My Kafkaesque life: Introducing Slovenia, my home country

and introducing our Sloveniatrip 2010

Slovenia, my home country. Para pa pa pa... I'm lovin' it!

Finally I get to blog about my home country Slovenia. I'm wondering what to say and what not, because I could write whole novels, but I'll try to stick to the basics here. I'm sure there is so much info online about our lovely small country, it's just a search away from you. But I want to share some of the things I feel are noteworthy about Slovenia. Here is a list of the things that I consider interesting and important and it will help you to understand my home country better, before you start reading my posts about the "Slovenia trip 2010":

✰ Some important facts about Slovenia

- Slovenia is a central European country and partly in southern Europe.
- Slovenia has around 2 million inhabitants, which is less than Singapore.

- Slovenia with 20273 km²is very small, Switzerland is two times bigger.

- The capital city and also the biggest city of Slovenia is Ljubljana (small photo above).
- Slovenia is a member of the European Union and NATO since 2004.
- Slovenian currency is the Euro since 2007, former was Tolar (1991-2007).
- Slovenian living standard can be compared to the one in Portugal, Greece and Taiwan.

- Slovenia is an independent and democratic country since June 25, 1991.

- Slovenia, although very small, has a very diverse culture and nature.

- Slovenia has high mountains, famous caves, mountain lakes and a small coast.
- Slovenia has no big cities over 1 million inhabitants, the biggest has 270.000.

- Slovenia is famous for excellent bee honey and wine.

- Slovenia has excellent sportsmen, especially skiers, soccer and basket ball players.
- In Slovenia most people are Caucasian. Most foreigners come from Southern Europe.

- Slovenians are part of the Slavic peoples, such as Russians, Czechs, Poles and Serbs.
- Slovenia and Slovakia are two different countries
- Slovenian people love nature. Hiking is our national sport.

- Our highest mountain Triglav is 2864m tall. Slovenia is full of hiking trails.

- Most Slovenians are friendly and welcoming to foreigners.

Slovenia is a member of the EU since 2004.

Although Slovenia is really small, there is so much to see here. Foreigners, who visit for the first time are amazed how diverse my country is. From high mountains with scenic lakes to the hot Mediterranean sea to amazingly impressive caves, Slovenia is full of nature's hidden treasures. The reason to come to Slovenia would be to enjoy nature, but you can also discover many historic sights and learn about the rich culture of this small nation. You will be surprised, how much was going on in this part of the world since stone age.

The Slovenian Flag (white, blue, red) and has a Coat of Arms which features Triglav, our highest mountain. If you're curious about the Chinese girl, read here>>

✰ More facts about Slovenia

Slovenia is a small and young, but proud nations. Slovenians hate it, when foreigners mistake them for Slovakians or say that Slovenia is part of Eastern Europe. Slovenians are very conscious about the history, because it influenced our nation a lot. We were centuries under Austria and some parts of Slovenia were under Italy and Hungary. Especially the two World wars still influence the politics in Slovenia today. Because of our small size, we were force to learn languages and many Slovenians speak English, those near borders also the languages of our neighbors (Italian, German, Hungarian and Croatian). If you travel to Slovenia, you probably won't have communication problems, unless you get stuck in some small villages. The basic formal phrases are Dober dan ('doh-bear dahn', Good Day), Hvala ('hwa-lah', Thank you) and Nasvidenje ('nah-swee-dan-yeh', Bye).

Slovenia is located in the southern part of Central Europe, between Vienna and Venice.

✰ About the Slovenia trip 2010

After I returned from Taiwan a while ago, it was obvious, that I needed some time to make it back to that beautiful country. Saving money for a trip to the Far east takes some time. So my girlfriend and I decided that she could visit me in Slovenia during summer and not only, because we miss each other so much, but also because I wanted her to see where I come from and to make her meet my family. That's when I started to plan our Sloveniatrip 2010.

Photo of Koper in the morning, our biggest port.

In the next weeks I will thoroughly introduce Slovenia and write about our trip, which lasted several days. We mostly focused on Eastern Slovenia, because it's the furthest away from my home town Maribor and because I think the best and most beautiful places in Slovenia are located there. Besides, I wanted to bring her to Italy, since it's so close. Here is a map of our tours:

My Slovenia Map (via Google Maps). Click on the map to enlarge.

In the 6 days we toured around Slovenia (plus Italy and Austria), we saw:

Day 1: Postojna, Predjama castle, Koper, Izola, Sečovlje salt works, Portorož, Piran (overnight)
Day 2: Koper, Trieste, Gorizia (Italy), N. Gorica, Solkan bridge, Kanal, Ljubljana (overnight)
Day 3: Ljubljana sightseeing (overnight)

Day 4: Škofja Loka, Kranj, Bled, Bohinj, Maribor (overnight)
Day 5: Maribor sightseeing (overnight)
Day 6: Graz (Austria)

We spent a whole day in Slovenia's capital city Ljubljana.

You can imagine that such extensive tour is very exhausting and if you remembered, we toured Vienna and Bratislava few days ago. I've been driving over 900km during our trips and we walked around so many towns and cities for many many hours every day. And it was usually over 30^oC every day, which added to the exhaustion big time. Parts of me got sunburned a lot, while my Taiwanese girlfriend (in the typical Far eastern manner) usually carried an ~~parasol~~ umbrella to protect her from getting tanned. With that said, we really had the best time of our lives. It was just me and her and the beautiful scenery. It was a road trip, many funny and not so funny things happened, but the ride was smooth, the car didn't give up, although it struggled at some parts. We returned home safe and sound and with precious memories. And I'm happy my girlfriend loved Slovenia :-)

Here are some impressions of the trip (only a small fraction):

Slovenia, my home country