"20 273 km2" Slovenia by picek

How to start my Slovenian page? I am sure enough has already been told about Ljubljana, Bled and Postojna cave - for those are the most famous tourist sites in 'my country'. These are of course nice places and you'll see them on the covers of any important Slovene publication.

You've also probably heard stories about diverse Slovenian landscape, Planica, the difficult language, good wines, lipizzaner and what we are getting so proud now - being the hot spot of Europe: a kingdom for beast and for man. But bear, wolf and lynx are all fine to me and I don't mind interesting insects as well. We needed a long time to recognize importance of biotic diversity, natural and cultural heritage and charm of our home made foods and products. But still - this is just the begining.

Therefore, on my Slovenian pages let me write about places less visited and most oftenly missed by flow of foreign visitors. See if they're worth of your time. I think that I better focus on the area that is best known to me: I live in the North East more or less half of my life already (and it seems I am staying here for another next years) in the land called Prlekija. It's the patch of land between Mura river and the wineyards although its borders are 'disputed'. Easy accessible by car, bike or train. It depends how far off the beaten path would you go, though. Nothing's far here. Well, not in Slovenia in general. However, by train it takes at least 3 and half hours from Ljubljana. Ljutomer is regional capital. Near there are sources of hot water and acid springs - which all have beneficial properties for human body and are well known to old peoples and witches. If youngsters cared they kept the names of those places and still go there to drink its water.

This is mostly flat part of the country, agriculture dominates in the space and life-styles. Biking is pleasant way to explore it... and it won't be difficult here. In the nearby hills there are wineyards and local men are very proud of it. These are colorful sites in autumn. See also autumn forests, mushroom and birds, they all seem to enjoy in Prlekija. Winers can be harsh, very cold sometimes to mild and summers can be wet or quite hot near 35 degrees.

We speak dialect that sounds funny to people in 'big' slovenian cities and sometimes they don't understand it. But it's also different from what you can hear in Prekmurje and we also don't understand every specific word they speak there or in the slovenian mountains and coastline at the very western part of the state.

Remaining pasture, rare feature in flat landscape

I made pages from other ends of Slovenia, nevertheless. My obscure contribution to huge VT database. For those who bother looking at. Nothing special, just passion for freezing moments in camera. Maybe a thought or two by the pics... and that's it.

gentle fields, I am falling

I don't want to sell you 'fog' but I would like you to meet nice and good Slovenian music - music for traveller, romantic soul, for a pilgrim to temple of joy and sorrow, music for lover and music for a sinnerman.

I try to choose those who have something distinguishly Slovenian in their heart and lyrics - becuase that's the point of 'local' music, the one you cannot hear everyhwere globally unless you've heard of it and the one you sometimes have to dig for if you wanna hear it. Not the most popular for general taste but only those where quality matters.

My list of recommended authors is:

Tomaz Pengov - stunning voice of that legendary singer with guitar, melancolic songs about travels and love (in a best way, not cliche).

Katalena - great band to catch on concerts, their music is folk and author, re-made in their style, makes you sometimes dance, sometimes whisper silently... diverse yet with Slovene touch.

Zoran Predin - aboslutely must for rockers, a legendary guy from Styria, with intelligent lyrics, his star still shine.

Magnifico - he's fusion, Blakan with middle Europe, south meets ... he's cool, sometimes very provocative, but in fact decent guy who makes people come to its concerts in crowds. Well, some of his music is excellent for dance, haha...

Vlado Kreslin - he's our guy from the East, songs mellow and soft, like the landscape of our fileds. He's a son of Panonnia plain. When he bands with Beltinska banda he is best ever.

Iztok Mlakar - excellent cantauthour with great lyrics, had contributed to sanity of the music scene.

Laibach - heavy, epic sounds, politics, provocation, great shows on their live concerts - if you have chance, you shouldn't miss them live, they have no compatition on the entire local scene.

Music of past

Dusa Pockaj - our chansone singer, so far I liked her the most in her style of music, she was trully gorgeous.

Pankrti - they were punk, rebelious and they made scenes shake during 80'ies, with some intelligent lyrics and theatralic shows (well, that's how it was here back in those days).

To be updated one day...

• Pros:in one day you can squeeze a bit of Mediterran, a bit of Alps, Karst and Panonnia
• Cons:sometimes you'd wish better public transport, especially if they advertise it as 'green' piece of Europe
• In a nutshell:small country for big vacation