"Slovenia - where east meets west" a Slovenia Travel Page by markyg

While Slovenia gained independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991, Slovenia was never quite a part of this Eastern regime. Slovenians tell me that Slovenia was always a center for culture and activity in former Yugoslavia and hence envied. Slovenia is a cross roads of culture,, remnants of the Habsburg Empire and the Venetian Empire cross with a Bavarian/Germanic culture. Slovenia has never really experienced confrontation in the modern age, mainly staying out of the Bosnian War (barring a few days of fighting so locals tell me), so Slovenia has been able to preserve it's landmarks, finding numerous monuments and castles throughout the country. Slovenia seems to have elements of the east, west and Mediterranean. It is both humble, mundane, friendly, laid-back and industrious, taking the best elements of all of those cultures. It does this while having a sense of it's own identity. While I expectes Slovenia to be either Italian, Germanic or Eastern, it is none of these and all of these. You won't find the heart of the country in a museum, but rather on the streets.

Overall, I would have to say Slovenia is my favorite country I have visited. The people are warm and open. It was an easy country to navigate, we drove for 8 days, from one end to the other, though one can make this drive in a matter of a few hours. Venice, Vienna and Budapest are all within a few hours drive. Most people spoke English (German was another language option), the major attractions were well laid out. Aside from the VT site I used www.slovenia-tourism.si, which is the best country website I have ever used. One can book the whole trip and find out layers and layers of information from wine roads to tourist farm accomodations.

While we spent most of our time in Ljubljana and Bled, the rest of our trip was spent driving around, from Maribor to Koper, usually searching for wine. It reminded me of France how one could follow the grapes signs, pull up to someone's house and try their wine. Nothing fancy, no Chateaus, just a farmer's house. A few dollars a bottle. We probably drank as much for free tasting it than we bought. It was at these times that we were able to talk to people most and see out of the way sites, such as the picture to the right which depicts a castle on the wine road south of Koper. One good thing about getting lost in Slovenia is that if you keep driving, you will eventually come to a big enough town that is on the map.