is Koper, Slovenia’s largest coastal town, and although uninspiring from a distance, it has a beautifully preserved medieval centre. For the active, there are plenty of opportunities for sailing, swimming, windsurfing and hang-gliding along the Slovenian coast.

Bled

Bled’s scenery is almost impossibly romantic, with a little white church on an island in the center of an emerald green mountain lake, Bled Castle perched high above and the peaks of the Julian Alps all around — and it is consequently often packed with honeymooning couples and the like.

The town is also a popular access point for Triglav National Park and offers numerous possibilities for an active holiday, including hiking, mountain biking, swimming, rafting and skiing in winter or a relaxing spell in a modern wellness centre.

Postojna cave

Postojna cave is of course one of the most famous caves of the world. One reason is the good accessibility of the cave: the natural entrance on the hillside is rather big, the cave itself is really huge and horizontal. So people visited the cave for many years, left

their names on the walls and blackened the formations with their torches. But on the other hand this country was inhabited for a long time, its in the center of Europe, many people visited this country and also explored this “easy” cave. And several of those visitor wrote descriptions, Johann Weichard Frh. von Valvasor and others, and spread the word. At last there were numerous congenial cave administrators who developed the cave for tourism and made the cave well known all over the world.

Today the visitors traverse this area very fast on the cave train, which takes them about 5km into the cave, where the tours take place. And the cave is so big, it has several other human installations beneath the train: a cave restaurant, a concert hall for more than 10.000 people, and the cave post office.

The building at the entrance of Postojna Cave was built in the last century. This was the time, when the growth of science made the whole area famous all over Europe. At the fact that Slovenia belonged to the Donaumonarchie (Austro Hungarian Empire) allowed many people to travel freely to Postojna and visit the cave. Thats a situation we do not quite have any more, despite Schengen.