The northernmost republic of what
was once Yugoslavia,
Slovenia
currently appears the most stable,
prosperous and welcoming of all
Europe's erstwhile communist
countries. It was always the richest
and most westernized of the Yugoslav
federation, and apart from the
Ten-Day War which brought it
independence in 1991, it has avoided
the strife which has plagued the
republics to the south. For
centuries, Slovenia was administered
by German-speaking overlords and
was, until 1918, part of the
Austro-Hungarian empire. The
Slovenes absorbed the culture of
their captors during this period
while managing to retain a strong
sense of ethnic identity through the
Slav-rooted Slovene language, a
close relation of Czech, Serbo-Croat
and Slovak.
Slovenia's landscape is as varied
as it is beautiful: along the
Austrian border the Julian Alps
provide stunning mountain scenery,
most accessibly at Lake Bled
and Lake Bohinj ; further
south, the brittle karst scenery is
riddled with spectacular caves like
those at Postojna .
Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana
, is easily the best of the cities,
a vital, youthful place, manageably
small and cluttered with Baroque and
Habsburg buildings, while the short
stretch of Slovenian coast, along
the northern edge of the Istrian
peninsula, is punctuated by a couple
of towns that were among the most
attractive resorts of the former
Yugoslavia - Piran and Portoroz
- not to mention the port of Koper
, with its appealingly ancient
centre. Despite its relative
isolation in the eastern part of the
country, the attractively preserved
town of Ptuj is also well
worth a visit.
