• March 1993 •

When a century ago European aristocracy discovered tourism, which was to become the world’s number one industry, it selected its ‘capitals’ – spas in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany or Switzerland, Nice, Rome, Florence, Venice, Opatija and Portorož in Istria, Bled … When French Socialists ‘invented’ the workers’ holidays they primarily intended them to be a time for rest, but they actually paved the way for the changes which could be referred to as consumer society or quality of living. In the late fifties and sixties, after Europeans had finally cleaned up and recovered from the war, they wanted to enjoy the sun again. Mass tourism flourished, with big hotels, caravan and camping sites. Beaches by lakes and sea were suddenly alive with activity, and tourism became an industry – in some countries a very important one. Richer and richer, tourists became choosy. They discovered exotic places, culture, big cities, active holidays and contact with nature. Tourism became a must, a precious time when the increasingly productive Europeans could take a rest from the everyday hustle and bustle, and change their state of being. The subdued become kings, workers masters, and life becomes altogether richer. Sun, sea and rest are no longer enough.

A holiday is a time when people escape from working for others, when they have time for themselves, when they find new meaning, when they live. Tourists – as we call the people who are temporarily away from home and not doing what they usually do for a living – have become demanding and curious. The time they take away from enriching their bank accounts they spend enriching themselves.

Why should Europeans, or anybody else, spend their time and money in Slovenia? On the sunny side of the Alps – as we like to call our country – it is probably warmer than on the sunless side, but there is also a lot of sunshine to be found elsewhere, and that is, if tourists frightened by holes in the ozone layers still care for the sun at all. The Adriatic, almost at the foot of the Slovene Alps, perhaps really is Europe’s closest warm sea, but alas, Slovene coast is so short that one cannot even organise a decent marathon along it.

Yes, Slovenia is a diverse country. Nowhere else do the Alpine, Pannonian and Mediterranean worlds meet on such a morsel of the Divine’s Creation. But – does this really matter? The Alps, the Pannonian plain and the Mediterranean are available in much larger quantities elsewhere. Why should people come to a country whose name they hardly know, or even confuse with Slovakia recently separated from the Czech Republic or with Slavonia exhausted by the Serbian-Croatian war? Slovenia, as one story has it, is the place where the Creator, after having distributed all the beauties to the world, turned his bag inside out and shook out the remaining crumbs. He did not give much to the people who were to live here, but many of these things cannot be found anywhere else. One of the oldest European railways runs through this country where people still argue about whether, by origin, they are westernmost Slavs or descendants of one of the oldest and only partly Slavicized European nations – the Venetians. Between gentle hills at the edge of the Pannonian plain, charming Alpine valleys, mysterious karst region, virgin forests of the Kočevsko and Portorož marina, hides a peculiar part of Europe. It has its own culture and a proud, though not state-forming history, its songs and myths, its spiritual aristocracy.

The territory over which Slovene influence spread is marked by the architecture of hay racks called ‘kozolci’. The wine produced here, the buckwheat ripening in the fields; sausages drying in the smoke or lettuce from the Ljubljana marshes are different than anywhere else. And the people, who, under millennia of foreign rule, have preserved their language, created their own culture, educated their own scholars, built up their own economy and finally gained their own state. They are a part of Europe, and without them, the old lady would be poorer. Even the bees are supposed to have been taught diligence by a Slovene apiarist, Anton Janša, who introduced scientific apiculture in the Austrian Empire two hundred years ago.

So, do come to Slovenia. Walk through its valleys, climb its peaks, visit its towns, talk to its people and try the specialities from their tables. Discover a part of Europe which you knew nothing about before, a jewel in Europe’s rich crown, EUROPE-PLUS!

Jure Apih