Slovenia is a jewel of a country!

Just 2 million people in a country half the size of Switzerland, squeezed in between Austria and Hungary to the north and east, Italy and Croatia to the south and west. In its current form, the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia is just 31 years old (its birthday was the Saturday we spent in the capital, Ljubljana) having broken away mostly peacefully from disintegrating Yugoslavia following the death of Marshal Tito. Whereas the rest of what was Yugoslavia consider themselves Balkan countries, Slovenia very much considers itself a Central European nation, more akin to Austria. Indeed Slovenia was part of Austria or Austria-Hungary for many centuries until the end of WW1 when it became part of the newly formed kingdom of Yugoslavia. And because of various 20th Century border settlements, many Slovenian people still live on the Austrian side of the border. Of course, in this part of Europe there are essentially no enforced borders anymore. Slovenia like its neighbours is a member of the European Union and is within the Schengen zone so passing from one country to another is seamless other than your mobile phone carrier informing you that you’ve crossed a border!

As the Lonely Planet describes Slovenia “has everything - from beaches, snow-capped mountains, and hills awash with grapevines….baroque palaces and art-nouveau buildings”.

The country and indeed its capital, Ljubljana feels peaceful and safe. There must be crime, but one of our guides, the vivacious Urška says that she feels perfectly safe in the city or cycling to her home on the outskirts at any time of the day or night

Sure taxes are high and average wages are lower than in Austria, but healthcare and education are free. University students even receive meal vouchers which entitle them to one three-course meal a day in just about any restaurant - at least in the university cities like Ljubljana and Maribor

The one drawback - the language. Slovenian is a Slavic language but as such is only spoken by the 2 million and Slovene speakers across the adjacent borders, particularly in Carinthia. It does bear some similarities to Serbian and Croatian and generally speaking different Slavic nationalities can at least understand each other. But similar sounding words may have very different meanings…..

Žiga our guide in Bled and surrounding area told us of the time he was chatting up a Croatian lady who (he said) asked him whether his education was good. Perfectly reasonable except the Croatian word for education it turns out is the same pretty much the same as the Slovenian word for circumcision.

Could lead to no end of misunderstandings….!!